“They have been discussing that question. In the Hall of Mirrors.”

“I suppose the Lords’ Round is a little burned to the ground. But where are my manners?” He pulled out the one chair, rubbed the flaking seat with his cuff. “Might I enquire as to the purpose of your visit? A last word, perhaps, with the condemned?”

“That…” She held his eye. “And to let you go.”

It took a moment for Orso to work that one through. “That and to…

what now?”

“We haven’t much time. My husband means to have you killed.”

“The surprise is not so much that he might… as that you might not.”

“You came to help me in Valbeck, when I scarcely deserved it. Then you had mercy on me after Stoffenbeck, when I definitely did not. Then, to rub it in, you saved my life on the Tower of Chains. Without you, I would be dead three times over.”

Orso waved it away. “I rather wish I had hanged your husband now, but in your case, I have no regrets. I would have felt awful about killing a lover or a sister, so killing both at once would have been impossible to live with.”

“Selfish decisions, then.”

“Ask any of my enemies. I’m the most selfish man in the Circle of the World.”

“I suppose we can do good things for bad reasons.”

“Or bad things for good ones,” he answered.

“Or bad things for good ones.” She stepped out of the way of the door and someone slipped around the frame. A ragged man with bright eyes and a moustache.

“Tunny?” breathed Orso. He was followed by a girl in a soldier’s cap, a big man at her back, sliding heavy swords into his belt. “Hildi? Gorst, by the Fates!” Orso used to be thoroughly dismayed at the sight of his father’s bodyguard. Now he seized his hand and pumped it like an old friend’s, much missed.

Vick dan Teufel peered in from the corridor outside, her nose more bent than it used to be and a few multicoloured bruises still lingering around her eyes. “You have to go,” she said. “Now.”

“A daring escape?” Orso raised his hands at the barren cell and let them fall. “I am packed.”

“There’s a way ready through the sewers.” Teufel tossed a ring of keys to Tunny and he plucked them rattling out of the air. “But the city’s crawling with the Lord Regent’s men. Won’t be easy getting out.”

“I wish I had more to offer you than my thanks,” said Orso.

“You can thank me by not getting caught.”

He held Vick’s eye for a moment. “Who would have thought a professional turncoat would prove to be one of the last loyal people in the Union?”

Teufel winced. “Maybe we could keep that particular defect in my character between ourselves.”

“Your secret is safe.” Orso faced Savine, in the doorway. “I hardly know what to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything. Ask any of my creditors. I pay my debts.”