The bells tolled. The crowd cheered hoarsely. The army paraded. Petals covered the Novigradian cobbles like snow.

‘Are you still writing?’

Ori Reuven started and made a blot. He had served Dijkstra for nineteen years but was still not accustomed to the noiseless movements of his boss, appearing from God knows where and God knows how.

‘Good evening, hem, hem, Your Hon—’

‘Men from the Shadows.’ Dijkstra read the title page of the manuscript, which he had picked up unceremoniously from the table. ‘The History of the Royal Secret Services, written by Oribasius Gianfranco Paolo Reuven, magister… Oh, Ori, Ori. An old fellow, and such foolishness—’

‘Hem, hem…’

‘I came to say goodbye, Ori.’

Reuven looked at him in surprise.

‘You see, my loyal comrade,’ continued the spy, without waiting for his secretary to cough anything up, ‘I’m also old, and it turns out I’m also foolish. I said one word to one person. Just one person. And just one word. It was one word too many and one person too many. Listen carefully, Ori. Can you hear them?’

Ori Reuven shook his head, his eyes wide open in amazement. Dijkstra said nothing for a time.

‘You can’t hear,’ he said after a moment. ‘But I can hear them. In all the corridors. Rats are running through the city of Tretogor. They’re coming here. They’re coming on soft little rat’s paws.’

They came out of the shadows, out of the darkness. Dressed in black, masked, as nimble as rats. The sentries and bodyguards from the antechambers dropped without moaning under the quick thrusts of daggers with narrow, angular blades. Blood flowed over the floors of Tretogor Castle, spilled over the tiles, stained the woodblocks, soaked into the Vengerbergian carpets.

They approached along all the corridors and left corpses behind them.

‘He’s there,’ said one of them, pointing. The scarf shrouding his face up to his eyes muffled his voice. ‘He went in there. Through the chancery where Reuven, that coughing old coot, works.’

‘There’s no way out of there.’ The eyes of the other one, the commander, shone in the slits of his black, velvet mask. ‘The chamber behind the chancery is windowless. There’s no way out.’

‘All of the other corridors are covered. All the doors and windows. He can’t escape. He’s trapped.’

‘Forward!’

The door gave away to kicks. Daggers flashed.

‘Death! Death to the bloody killer!’

‘Hem, hem?’ Ori Reuven raised his myopic, watery eyes above the papers. ‘Yes? How can I, hem, hem, help you gentlemen?’

The murderers smashed open the door to Dijkstra’s private chambers, scurried around them like rats, searching through all the nooks and crannies. Tapestries, paintings and panels were torn from the walls, fell onto the floor. Daggers slashed curtains and upholsteries.

‘He’s not here!’ yelled one of them, rushing into the chancery. ‘He’s not here!’