The same eyes. Impassive and cool, flat and immobile like the eyes of a snake, whose expression nothing–not even the most monstrous atrocity–was capable of changing.

‘Well? Sir Stefan?’

‘Not bad. A decent hanza, Silifant.’

Dacre blushed even more and saluted in the Gemmerian fashion, fist pressed against his calpac.

‘I especially requested,’ Skellen reminded him, ‘several people who were no strangers to magic. Who fear neither spells nor sorcerers.’

‘I remembered. Why, there’s Til Echrade! And apart from him, see that tall maiden on that splendid chestnut, the one beside Chloe Stitz?’

‘Bring her to me later.’

Tawny Owl leaned on the balustrade and rapped on it with the metal-tipped handle of his knout.

‘Hail, company!’

‘Hail, lord coroner!’

‘Many of you,’ Skellen began, when the echo of the gang’s combined roar had died away, ‘have worked with me before, know me and my requirements. Let them explain to those who don’t know me what I expect from my subordinates, and what I do not tolerate from them. Then I shan’t waste my breath needlessly.

‘This very day some of you will receive your assignments and will ride out at dawn to execute them. In Ebbing. I remind you that Ebbing is an autonomous kingdom and we have no formal jurisdiction there, so I order you to act prudently and discreetly. You remain in the imperial service, but I forbid you from flaunting it, boasting about it or treating the local rulers arrogantly. You shall behave so as not to attract attention. Is that clear?’

‘Yes sir, lord coroner!’

‘Here, in Rocayne, you are guests and are to behave like guests. I forbid you from leaving your assigned quarters without an essential need. I forbid you from making contact with the fort’s garrison. The officers will think up something so that boredom doesn’t drive you to fury. Mr Harsheim, Mr Brigden, please show the troop their quarters!’

‘I’d barely managed to get off me mare, Your Honour, than Dacre grabs me by the sleeve. Lord Skellen, he says, wants a word with you, Kenna. What to do? Off I go. Tawny Owl’s sitting behind a table, feet up, whacking his knout against his bootleg. And without beating about the bush asks me if I’m the Joanna Selborne who was mixed up in the disappearance of the ship The Southern Star. I tells him nothing was ever proved. He bursts out laughing. “I like people, you can’t pin anything on,” he says. Then he asks if my aitch-es-pee, hypersensory perception, I mean, is innate. When I says aye, his mood darkened and he says: “I thought that talent of yours would come in useful with sorcerers, but first you’ll have to deal with another mysterious personage”.’

‘Is the witness certain Coroner Skellen used those exact words?’

‘I am. I’m a psionic, ain’t I?’

‘Please continue.’