The Primate Annias sat as near as he dared to the velvet rope separating the Patriarchs from the spectators on the north side of the vast nave, and he was surrounded by flunkies and sycophants. Since Sparhawk could not get close to him, the big Pandion settled instead for sitting in the south gallery directly opposite, where, surrounded by his friends, he could look directly into the grey-faced Churchman’s eyes. The gathering of the Patriarchs opposed to Annias inside the walls of the Pandion chapterhouse had proceeded according to plan, and the apprehension and imprisonment of six Patriarchs loyal to the Primate – or at least to his money – had also gone off without a hitch. Annias, his frustration clearly showing on his face, busied himself by scribbling notes to the Patriarch of Coombe, which were delivered by various members of a squad of youthful pages. For each note Annias dispatched to Makova, Sparhawk dispatched one to Dolmant. Sparhawk had a certain advantage in this. Annias actually had to write the notes. Sparhawk simply sent folded scraps of blank paper. It was a ploy to which Dolmant had rather surprisingly agreed.

Kalten slipped into a seat on the other side of Tynian, scribbled a note of his own and passed it down to Sparhawk. ‘Good luk,’ the note read. ‘Fyve moor of are missing patriarks showd up at the bak gait of the chapterhowse a half our ago. They herd we were protekting our frends, and they maid a run for it. Forchunate, wot?’ Sparhawk winced slightly. Kalten’s grasp on the spelling of the Elene language was probably even looser than Vanion had feared. He showed the note to Talen. ‘How does this affect things?’ he whispered.

Talen squinted. ‘The number voting only changes by one,’ he whispered back. ‘We locked away six of Annias’s votes and got back five more of ours. We’ve got fifty-two now, he’s got fifty-nine, and there are still the nine neutrals. That’s a total of one hundred and twenty votes. It still takes seventy-two to win, but not even the nine votes would help him now. They’d only give him sixty-eight, which makes him four votes short.’

‘Give me the note,’ Sparhawk said. He scribbled the numbers under Kalten’s message and then added the two sentences, ‘I’d suggest that we suspend all negotiations with the neutrals at this point. We don’t need them now.’ He handed the note to Talen. ‘Take this to Dolmant,’ he instructed, ‘and it’s perfectly all right to grin just a bit while you’re on your way down to him.’

‘A vicious grin, Sparhawk? A smirk, maybe?’

‘Do your best.’ Sparhawk took another piece of paper, wrote the information on it and passed it among his armoured friends.