‘It is hard to tell,’ Tomash said. ‘Although the White-faced Lords are rigid and punitive, they are fanatical about honour and it would hardly be honourable of them to hold the Redlanders to account for a contract broken by the slavemasters. What might be a problem is if they regard themselves as aligned with the slavemasters. In that case their honour will require them to retaliate against the Redlanders, and there is little doubt that they would crush them, given that their ships will be armed with weaponmachines.’

My own thoughts switched to Ariel, for while he might want to warn the slavemasters about us, it had just struck me that he would not want to do anything that would see me slain since, by his own reckoning, he needed me. Whether or not he knew of the signs and messages Cassy had left for me, he certainly knew that I had or would have the means to gain access to Sentinel. Indeed, he was likely to contrive to have me delivered into his hands if he could manage it. Dragon, too, if he had foreseen that she had information that would enable him to get to Sentinel.

I thought of what Maryon had said about certain people being keystones, and how they were like two heavy stones in a blanket that could hardly avoid coming together, and suppressed a shudder at the thought of Dragon falling into Ariel’s hands.

Wila said, ‘I think the key to dealing with the White-faced Lords is to negotiate with the one that dwells in the Red Land. As long as all care is taken to do no harm to the refining machinery or to him during the uprising, the Redlanders can ask him to speak on their behalf to the other White-faced Lords when they arrive. At the worst, they can divest him of his paint and mask and you can coerce him.’

‘I have just had a thought!’ Tomash said. ‘We have always wondered how Salamander and Ariel managed to make contact with the slavemasters in the first place, and how they found their way to the Red Land, but what if they originally met one of the slavemasters at the Spit? Ariel could have coerced directions for crossing the Clouded Sea from him! He could even have coerced the slavemaster into leading them across the Clouded Sea and introducing them to the other slavemasters on some pretext. All Ariel would need was to be near them and he could have coerced whomever he wanted, just as he did with the inner cadre of the Herder Faction. He could even have made the White-faced Lords’ envoy give Salamander those weapons he has on the Black Ship.’

‘I never read anything in the dream-books to suggest Salamander or Ariel had any dealings with the White-faced Lords, though I suppose they must have met the one who stays there to supervise the refining process,’ Wila said.