‘Only by the bank, in the reeds,’ Dacre Silifant judged, striking a heel onto the icy crust. ‘But even here it’s at least an inch and a half. It’ll hold a horse sure as anything, no need to wo—’

His words were drowned out by cursing and neighing. Skellen’s grey slipped, sat down on its haunches, and its legs spread apart under it. Skellen struck it with his spurs, swore again, and this time the curse was accompanied by the harsh crunch of ice breaking. The grey pounded with its fore hooves. Its hind ones, imprisoned, thrashed about in the tangle, breaking up the ice and churning the dark water spurting from under it. Tawny Owl dismounted, tugged on the reins, but slipped and went sprawling, miraculously not falling under the hooves of his own horse. The two Gemmerians, now also on their feet, helped him up. Ola Harsheim and Bert Brigden hauled the whinnying grey out onto the bank.

‘Dismount,’ Bonhart repeated, his eyes fixed on the fog covering the lake. ‘There’s no sense risking it. We’ll catch up with the maid on foot. She also dismounted, she’s also moving on foot.’

‘How very true,’ confirmed Boreas Mun, pointing at the lake. ‘It’s plain to see.’

Only at the very edge, beneath overhanging branches, was the crust of ice smooth and translucent, like the dark glass of a bottle. Under it reeds and water plants turned brown were visible. Further from the bank, the ice was covered in a very thin layer of wet snow. And on it, as far as the fog permitted them to see, were dark footprints.

‘We have her!’ Rience cried heatedly, throwing his reins on a broken bough. ‘So she’s not as cunning as she seems! She set off on the ice, straight across the middle of the lake. Had she chosen one of the banks or the forest, it wouldn’t have been easy to pursue her!’

‘Straight across the middle of the lake…’ Bonhart repeated, giving the impression of being lost in thought. ‘The shortest and straightest way to the alleged magical tower Vilgefortz talked about leads across the middle of the lake. She knows that. Mun? How far ahead of us is she?’

Boreas Mun, who was already on the lake, knelt down over a boot print, leaned over low and examined it.

‘A half-hour,’ he estimated. ‘Not more. It’s getting warmer, but the print isn’t fuzzy, you can see every hobnail in the sole.’

‘The lake,’ mumbled Bonhart, vainly trying to look through the fog, ‘stretches north for more than five miles. So said Vilgefortz. If the maid has half an hour’s start, she’s about a mile ahead of us.’

‘On slippery ice?’ Mun shook his head. ‘Not even that. Six, seven furlongs, at most.’

‘Even better! March!’

‘March,’ Tawny Owl repeated. ‘Onto the ice and quick march!’

They walked swiftly, puffing. The quarry’s closeness excited them, filled them with euphoria like a narcotic.

‘She won’t escape us!’