Sorweel shrugged. He felt at once honoured and gratified. A prince of a great nation confided in him. “Not much,” he admitted, careful to pitch his voice at the same low tenor as his friend.

“There is this book,” Zsoronga said, the squint in his eyes complementing the reluctance in his voice. “This forbidden book, written by a sorcerer … Drusas Achamian. Have you heard of him?”

“No.”

Zsoronga’s bottom lip pressed the line of his mouth into an upside-down crescent. He nodded, not so much in affirmation or approval, but as though to acknowledge his succinct honesty. “Bpo Mandatu mbal—”

“He was a Mandate Schoolman, like your own tutor.”

Sorweel found himself glancing about, fearing that Eskeles would arrive any moment. Men had a way of hearing their names, even when spoken across the arc of the world. “And?”

“Well, he was present when the Anasûrimbor joined the First Holy War. Apparently he was his first and dearest friend—his teacher, both before and after the Circumfixion.”

“So?”

“Well, for one, the Empress—you know, the woman on the silver kellics, the mother of our dear, beloved General Kayûtas—Achamian was her first husband. Apparently the Anasûrimbor stole her. So at the conclusion of the First Holy War, when the Shriah of their Thousand Temples crowns the Anasûrimbor Aspect-Emperor, this Achamian repudiates him before all those gathered, claims he is a fraud and deceiver.”

Something of the old Zsoronga had returned, as though he were warming to the gossip of the tale.

“Yes …” Sorweel said. “I’m sure I’ve heard this … or a version of it, anyway.”

“So he leaves the Holy War, goes into exile, becomes, they say, the only Wizard in the Three Seas. Only the love and shame of the Empress prevent his execution.”

“Wizard?”

Another grave turn in his ebony expression. “Yes. A sorcerer without a School.”

The Company of Scions was but a clot in a far larger column of Kidruhil companies, and a conspicuous one, given that its members had leave to wear native ornamentations over their crimson uniforms. They had followed the column over the crest of a scrub-choked rise, then leaned back against their cantles as they descended into a broad depression. The black track became viscous with water and muck. The susurrus of countless hooves stamping marshy ground rose about them—the wheeze of sinking grounds. What had looked like mist from the sloped heights became clouds of midges.

“And this is where he writes this book?” Sorweel asked, pitching his voice over the tramping clamour. “In exile?”

“Our spies brought my father a copy some six years ago, saying that it had become a kind of scripture for those who still resist the Anasûrimbor in the Three Seas. It’s titled A Compendium of the First Holy War.”

“So it’s a history?”