A slow smile cross Sparhawk’s face. ‘I know an honest magistrate in Vardenais, and the affair would be in his jurisdiction. If the current duke were to take the matter into litigation, and if he presented the Church declaration to support his position, the magistrate would rule in his favour, wouldn’t he?’

Kalten grinned broadly ‘He wouldn’t have any choice.’

‘Wouldn’t that sort of de-legitimize Lycheas again?’

Dolmant was smiling. Then he assumed a pious expression. ‘Let us press on to Demos, dear friends,’ he suggested. ‘I feel a sudden yearning to hear the confession of a certain sinner.’

‘Do you know something?’ Talen said. ‘I always thought that thieves were the most devious people in the world, but nobles and churchmen make us look like amateurs.’

‘How would Platime handle the situation?’ Kalten asked as they set off again.

‘He’d stick a knife in Lycheas.’ Talen shrugged. ‘Dead bastards can’t inherit thrones, can they?’

Kalten laughed. ‘It has a certain direct charm, I’ll admit.’

‘You cannot solve the world’s problems by murder, Kalten,’ Dolmant said disapprovingly

‘Why, your Grace, I wasn’t talking about murder. The Church Knights are the Soldiers of God. If God tells us to kill somebody, it’s an act of faith, not murder. Do you suppose the Church could see its way clear to instruct Sparhawk and me to dispatch Lycheas – and Annias – and Otha too, while we’re at it?’

‘Absolutely not!’

Kalten sighed. ‘It was only a thought.’

‘Who’s Otha?’ Talen asked curiously

‘Where did you grow up, boy?’ Berit asked him.

‘In the streets.’

‘Even in the streets you must have heard of the Emperor of Zemoch.’

‘Where’s Zemoch?’

‘If you’d stayed in that school I put you in, you’d know,’ Kurik growled.

‘Schools bore me, Kurik,’ the boy responded. ‘They spent months trying to teach me my letters. Once I learned how to write my own name, I didn’t think I needed any of the rest of it.’

‘That’s why you don’t know where Zemoch is or why Otha may be the one who kills you.’

‘Why would somebody I don’t even know want to kill me?’

‘Because you’re an Elene.’

‘Everybody’s an Elene – except for the Styrics, of course’

‘This boy has a long way to go,’ Kalten observed. ‘Somebody ought to take him in hand.’

‘If it please you, my Lords,’ Berit said, choosing his words carefully, largely, Sparhawk guessed, because of the presence of the revered Patriarch of Demos, ‘I know that you have pressing matters on your minds. I was never more than a passing fair scholar of history, but I will undertake the instruction of this urchin in the rudiments of the subject.’

‘I love to listen to this young man talk,’ Kalten said. ‘The formality almost makes me swoon with delight.’

‘Urchin?’ Talen objected loudly.