A needling voice came from the partition’s far side. ‘You are welcome to seek other duties, savage, assuming you can find any worthy of your abilities. Perhaps a privy requires brushing with something coarse and wiry?’

Lemon jerked a thumb, her round eyes wide. ‘You see what I have to put up with? This fucken—’

‘Where’s the prince now, Lem?’ Chel asked, near poleaxed by a sudden remembrance of his oath and duty. ‘Where’s Tarfel?’

She nodded her head at the yard’s far side. ‘Yonder. Don’t worry, Fossy’s keeping an eye. We both drew the jobbie-flavoured ends of the stick this time round.’

Chel nodded his thanks and began a slow limp across the squelching yard, while Rennic set off in the direction of the privy. ‘No bother, boys, nice to see you,’ Lemon called after them. ‘I suppose.’ Then: ‘Oh, first moon was last night – you’d have seen it if it weren’t for the shite-sheet of cloud. You were only a day behind.’

Only a day, Chel thought as he crossed the yard. Turns out I can run pretty fast after all.

***

Foss was resting against a stack of mottled crates, eyes half-closed, when he saw Chel’s approach. He leapt up, a beaming smile across his broad face and a look of great relief in his eyes. ‘My friend! You are returned to us. Is the boss with you?’

Chel nodded, returning the smile. ‘Availing himself of the facilities. Where’s Tarfel?’

A crash came from an open stable door beside them, followed by the sound of splintering wood. They were followed by a muffled hammering sound, as if someone were ineffectually beating a piece of wood against a plaster wall.

Foss’s smile diminished. He was already edging away, Chel noticed, back into the yard. Perhaps that relief in his eyes hadn’t been entirely from seeing Chel alive and whole. ‘Taking out his frustrations within.’

‘His frustrations?’

‘He can explain it better than I, friend. It’s good to see you so well!’ With that, Foss was off, lumbering across the muddy yard to where Lemon lurked sulking.

Another crash issued from within the stable, although it sounded as though it was losing steam.

Chel peered inside. ‘Tarfel? Your highness?’

‘Vedren? Vedren, is that you?’ Tarfel came trotting into the doorway’s grey light, a broken length of rotten wood in one hand. He looked like he’d been crying, but was otherwise healthy. Thinner, if anything. ‘Shepherd be praised, you’re alive!’

‘I am, high— Tarf. I am. I’m glad to see you’re well, but …’ Chel gestured to the wood in the prince’s hand. His eyes were adjusting, and he could now see the stack of rotting crates against the far wall, the ragged pile of broken wood at one end. ‘… Is everything all right?’