Kosh was huddled beside him, peeping through the canvas gap while trying to affect indifference. Her excitement at the coming reunion with her compatriots had mutated into an irritable impatience, making her marginally less pleasant to be around than usual. ‘What is this place, that floods your gussets so?’

‘A meeting place, you might call it,’ Foss murmured from beside them. He was pacing alongside the wagon, a pretend guard, swathed in acres of rough cloak and the drooping brim of a hat too big for him. ‘You see that river, the big one? The province of Banut ends at the river. And you see the small one? That marks the start of Piaunu Province. But between them, that chunk of rock? Technically neither. It’s a black spot, a floater. Bound to no one.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘No tax or levies, as I hear it. They set their own rules over there. And they maintain the bridges, a major thoroughfare, for which they collect a no-doubt reasonable toll.’

‘Nobody has tried to take it by force?’

‘Look at it. I’m sure they’ve tried, but it’s still here, eh?’

‘What happens inside?’

Foss looked uncomfortable beneath the appalling hat. ‘A lot of things. People come here from all over, not always as themselves. It’s said that what happens there, stays there, according to popular convention at least.’

‘How charmlessly banal.’

‘Indeed.’

Up close, the house was even more imposing. It loomed over them, a soaring stack of nested blocks, lamplight burning from countless gauzy windows. Statues stood in its forecourt, lions and bears and other great beasts, carved from dark stone and capped with bronze and steel. A great archway marked the forecourt’s entrance; beside and beyond, the second bridge began to the far bank, the disappointing destination for their trundling wagon.

‘It’s majestic,’ Chel said, neck craned to make out the summit of the structure, wreathed in drifting steam overhead. The canvas was peeled back now, and he knew he risked a sharp rebuke from the drivers if they spotted it.

‘It is gauche,’ Kosh muttered from beside him. ‘Artless. The spiral towers of Astrum in Serasthana are majestic; this is a child’s rendering of majesty. A stupid child at that.’

‘Then forgive my artlessness but I like it. Maybe we can come back one day, once all this is over. Would make a fine location for a belated birthday party, eh, Tarf?’ He looked back beneath the canvas, across the wagon bed. ‘Tarf?’

He stuck his head in deeper.

‘Shit.’

***

‘How the fuck did you lose him?’ Rennic hissed from the wagon’s far side. ‘He was right there next to you!’

‘How could you miss him?’ Chel hissed back. ‘He must have slipped right past you!’

‘Aye, right, where’s friend princey now, anyone?’ Lemon called over her shoulder.

‘I told you: you all needed to be kinder to him!’