‘You’ll love this one, Sparhawk,’ Kalten said. He threw back his black cloak with an expression of insufferable smugness. ‘How many of those arrest warrants Lenda signed for you back in Cimmura have you still got in your pocket?’

‘Eight or ten, why?’

‘Are there any of those people whose company you’d absolutely die without for the next several weeks?’

‘I could probably live without most of them.’ Sparhawk thought he saw which way his friend was going.

‘All we have to do is substitute a few names then,’ Kalten said. “The documents are official, so it’s going to look legal – sort of. After we’ve picked up four or five of his bought-and-paid-for Patriarchs and dragged them off to the Alcione chapterhouse – which just happens to be way over on the far side of town – won’t Annias do everything in his power to get them back? I’d sort of expect the number of soldiers gathered around the Pandion chapterhouse to diminish drastically at that point.’

‘Amazing,’ Ulath said. ‘Kalten actually came up with a workable idea.’

‘About the only thing I can see wrong with it is the business of substituting names,’ Vanion said. ‘You can’t just scratch out one name and replace it with another – not on an official document.’

‘I didn’t say anything about scratching out names, My Lord,’ Kalten said modestly. ‘Once, when we were novices, you gave Sparhawk and me leave to go home for a few days. You scribbled a note to get us out through the gate. We just happened to keep the note. The scribes in the scriptorium have something that totally washes out ink. They use it when they make mistakes. The date on that note of yours kept mysteriously changing. You might almost call it miraculous, mightn’t you?’ He shrugged. ‘But then, God’s always been sort of fond of me.’

‘Would it work?’ Komier bluntly asked Sparhawk.

‘It did when we were novices, My Lord,’ Sparhawk assured him.

‘You actually knighted these two, Vanion?’ Abriel asked.

‘It was a slow week.’

The grins in the room were broad now.

‘Totally reprehensible, Kalten,’ Dolmant said. ‘I’d have to absolutely forbid it – if I thought that you were in any way serious about it. You were just speculating, weren’t you, my son?’

‘Oh, absolutely, Your Grace.’

‘I was sure that was the case.’ Dolmant smiled benignly, even piously, and then he winked.

‘Oh, dear,’ Sephrenia sighed. ‘Isn’t there one honest Elene in the world? You too, Dolmant?’

‘I didn’t agree to anything, little mother,’ he protested with exaggerated innocence. ‘We were only speculating, weren’t we, Sir Kalten?’

‘Certainly, Your Grace. Pure speculation. Neither of us would ever seriously consider something so reprehensible.’

‘My feelings exactly,’ Dolmant said. ‘There, Sephrenia, does that set your mind at rest?’

‘You were a much nicer boy when you were a Pandion novice, Dolmant,’ she reproved him.