‘You’re working with them,’ the doctor accused, pointing vaguely out towards the square. ‘You’re trying to trick me into a confession.’

‘Them who?’ Sparhawk asked.

‘The fanatics who follow Arasham. They’re trying to prove that I use witchcraft in my practice.’

‘Do you?’

The doctor shrank back. ‘Please leave,’ he begged. ‘You’re putting my life in terrible danger.’

‘As you’ve probably noticed, Doctor,’ Sephrenia said, ‘we are not Rendorish. We do not share the prejudices of your countrymen, so magic does not offend us. It’s quite routine in the place we come from.’

He blinked at her uncertainly

‘This friend of ours – the one I mentioned before – is very dear to us,’ Sparhawk told him, ‘and we’ll go to any lengths to find a cure for this poison.’ To emphasize his point, he opened his robe. ‘Any lengths at all.’

The doctor gaped at his mail-coat and sheathed sword.

‘There’s no need to threaten the doctor, brother dear,’ Sephrenia said. ‘I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to describe the cure he’s found. He is a healer, after all.’

‘Madame, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Tanjin said desperately. ‘There is no cure for Darestim. I don’t know where you heard all these rumours, but I can assure you that they’re absolutely false. I do not use witchcraft in my practice.’ He threw another quick, nervous glance at the curtained doorway.

‘But Doctor Voldi in Cippria told us that you did, in fact, cure members of the king’s family.’

‘Well yes, I suppose I did, but the poison wasn’t Darestim.’

‘What was it then?’

‘Uh Porgutta – I think.’ He was obviously lying.

‘Then why was it that the king sent for you, Doctor?’ she pressed. ‘A simple purge will cleanse the body of Porgutta. An apprentice physician knows that. Surely it couldn’t have been so mild a poison.’

‘Uh – well, maybe it was something else. I forget, exactly’

‘I think, dear brother,’ Sephrenia said then to Sparhawk, ‘that the good doctor needs some reassurance – some positive proof that he can trust us and that we are what we say we are.’ She looked at the irritating bumblebee still stubbornly trying to break its way out through the window. ‘Have you ever wondered why you never see a bumblebee at night, Doctor?’ she asked the frightened physician.

‘I’ve never given it any thought.’

‘Perhaps you should.’ She began to murmur in Styric as her fingers wove the designs of the spell.

‘What are you doing?’ Tanjin exclaimed. ‘Stop that!’ He started to move towards her with one hand outstretched, but Sparhawk stopped him.

‘Don’t interfere,’ the big knight said.

Then Sephrenia pointed her finger and released the spell.