Goldsmith chewed on his charcoal, with the result of making him look like a monster. “I’m thinking fresco,” he said. “I’ve seen quite a lot of it in Etrusca. More subtle. And cheaper.”

Gabriel nodded. “Well, if we win all this, we will be poor.”

Goldsmith frowned. “Not too poor for art, I hope,” he said. “Majesty,” he added as an afterthought.

Gabriel walked back to where Mortirmir was standing with his reins in his hand. Mortirmir glanced at a bird, then at a rock by his feet, and finally at Ser Gabriel. He made a face. Then he nodded. “It’s good that I’m a knight, then,” he said finally.

Tom Lachlan nodded. “Aye, lad. Good for everyone. Even you.”

Gabriel tried not to laugh.

Mortirmir raised an eyebrow at the emperor. “Is that why you made Kronmir a knight? To put chains on him?”

Gabriel gave the mage a twisted smile.

That afternoon, he got a messenger bird direct from the Sieur Du Corse. They were fewer than two hundred leagues apart, and Du Corse had just had a brush with the not-dead.

“Get me Ariosto,” he said to Anne.

He launched into the autumn afternoon air. It felt summery until he was half a league above the plains. Below him, his column was trotting; Bad Tom had them moving at alternating walks and trots. Gabriel could see for miles, and he rolled to the left and right, climbed farther into the cool air, and looked to the east and south, hoping to see the rising dust of Pavalo’s cavalry. The men of Dar as Salaam had fought the Necromancer for generations; they were the most eager to see him finished, and yet he’d heard nothing. Gabriel had begun to fear that Pavalo had not made it back to his column.

It was late afternoon when he found the men of Dar. They were far to the east of where he’d hoped to find them, and locating them in the great circle of the world was far more difficult than he’d expected.

He landed, to the intense consternation of a number of the Royal Mamluks, and their horses. But once some reassurances had been made, Ser Pavalo cantered up on a magnificent bay. He looked old.

“I have had no sleep for three days,” he said. “I just caught them myself.”

He and Gabriel drew pictures in the dirt of Galle for a quarter of an hour.

“They turned east to get clear of the Darkness,” Pavalo said. “The people are gone and all the animals. If we can get into inhabited lands, there will be food.”

Gabriel hoped they were right. “But now you are to the east of the Necromancer’s last position. Which is a guess anyway.”