‘I’m the best dream-reader in the academy,’ she replied coolly, matter-of-factly and without boastfulness. ‘And in the third year I was second among the oneiromancers.’

‘I could have taken the number one.’ Nimue was brutal, frank. ‘Incidentally, they suggested that high-flyer somewhat insistently, as it happens, because she was apparently the important daughter of someone important. And where dream-reading and oneiromancy are concerned, you know yourself, my dear Condwiramurs, that it’s a pretty fickle gift. Fiascos can befall even the best dream-reader.’

Condwiramurs kept to herself the riposte that she could count her fiascos on the fingers of one hand. After all, she was talking to a master. Know your limits, my good sir, as one of her professors at the academy, a polymath, used to say.

Nimue praised her silence with a slight nod of her head.

‘I made some enquiries at the academy,’ she said a moment later. ‘Hence, I know that you do not boost your divination with hallucinogens. I’m pleased about that, for I don’t tolerate narcotics.’

‘I divine without any drugs,’ confirmed Condwiramurs with some pride. ‘All I need for oneiroscopy is a hook.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You know, a hook,’ the novice coughed, ‘I mean an object in some way connected to what I’m supposed to dream about. Some kind of thing or picture…’

‘A picture?’

‘Uh-huh. I divine pretty well from a picture.’

‘Oh,’ smiled Nimue. ‘Oh, since a painting will help, there won’t be any problem. If you’ve satisfactorily broken your fast, O first dream-reader and second-among-oneiromancers. I ought to explain to you without delay the other reasons why it was you I chose as my assistant.’

Cold emanated from the stone walls, alleviated neither by the heavy tapestries nor the darkened wood panelling. The stone floor chilled her feet through the soles of her slippers.

‘Beyond that door,’ she indicated carelessly, ‘is the laboratory. As has been said before, you may make free use of it. Caution, naturally, is advised. Moderation is particularly recommended during attempts to make brooms carry buckets of water.’

Condwiramurs giggled politely, although the joke was ancient. All the lecturers regaled their charges with jokes referring to the mythical hardships of the mythical sorcerer’s apprentice.

The stairs wound upwards like a sea serpent. And they were precipitous. Before they arrived at their destination Condwiramurs was sweating and panting hard. Nimue showed no signs of effort at all.

‘This way please.’ She opened the oak door. ‘Mind the step.’

Condwiramurs entered and gasped.

The chamber was a picture gallery. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with paintings. Hanging there were large, old, peeling and cracked oils, miniatures, yellowed prints and engravings, faded watercolours and sepias. There were also vividly coloured gouaches and temperas, clean-of-line aquatints and etchings, lithographs and contrasting mezzotints, drawing the gaze with distinctive dots of black.