‘Highness,’ Chel said, ‘what kind of reception do you expect to receive when we reach … when we arrive? What do you think will happen?’ Aside from imagining Brecki’s potential atrocities en route, it was now hard for him to think of anything beyond their journey’s end. Tarfel had seemed so determined in this course that Chel had assumed on some level that the prince’s inherent cowardice would preclude any decisions flagged with suicidal risk. His confidence in this conclusion was waning.

The prince sniffed. His nose had gone very pink. ‘Well, Vedren, there are some treaties that cover this kind of thing – Kelsuus set a precedent, you know – even with the Horvaun. Believe it or not, relations haven’t always been all axe-heads and blood.’

‘Do you think this queen of Brecki’s will be pleased to see us?’

‘What interests me more, Vedren, is why she would have sent a war-band to kill my brother in the first place. Could they have known what he was planning? Could anyone?’

Chel blinked tiny snowflakes from his eyelashes. ‘Perhaps they just like to kill royalty in neighbouring lands every so often, for sport – like how nobles hunt game.’

Tarfel offered a wry smile through the collar of fur. ‘The point is, Vedren, that my brother …’ He paused, swallowed, took a sharp breath of wintry air, ‘… is now my enemy. And if this queen thought killing him worthwhile, then we may well have fertile grounds for discussion.’

‘Highness?’ Chel tried to keep his reaction neutral, but the word still came out with the inflection of you what?

Brecki had tired again, and come to a halt in the long shadow of a copse on a small rise. The rest of the party were strung out behind them, making steady progress up the snow-dusted slope in their wake. Ahead of them rolled ever more hills, crusted white and glinting amber in the low afternoon sun. The world had a total stillness to it, frozen in time as the two young men looked out over the empty landscape, their breath coming in steady plumes.

‘I never knew my mother, Vedren,’ Tarfel said. ‘She died, as you know, birthing me, which I don’t think endeared me to anyone.’ He looked away for a moment, something pained crossing his face, then continued. ‘But beyond that, I barely know … knew my father. Not well enough to tell that he’d been dead for five years, for a start. Hells, it would almost be funny if it were someone else, wouldn’t it?’

Chel offered a rueful smile. ‘My father died when I was young, highness, but there was at least no doubt that it had happened.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Vedren. Was it combat?’

‘Plague.’