‘Of course, Father would have been dead by then, and Mendel too. Vassad must have arranged the whole thing, while Corvel faked his way through it. Who would have arranged my birthday feast? Does my brother even know I’m still alive? Does he care?’

‘I’m sure he cares.’

‘If he does, then it’s only because I’m a threat.’ Tarfel stood tall, white fists clenched by his side. ‘I’m a man now, a prince of the realm with a claim to the throne. My brother cannot be allowed to drive this nation further into the mire! People need to listen to me!’

Chel could only offer a weak nod. To his relief, he saw Foss wandering back across the yard toward them. He’d attained new understanding of the look the big man had given him on his arrival. ‘Foss?’

‘The others are back. There’s news.’

EIGHTEEN

Loveless and Whisper had entered the inn’s main structure, but Foss suggested the others wait for them by the door. Chel was too tired to argue, and simply lay down in the straw where Lemon and Kosh were sheltered. Rennic was already snoring in the corner while Tarfel continued to pace in the yard. The downside to the straw, of course, was suffering another bout of international bickering.

‘What in hells are you making, anyway? Are those wings?’

‘Nothing you would understand.’

‘You always say that. I understand plenty, missy.’

‘Do you understand the essence that permeates all things, that flows through every material, every object? The essence that must be respected, embraced, shaped and entwined?’

‘You do talk a lot of bollocks, don’t you?’

‘You see, you have no understanding of such things. Balance and harmony. The correct measures of earth salts, the correct strike of a hammer on steel, the incantations and ceremonies for all things.’

‘Aye, right. Steel is steel, stumpy. Doesn’t need a song to get it to bend.’

‘Perhaps not to a cave-dweller. It is a marvel to me that your people, such as they are, have even achieved its production, however crudely.’

‘I can show you fucken crude, pal.’

‘This is my most surprised face. Do you understand it?’

‘Ha, yeah, ha. You can talk all you like, midge, chatter on about your inanimate spirits there, but you see, I’m a rationalist. A thinker. Where I come from, we don’t go in for all this superstition.’

‘Really? What do you worship, where you are from? I imagine something burning, perhaps a giant pig made of bark and dung.’

‘Ha. Worship nothing, we do. The Clyde is beholden to no man or god, you see, no spirit or pictsie.’

‘Indeed. Each an individual, then, alone in the world? No sense of a whole, no belonging?’

‘Bollocks again. We’re tight as anything, where I’m from. Great sense of history, of family.’

‘Yet here you are, far from all—’