‘You could not have, Aldreas.’ It was not difficult to say it. Aldreas was no longer an enemy, and if a few words would comfort his guilt-ridden ghost, they cost no more than the breath it took to express them.

‘But I should not have turned my back on my only child,’ Aldreas said in a voice filled with pain. ‘It is that which I repent most sorely The primate turned me against her, but I should not have listened to his false counsel.’

‘Ehlana knew that, Aldreas,’ Sparhawk said. ‘She knew that it was Annias who was her enemy, not you.’

There was a long pause ‘And what has become of my dear, dear sister?’ The late king’s words came out as from between teeth tightly clenched with hate.

‘She’s still in the cloister at Demos, your Majesty,’ Sparhawk reported in as neutral a tone as he could manage ‘She will die there.’

‘Then entomb her there, my Champion,’ Aldreas commanded. ‘Do not defile my slumber by placing my murderess at my side in this place.’

‘Murderess?’ Sparhawk was stunned.

‘My life had become a burden to her. Her sycophant and paramour, Primate Annias, arranged to have her conveyed in secret here to me. She beguiled me with wildest abandon, wilder than I had ever known from her. In exhaustion, I took a cup from her hands and drank, and the drink was death. She taunted me with that, standing over my nerveless body with her flagrant nudity and her face contorted with hatred and contempt as she reviled me. Avenge me, my Champion. Take vengeance upon my foul sister and her twisted consort, for they have brought me low and dispossessed my true heir, the daughter I ignored and despised throughout her childhood.’

‘As God gives me breath, it shall be as you say, Aldreas,’ Sparhawk swore.

‘And when my pale little daughter ascends to her rightful place upon my throne, tell her, I pray thee, that I did truly love her’

‘If that, please God, should come to pass, Aldreas, I will.’

‘It must, Sparhawk. It must else all that Elenia hath ever been shall be as naught. Only Ehlana is the true heir to the throne of Elenia. I charge thee, do not let my throne be usurped by the fruit of the unclean coupling of my sister and the Primate of Cimmura.’

‘My sword shall prevent it, my King,’ Sparhawk pledged fervently ‘All three will lie dead in their own blood before this week sees its end.’

‘And thy life as well shall be lost in thy rush to vengeance, Sparhawk, and how will thy sacrifice restore my daughter to her rightful place?’

Aldreas, Sparhawk concluded, was far wiser in death than he had been in life.