He looked her slowly up and down until she blushed furiously – he owed her that, he felt. ‘Oh?’ He knew he was going to lose this fight anyway.

‘Stop that,’ she said. ‘I’m a queen – a reigning monarch. That means that I sometimes have to do things that an ordinary woman wouldn’t be allowed to do. I’m already at a disadvantage because I’m a woman. If I hide behind my own skirts, none of the other kings will take me seriously, and if they don’t take me seriously, they won’t take Elenia seriously either. I had to come here, Sparhawk. You understand that, don’t you?’

He sighed. ‘I don’t like it, Ehlana, but I can’t argue with your reasoning.’

‘Besides,’ she added softly, ‘I was lonesome for you.’

‘You win,’ he laughed.

‘Oh good,’ she exclaimed, clapping her hands together delightedly. ‘I just adore winning. Now, why don’t we move right on into the kissing and making up?’

They did that for a while. ‘I’ve missed you, my stern-faced champion,’ she sighed. Then she banged her knuckles on his cuirass. ‘I didn’t miss this though,’ she added. She gave him an odd look. ‘Why did you have such a strange expression on your face when that Ick fellow –’

‘Eck,’ he corrected.

‘Sorry – when he was talking about the little girl who guided him through Arcium to King Wargun?’

‘Because the little girl was Aphrael.’

‘A Goddess? She actually appears before ordinary people? Are you absolutely sure?’

He nodded. ‘Absolutely,’ he told her. ‘She made him more or less invisible, and she compressed a ten-day journey into three. She did the same things for us on a number of occasions.’

‘How remarkable.’ She stood, idly drumming her fingertips on his armour.

‘Please don’t do that, Ehlana,’ he said. ‘It makes me feel like a bell with legs.’

‘Sorry. Sparhawk, are we really sure we want Patriarch Ortzel on the Archprelate’s throne? Isn’t he awfully cold and stern?’

‘Ortzel’s rigid, right enough, and his Archprelacy’s going to cause the militant orders some difficulty. He’s violently opposed to our using magic, for one thing.’

‘What earthly good is a Church Knight if he can’t use magic?’

‘We do have other resources as well, Ehlana. Ortzel wouldn’t have been my first choice, I’ll admit, but he holds strictly to the teachings of the Church. No one like Annias will ever get into a position of any kind of authority if Ortzel’s in charge. He’s rigid, but he follows Church doctrine to the letter.’

‘Couldn’t we find somebody else – somebody we like a little more?’

‘We don’t select Archprelates because we’re fond of them, Ehlana,’ he chided. ‘The Hierocracy tries to select the man who’ll be best for the Church.’