I stared at her hotly. There didn’t seem to be much I could say. Luckily, I didn’t need to.

‘Jennifer?’

It was Tiger with a message.

‘Yes?’

‘There’s been a news flash. The Duke of Brecon has raised an army to advance upon the Dragonlands as soon as the Dragon is dead. They aim to claim most of the land for themselves. Every able-bodied man or woman in the Kingdom of Brecon is to be mobilised.’

A cold hand fell on my heart. I hadn’t thought that it would come to this so quickly. The Kingdom of Hereford and the Duchy of Brecon had been itching for a scrap for years, and the size of their armies made it potentially the biggest land battle fought in the Kingdoms since the Third Troll War. Worse, I knew for a fact that King Snodd was dying to try out his super-dreadnought landships, vast tracked vehicles of riveted steel seven storeys high that crushed and destroyed all in their path.

‘We haven’t had a good war for years,’ said Lady Mawgon, ‘and never one on live TV. Colourful costumes, the clank of machinery, rousing songs. It will be most enjoyable.’

‘If your idea of enjoyment is watching people killed in an unspeakably unpleasant way,’ replied Tiger sarcastically, ‘then I guess so.’

‘Your impertinence knows no bounds,’ remarked Lady Mawgon scornfully, ‘but since you will not be here for long, I shall ignore it. There won’t be any death – it’ll be a walkover. Brecon won’t be able to muster anything more than five thousand troops. Hereford has a lot of seriously good military hardware, at least eighty thousand men – and that doesn’t include the Berserkers.’

‘King Snodd would use Berserkers?’ I asked.

‘He would,’ replied Lady Mawgon. ‘Nothing like the sight of a Berserker in a crazed frenzy to get the enemy to beg for peace.’

I was shocked. Berserkers were highly unstable individuals possessed of such grossly volatile temperaments that it allowed them to fight with extraordinary powers – in every civilised nation they were defined under the Geneva Convention as ‘illegal weapons of war that could cause unnecessary suffering and injury’.

‘Would you excuse me, Lady Mawgon? I have to make a telephone call.’

She inclined her head to dismiss us, and we hurried off towards the offices.

‘Here,’ I said, handing Tiger a signed photo of Yogi Baird, ‘I was going to tear this up into small pieces but thought you might like to instead.’

‘That’s very thoughtful of you,’ said Tiger, ‘thank you. Did Lady Mawgon tell you about us being replaced?’

‘That’s not until Monday,’ I said. ‘Lots can happen.’

‘I don’t want to go back to the Sisterhood.’

‘It won’t come to that, I promise.’