Then, with inviting glances over her shoulder, she walked back up the street. The two guards looked after her, then at each other, then up and down the street to be sure that no one was watching. They leaned their pikes against the stone walls beside them and ran down the steps.

The figure of the woman had stopped beneath the torch flaring at the corner She beckoned again, then stepped out of the light and disappeared up the side street.

The guards ran after her

Sparhawk was out of the shadows at the mouth of the alley before the pair had rounded the corner. He was across the street in seconds, and he bounded up the steps two at a time, seized the heavy handle of one of the great arched doors, and pulled. Then he was inside. He smiled faintly to himself, wondering how long the soldiers would search for the now-vanished apparition he had created.

The inside of the cathedral was dim and cool, smelling of incense and candle wax. Two lone tapers, one on either side of the altar, burned fitfully, stuttering in the faint breath of night air that had followed Sparhawk into the nave. Their light was little more than two flickering pinpoints that were reflected only faintly in the gems and gold decorating the altar.

Sparhawk moved silently down the central aisle, his shoulders tense and senses alert. Although it was late at night, there was always the possibility that one of the many churchmen who lived within the confines of the cathedral might be up and about, and Sparhawk preferred to keep his visit a secret and to avoid noisy confrontations.

He knelt perfunctorily before the altar, rose, and moved out of the nave into the dim, latticed corridor leading towards the chancel.

There was light ahead, dim but steady. Sparhawk moved quietly, keeping close to the wall. A curtained archway stood before him, and he carefully parted the thick purple drapes a finger’s width and peered in.

The Primate Annias, garbed not in satin but in harsh monk’s cloth, knelt before a small stone altar inside the sanctuary His emaciated features were twisted in an agony of self-loathing, and he wrung his hands together as if he would tear his fingers from their sockets. Tears streamed openly down his face, and his breath rasped hoarsely in his throat.

Sparhawk’s face went bleak, and his hand went to his sword hilt. The soldiers at the cathedral door had been one thing. Killing them would have served no real purpose Annias, however, was an entirely different matter. The primate was alone. A quick rush and a single thrust would remove this filthy infection from Elenia once and for all.