“I have been trying for centuries and it never seems to stick. When we met in Adua, I told you we should speak later.”

“So later has arrived,” said Rikke.

“It’s got a habit of doing that,” murmured Shivers, whose watchful presence a pace or two behind her she was rather grateful for.

“I thought we might discuss the future,” said Bayaz.

“We might.” And Rikke set off walking, slowly, pacing a circle around the old wizard. “But I’d have thought a man old as you would be more concerned with the past.”

The magus smiled as he followed her with his eyes. “The past has never interested me. For better or worse it is done, and set, and littered with disappointments as a battlefield is littered with the dead. But the future is a ploughed field, full of potential. The future we can twist into wonderful shapes. With my help, the North could be yours. All of it, and not only for today. Imagine all the good we could do together.”

“Who says I want to do good?”

“Isn’t that what we all want?” Bayaz gave a sigh through his nose. “History is not the story of battles between right and wrong, but between one man’s right and another’s. Evil is not the opposite of good. It is what we call another man’s notion of good when it differs from ours.”

Rikke had her doubts on that score. “So you want to help me stamp my notions on the North?”

“Why not? We all need help, from time to time.”

“Oh, we do. All I’ve got was got with help.” She’d come a full circle now, and she patted Shivers fondly on the shoulder as she passed, then turned to Bayaz with a thoughtful frown, still walking, slowly, crunch, crunch, crunch. She’d never liked standing still. “Bethod had your help, if I heard the story right. How’s he getting along?”

“I made him king. But he grew arrogant, and fell.”

“The Bloody-Nine, I think, had your help next. How’s he faring?”

“I made him king, too. But he grew wrathful, and fell.”

“Then it was Black Calder who had your help. He must’ve prospered!”

“I made him the man who made kings,” said Bayaz as she passed behind his back, then he turned his head and caught her from the corner of his eye. “But he grew lazy, and let you in the back door. My help is not the word of Euz. It cannot protect a man from his own faults.”

“So if I have your help, who’ll protect me from all my faults?”

Bayaz took an impatient breath, like the teacher of a pupil who can’t get their sums straight. “I know things have not gone smoothly for you lately. I know some of your friends are friends no more. The Nail, and his people in the West Valleys. Even the hillwoman Isern-i-Phail loses patience. I know, on your little tour of the North, you are thought of as too soft, too wild, too strange. But then, as your list of names shows, sitting in Skarling’s Chair is one thing. Staying there is another.”