The Rats and the Ruling sea

4

7 Teala 941

Seven thousand candles lit the shrine's interior: green candles with a sharp camphor scent. The place was smaller than Pazel had imagined. When the king's retinue, the foreign royals and dignitaries and Templar monks were all seated on the little stools brought in for the occasion, and the Mzithrinis (who considered chairs unnecessary, but not unholy) were seated cross-legged on the floor, there was scarcely room for the wedding party itself.

But squeeze in they did. Thasha and the prince stood on a granite dais; their families and closest friends stood below them in a semicircle. All save Pazel: as the holder of the Blessing-Band he merited a place on the dais, where he could tie the ribbon to Thasha's arm at the required moment.

One way or another, of course, that moment would never arrive.

The last of the invited guests were still filing in past the Father, who glared like a fury, now and then making threatening bobs with his sceptre. The guests, all cultured and important people, were not so awed by the man as the great throng outside. Some hurried past him with a shudder. A few rolled their eyes.

Last of all came Arunis. Pazel held his breath. The sorcerer looked exactly like what they had all taken him for — a thickset merchant, rich and rather tasteless, dressed in dark robes as expensive as they were neglected. He wore a little self-mocking smile, and kept his pudgy hands folded before him like a schoolboy. Less than a day had passed since those hands had worked spells of murder aboard the Chathrand.

'Kela-we ghothal! Stop!'

The Father brought his sceptre down like a nightstick, square against the mage's chest. Arunis halted, blinking at him. Pazel saw Thasha glance up in fear. The Father was chanting in a rage: Pazel heard something about a devil's chain and a Pit of Woe. Aya Rin, he thought helplessly, this can't be happening.

Every eye in the shrine focused on the two men. Arunis smiled timidly, like an obliging citizen at a military checkpoint. He made a wobble with his head, as folk of Opalt do when they wish to show either goodwill or confusion, or both. The Father answered with a growl.

Arunis dropped his head. He shrugged, his lower lip trembling, and even those who knew better saw him for an instant as a good soul, one used to being last in line, one who had never dreamed he would be lucky enough to witness history in the making but who even now would give it up rather than cause any trouble. He turned to go. But as he did so he glanced once more at the Father.

Their gazes locked. Arunis' cold eyes glittered. Then quite suddenly the Father's ferocious glare went dull. Like an automaton he took the sceptre from Arunis' chest and stepped back, waving him through the arch. Smiling, the mage scurried inside.

Pazel closed his eyes. If he had been turned away! Oh, Thasha! We thought of everything but that!

He was so relieved that he barely noticed the ceremony itself — the monks' recitation of the Ninety Rules, the song of the Tree of Heaven, some baffling Simjan custom involving an exchange of horsehair dolls. But he noticed other things. Prince Falmurqat was smiling genuinely at Thasha — the poor dupe. And the Father, who had come forward into the shrine, seemed to have recovered both his hawklike gaze and his wrath. But he never directed these at Arunis — indeed, he seemed to have forgotten the man altogether.

Stranger still, one of the aspirants beside the Father kept turning to look at Pazel himself. It was one of the mask-wearers — man or woman Pazel could not tell. And of course he did not know if the gaze was kindly or cruel, or merely curious. But why should a young sfvantskor be curious about him?

Then he caught Thasha's eye, and saw her courage and clarity, and even a hint of the mischief that was hers alone in all the wide world. And suddenly his fear for her leaped out, like a predator from the grass, and he could think of nothing else. Stop it, stop the ceremony, get her out of here!

It was time: Thasha and her groom were kneeling down on the stone. Once more the cleric raised the knife and cup. Falmurqat held out his thumb, and seven drops of his blood were added to the milk already tinted with Thasha's own.

'Drink now,' said the cleric, 'that our fates be mingled, nevermore to be unbound.'

He sipped, and handed the cup to Falmurqat the Elder. The cup made its way around the dais, everyone taking a tiny sip. But when Pazel's turn came, he froze — furious, horrified, his brain on fire. The cleric prodded him, whispering: 'Drink, you must drink.' The Mzithrinis stared with the beginnings of outrage. Thasha flashed him a last look, impossibly fearless. He drank.

The guests breathed a collective sigh, and the cup moved on. Pazel took the Blessing-Band from his pocket and held it in plain view. Thasha and her betrothed drank last. The cleric took the cup again.

'Now, beloved Prince. What would you avow?'

Prince Falmurqat took Thasha's hand, and stroked it ever so gently with his thumb. He was about to speak when Thasha wrenched her hand away.

'Your Highness, forgive me. I cannot wed you. This marriage is a tr-'

She got no further. At the back of the congregation Arunis made a furtive gesture. The lethal necklace tightened. Thasha reeled, clutching at her throat.

Pazel dropped the ribbon and lunged to catch her. Pacu Lapadolma screamed. Eberzam Isiq leaped onto the dais, shouting his daughter's name. The cleric dropped the sacred milk.

Pazel held her to his chest, hating himself, hating the world. No answer but this one. No other door to try. He whispered to her, kissed her ear. Falmurqat watched in speechless horror. Thasha writhed and twisted, her face darkening with every beat of her heart.

'Away! Give her air!' Dr Chadfallow was battling forwards. Behind him, wrathful and suspicious, came the sorcerer.

Thasha's struggles grew so violent that Pazel almost lost hold of her. He was flat on his back, arms locked desperately around her chest, face buried in her shoulder. Then all at once her struggles ended. Her eyes widened in amazement, then dimmed, and her head fell back with an audible thump against the stone.

Pazel surged upright, raising her, choking on his tears. 'You Pit-damned devil!' he shouted. 'You killed her this time!'

None knew who he was accusing — the boy was clearly hysterical — but from the gaping crowd Arunis babbled in protest.

'Not I! Not with that little squeeze! Look for yourselves! The chain is loose!'

Few heeded the raving merchant from Opalt (by now everyone was shouting something), but to Thasha's friends his words meant just what they had prayed for: an instant when the very power that had laid the curse was consciously holding it at bay. Pazel's hand shot out, caught the necklace and snapped it with one brutal wrench. The silver sea-creatures Isiq had had fashioned for Thasha's mother — naiads and anemones, starfish, eels — flew in all directions. The necklace was destroyed.

But Thasha lay perfectly still.

Pazel spoke her name again and again. Dr Chadfallow felt her bloodied neck, then bent an ear swiftly to her chest. A look of pain creased the surgeon's face, and he closed his eyes.

Utter pandemonium broke out.

'No heartbeat! No heartbeat!' The cry swept the shrine. Already guests were spilling out through the arches, taking news of the disaster with them. A vast howl rose from the mob outside.

'Annulled!' shouted the Father, raising both his sceptre and the ceremonial knife. 'Without a marriage the Treaty of Simja is annulled! There is no peace between the Mzithrin and cannibal Arqual! I saw death, did I not tell you, children?'

'There must be peace, there must!'

'There won't be!'

'We'll be killed! They'll punish Simja for sure!'

'Death! Death!' screamed the Father.

'Get that blade out of his hands!' shouted King Oshiram.

'Where is the monster?' bellowed Isiq. 'Where is he, where's the fiend who slew my Thasha?'

But Arunis was nowhere to be seen.

Falmurqat the Elder took his son by the arm. 'Let us away!' he said bitterly. 'This is all a deception, and an old one at that. To marry off a convulsive, one not long for the world, and thus to shame the enemy when she expires.'

'Hush, Illoch, what nonsense!' cried his wife.

But the old prince paid no heed. 'Some of us read history,' he said. 'Huspal of Nohirin married a girl from the Rhizans. She died of seizures in a month, and the Mzithrin took the blame. This pig admiral must have counted on his girl lasting a bit longer, that's all.'

Pazel thought the worst had come. Isiq would fly at the man; the insults would reverberate beyond the shrine, beyond Simja; in hours or days there would be sea-battles, by week's end a war. But Isiq did not react at all, and with immense relief Pazel realised that the older prince had used his native tongue. But what if that changed?

Switching to Tholjassan, he looked up at Hercol.

'We've got to get her out of here now.'

Hercol nodded. 'Come, Eberzam! We must do as Thasha would wish, and bear her to the Chathrand. A proper burial at home in Etherhorde must be hers.'

'But it's months, months away,' Isiq wept. 'Her body will not last.'

'There are remedies,' said Chadfallow quietly.

Isiq turned on him savagely. 'Want to pickle my daughter like a herring, do you? False friend that you are! Never again shall you touch one of mine!'

'Steady, Isiq, he's a doctor,' said the king.

'What do you know of him?' roared Isiq, making the crowd gasp anew. 'Fatuous fool! What do you know of any of this? Puppets on strings, that is all I see around me! Little helpless dolls, twitching, dancing to the hurdy-gurdy.'

New gasps from the onlookers. 'Do not touch him!' shouted Oshiram, for the guards were already starting for Isiq. No tragedy could excuse such words to a sovereign, in his own realm and before his peers; men had been executed for less. Only the king himself could pardon Isiq, as everyone present knew.

'But she must go to Etherhorde,' wept Pacu Lapadolma.

'Indeed she must, your Excellency,' said one of the Templar monks. 'Only this morning she put it in writing, when we inscribed her name in the city register: "Though my body rot in transit, let me be buried at my mother's side on Maj Hill." She was quite insistent on that point.'

To this Isiq made no rebuttal. Someone spread a cloak upon the floor. Gaping, the admiral watched Hercol lift Thasha's body and place her on the cloth.

Pazel felt a hand on his elbow. He turned, and to his amazement found himself face to face with the sfvantskor he had caught stealing glances at him during the ceremony. Below the white mask the lips trembled slightly.

'The Father was right. There's evil on your ship. Are you part of it?'

It was the voice of a young woman, speaking broken Arquali, and whispering oddly as though trying to disguise her voice. Nonetheless Pazel felt certain he had heard it before.

'Who are you?' he demanded.

'Turn away before it's too late. You'll never belong among those who belong.'

'What did you say?'

She made no answer, only turned her back and fled, and then Neeps was tugging at his arm.

'Wake up, mate! It's time to go!'

Pazel's mind was in a whirl, but he knew Neeps was right. Bending, he seized a corner of the cloak on which Thasha lay. Hercol, Neeps and Fiffengurt already had their corners. Together they lifted her body, and amidst fresh wails from the onlookers bore her down the aisle and out through the arch.

The sun blinded them. Isiq followed on their heels, weeping: 'For naught, for naught! My morning star-'

Before they reached the bottom step they heard King Oshiram above them, ordering his guards to form a phalanx before the corpse-bearers. 'To the ship! Drive a wedge if necessary! Let no one hinder them in their grief!'

The palace guard did as they were told, and the stricken mob fell back as the men and tarboys rushed Thasha back towards the city. Most were too shocked even to give pursuit. Pazel knew their paralysis would not last, however. And what then? The crowd may go mad, Hercol had warned them. It can happen, when the world seems poised to collapse. Would there be a revolt? Would they try to seize her body, steal a piece of her garment or a fistful of hair, bury her with the martyrs of Simja?

The others might have had similar thoughts, for all four ran as quickly as they could. When Pazel glanced back he saw that the admiral was falling behind.

'Do not wait!' Isiq shouted, waving him on. 'All speed, Pathkendle! Protect her!'

Affection as well as grief in the old warrior's voice. Pazel raised a hand to him — he meant it as a promise, though it looked like a farewell — and staggered on.

When he was six years old, Pazel's mother disappeared. It was his first taste of terror, of the possibility of wounding loss, and he never forgot it, although his mother returned in just a week.

A sentry on the city wall had watched her departure — men were always watching Suthinia Pathkendle — all the way to Black Stag Road, where she turned east towards the valley of the Cinderling. The neighbours relayed this news to Captain Gregory Pathkendle with their usual blend of sympathy and scorn. The Cinderling was an old battlefield, left for dead after the Second Sea War, and still a place of bandits and beggars and unmarked graves. The neighbours had sighed and clicked their tongues. Only Suthinia, they said.

Pazel's sister had taken the news with a shrug and a laugh; she was determined not to care. Captain Gregory had just rolled his eyes. 'She'll be back,' he said. 'This isn't the first time, but we can hope it's the last.' Pazel had waited for his mother in silence, too frightened for tears.

As it happened Gregory was right on both counts. Suthinia came back, sunburned and road-filthy but otherwise unharmed. Nor did she ever vanish again — until the Arquali invasion, when every beautiful woman in Ormael vanished, mostly into Imperial hands. No, Suthinia stayed put, because a few months after that mysterious week Gregory himself sailed out of Ormaelport, never to return. To make matters worse, Captain Gregory's sister, who had helped out often with the children, picked that spring to elope to Etrej with a fallen monk. Suthinia, never the most attentive mother, was suddenly on her own.

Pazel liked to think he'd not added to her worries. His father had declared him bright. Dr Chadfallow, their illustrious family friend, had challenged him to become trilingual before his ninth birthday, and he was well on his way. Pazel wanted to sail like Gregory, but once he opened the grammar books Ignus provided, he somehow had a hard time putting them down.

Neda was eleven and at war with everything. She hated her father for abandoning them, Suthinia for giving him reasons to, Chadfallow for not talking him out of it and Pazel for not hating the others with her own intensity. To top it all, her mother and Chadfallow were becoming close. This, she told a mystified Pazel, was a betrayal of the father who had betrayed them.

Pazel just wished everyone would shut up. He loved them, despite a growing fear that they were all insane. Or rather all but Chadfallow — he was a gift from the Good Lord Rin. He had travelled the world; he could speak of medicine and history, wars and animals and earthquakes and ghosts. And in those days he still laughed, once in a long while, and the sound always surprised Pazel with its unguarded joy.

Years went by, and their mother's peculiarities deepened. She locked herself away with books, scaled the roof in thunderstorms, gave Pazel syrups designed to loosen his bowels and then studied the results with a long-handled spoon.

Then came the day of the custard apples. From dawn to dusk, Suthinia had forced a gruel made of the strange fruit on her children, although one sip told them that the drink was dangerous: In fact it proved both poisonous and enchanted. After a month-long coma, Pazel had awoken with his Gift, Neda with her anger at Suthinia redoubled.

Their mother had become a witch. Or stopped hiding the fact. Either way it made her odder and more dangerous. She stopped bathing, and neglected to cook. When Neda moved out it took Suthinia three days to notice that she was gone.

Later that year Mzithrini warships had begun raiding the Chereste coast. The mayor of Ormael turned to Chadfallow, Arqual's Special Envoy, and begged for Imperial protection. Pazel learned another reason to adore Chadfallow: he was the Man With the Emperor's Ear.

One day Captain Gregory's ship was spotted near Ormael, with Gregory himself at her wheel: but now the ship was flying the colours of the Mzithrin. Gregory was at once renamed Pathkendle the Traitor, and Pazel's family shared in his disgrace. The neighbours looked through them; Pazel's friends discovered that they had never really liked him at all. Neda, who had taken work on a goat farm, paid them brief, resentful visits, leaving gifts of sour cheese, but she never again spent a night under Suthinia's roof.

Only Chadfallow was unchanged. He still came to dinner — brought dinner, usually, for Suthinia was all but destitute — and drilled Pazel in Arquali for an hour. He was the best thing that could have happened to a traitor's son. Until he became the worst.

The night before the invasion — about which Chadfallow had breathed not a word — Pazel had found himself seated beside the doctor, under Neda's orange tree, assembling a kite. Pazel could not recall much of what they talked about (his mind was on the doctor's present more than his words) but the last part of the conversation he would never forget.

'Ignus, where did my mother go? That time she ran away.'

'You should ask her, my boy.'

Pazel said nothing; they both knew he had asked a thousand times.

'Well,' said the doctor reluctantly, 'let us say that she went to be with her own people awhile.'

'My father never came back. What if she hadn't either?'

'She came back. You're her son and she loves you.'

'What if she hadn't?'

Pazel's question was a plea. As if he could already sense them, somehow: the fire and the death shrieks, the enslavements, the notion of rape, the battle axe history was about to take to his world.

Chadfallow looked at him squarely. Lowering his voice, he said, 'If she had not returned I would have taken you to Etherhorde, and made a proper Arquali of you, and sent you to a proper school. One of the three High Academies, to be sure. And when you graduated, you would not have received a pat on the head, but a line of your own in the Endless Scroll, which the Young Scholars of the Imperium have signed for eight centuries. And you should have had friends who loved you for your cleverness instead of being jealous of it. And though you may not believe me, in a few years you would have forgotten these dullards and jackanapes, and been at home as never before.'

Pazel was dumbstruck. He couldn't possibly deserve all that. Chadfallow looked at him, almost smirking — until Suthinia appeared from nowhere, pushed the doctor back in his chair, and smacked him hard.

'You'll take him when they bury me, Ignus,' she said. Then she grabbed Pazel by the arm and marched him into the house.

'Mother, Mother,' Pazel said as they rushed up the stairs. 'He meant if I was alone, if something happened to you. Let go. You don't understand.'

'I understand more than you think,' she snapped.

She was hurting his arm. 'You're an animal,' he shouted, inspired. 'I wish you had stayed away. I want to go with him to Etherhorde.'

She dragged him into the washroom, thrust him before the mirror. 'Look at your skin. In Etherhorde they'd take you for a tarboy, or a slave.'

He bellowed right back at her: 'I'm not the colour of Ormalis either!' Which was true, if just barely: he had a bit too much caramel in his complexion, and his hair was too brown.

Suthinia shrugged. 'You're close enough.'

'I look like you,' he sobbed. At that moment it was the worst insult that occurred to him. His mother began to laugh, which enraged him all the more. 'Etherhorde's a proper city,' he shouted. 'Ignus belongs there, and so could I, if you'd just leave me alone.'

She would leave him the very next day, and possibly for ever, but at that moment his words had a curious effect. Her laughter and her fury vanished, and she looked at him with a kind of sad wonder, as if she had only just understood what they were talking about.

'You couldn't belong there,' she said. 'We will never belong among those who belong. The best thing to do is to cobble together some tribe of outcasts, when you're old enough to find them.'

'But Ignus-'

'Ignus is a dreamer. He's thinking of some other boy, some life that might have been, if the world were very different. I don't care if you believe what I say. Just remember it, love, and decide for yourself who told the truth.'

Pazel stumbled, bashing Thasha with his shins. Her body was growing heavy. Fiffengurt was hobbling, favouring a knee.

'This blary guard's right on top of us,' he said in a low voice, glancing nervously at Pazel. 'You'll never be able to — you know.'

'Sure he will,' said Neeps. 'You didn't see us in the Crab Fens, with the Volpeks behind us. My mate here can run like a whiplash hound.'

Pazel smiled grimly. He had a stitch in his side. 'I'll lose them, don't worry,' he said.

'They may not even try to stop you,' said Hercol. But his voice was reluctant, as though something else entirely was worrying his thoughts.

Fiffengurt took no notice. 'I'll miss you, Pathkendle,' he said gruffly, 'damned troublemaker though you are.'

Pazel dropped his eyes. He would miss them too. For somewhere in the heart of the city he was going to slip away. He had to do it; even Hercol had agreed. There was a fight to be waged on the Chathrand, but there was another, just as vital, ashore: the fight to expose the conspiracy. No better chance would come than this one, with delegations from every land packed into Simjalla. And no better person existed for the job than Pazel. He had learned something from his Gift: when you spoke to people in their own language, they tended to listen. Pazel would speak the truth to everyone he met — servants, sailors, kings — until it was the talk of Simja, and no power on earth could suppress it.

'You won't be missing him long,' said Neeps vehemently. 'Just watch, he'll be aboard the Chathrand by nightfall.'

No one said anything to that. There was no telling what would become of Pazel, once he started speaking the truth. It was more likely that sunset would find him in some kitchen, cowering under the sink, or at the bottom of a laundry hamper, or in a temple belfry, hiding from the Secret Fist. And then only if he managed to win someone's trust. If he sounded not just clever, but sane.

They had carried Thasha as far as the stormbreak pines when the Fulbreech youth reappeared. The palace guard warded him off at spearpoint, until Hercol told them to let him approach.

'The lady Thasha is dead,' he said to Fulbreech. 'Send a carriage for her father — that is him on the road behind us — and find us at the docks, straight away. You and I must must speak again, Fulbreech.'

The youth stared at Thasha, wide-eyed. 'I shall fetch that carriage,' he said at last, and dashed ahead of them towards the city.

Pazel was burning to ask Hercol about Fulbreech. Who was he, why did he keep popping up? But the Tholjassan's face made it plain that he would breathe no word of explanation, at least not here in the presence of the guard.

Some minutes later they reached the city gate. Poor folk were busy here, filling sacks with isporelli petals to render into perfume. Thasha's body gave them a terrible shock. Old monks, too feeble for the march to the shrine, burst into shouts of Aya Rin! Children screamed; old women raised their arms to heaven and wept.

Straight through Simjalla they ran, a morbid reversal of the procession, and with every block the wails grew louder. Pazel was tensed, now, waiting for his chance to break away. But the chance did not come. The captain of the guard was following the king's instructions to the letter: his men ran ahead and behind the foursome and let no one approach. Pazel glanced beseechingly at Neeps, who frowned and shook his head.

As they neared the port the streets were lined with men and women, moaning in disbelief, flags of Arqual and the Mzithrin slipping forgotten from their hands. Pazel was growing desperate. Once they put him in a boat it would be too late.

They turned another corner. At the end of the block, Pazel could see masts and rigging and wooden hulls crowding the quay. 'Listen,' he whispered urgently to the others, 'I'm going, it's time.'

'Pazel, no!' hissed Neeps. 'Everybody and his brother's watching us!'

'So what? It's Thasha they're worried about.'

'This mob's crazy with grief,' said Fiffengurt. 'You run off now and someone's likely to chase you down and break your teeth with a brick.'

'They don't care about me,' Pazel insisted. 'I'm just a tarboy who happened to know her.'

Hercol too shook his head. 'You cannot go now, lad. We must find another way.'

Pazel looked from friend to friend. They were protecting him, even at the cost of disaster. Just as old Isiq would have done, if they'd tried to reason with him, explain the path Thasha had chosen.

Pazel did not look at her, fearing he would choke if he saw her pale, cold face. How had her last minutes been with Isiq? You knew, didn't you, Thasha? A time comes when you just stop arguing.

Seconds later he was leaping and shoving his way through startled onlookers, making for a sidestreet, running for all he was worth. The other three cried out, but they were still supporting Thasha and could not let her fall. Members of the guard hooted and jeered — 'Run, you bastard! Fair-weather friend!' — but as he'd expected, none gave chase. The sidestreet had been roped off during the procession, and it was not hard to see why. It was narrow and steep, twisting up a hill by way of many crumbling staircases. After the first bend he saw only a handful of people; after the second, none at all. Still he kept running, as though speed were the only way to make sure he went through with the plan. He thought: Lose yourself. That life's finished. A new one has to begin. True, Ramachni had said that their greatest strength lay in the family they'd built on the voyage to Simja. But families splintered, and Ramachni was gone — he had been, Pazel suddenly reflected, the very first one to leave.

He turned left into an even narrower street. Here at last he allowed himself to catch his breath. He was well away from the port and the mob of mourners. It was time to think about where he should be going.

Unconsciously he put his hand in his pocket. Something sheer and light met his fingers, and he drew it out. It was the Blessing-Band, the blue silk ribbon from Thasha's Lorg School. YE DEPART FOR A WORLD UNKNOWN, AND LOVE ALONE SHALL KEEP THEE. How had it gotten there? He could distinctly remember dropping it in the shrine.

Pazel looked down the street. Decrepit balconies, bright streamers of hanging laundry. Then he lowered his eyes and saw that someone had entered the street from the far end. It was a rider, seated on one of Simja's giant messenger birds. He stopped the bird with a sharp tug on its wing harness some thirty feet from Pazel, and stared openly at the boy.

A soft sound behind him. Pazel whirled and saw another man, afoot, leaning in a doorway that had been empty a moment before. He was dressed in humble Simjan work clothes, a street sweeper or a mason perhaps. But he looked at Pazel with the same intensity as the rider.

Pazel felt the danger in them at once. Impulsively he began to walk down the alley towards the rider, as though merely continuing on his way. The bird pranced and croaked, and then the rider moved into his path. He held up his hand for Pazel to stop.

'The grain in the fields is yellow, but?' he said.

'I b-beg your — ?'

'That is the wrong answer.'

The man spurred his mount towards Pazel, and the bird lowered its head and struck him a blow like a blunt axe to the chest. Pazel staggered, his breath knocked out of him. The man in work clothes was strolling towards him, grinning. The rider turned the messenger bird again, and Pazel saw a long steel nail protruding from the toe of his boot. Pazel leaped sidelong as the man lashed out. The nail missed by inches. Cursing, the man began to dismount.

Then his head shot up. Pazel turned and saw Hercol leap into the air like a dancer, feint with his right leg, and deliver a lightning strike with the left that felled the man in work clothes like a puppet whose strings have snapped.

The moment he touched the ground Hercol was sprinting for Pazel. The rider hauled his bird about, kicking savagely with his heels. With a deep croak the bird bore him away.

Hercol seized Pazel by the chin. 'All right?' he said.

'I think so. Ouch! ' He put a hand to his chest.

'You'll be sore for a fortnight, if it was that fenneg bird that struck you.' He shook his head. 'Why didn't you listen, Pazel? I told you not to go through with it.'

'I thought you were just trying to protect me,' said Pazel.

'So I was! I saw the Secret Fist watching us from every third corner, the moment we entered the gates. Come quickly! When that rider sounds the alarm they'll fall on us in force.'

They ran back the way Pazel had come. The man Hercol had kicked lay still, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Pazel shut his eyes a moment, but he never forgot the man's look of shock, the gape of the bloodied mouth, the wide-open eyes. Like the faces of so many dead, he would glimpse it in dreams for years to come.

When they reached the port they had to fight their way through the crowd. Even in the short time he had been gone it had swollen, and its anxiety had increased. Some were literally weeping with fear. There would be war, another eternity of war; how had they ever let themselves hope it could end? Others vented their anguish on Pazel: 'Caught the little deserter! Good work! Always whip a ship-jumper, I say!'

Hercol led him to a fishing pier, at the foot of which King Oshiram's men were holding back the crowd. They were let through, and Pazel saw Fiffengurt and Neeps standing beside Thasha's body at the end of the pier. Both were looking in the direction of the Chathrand, which loomed like a sea fortress three miles offshore.

Their faces lit up at the sight of Pazel. 'Welcome back, fool,' said Neeps.

Pazel didn't argue the point. 'What are we going to do now?' he said.

'First, get Thasha back to the Chathrand,' said Hercol. 'When that is done, we shall seek another way to reveal Arqual's plot to the world. A way that doesn't require tarboys to play cat and mouse with assassins.'

'That'll be a pleasant change,' said Neeps, watching the bay. 'Dancing devils! Why are those rowers so slow?'

'Because you're watching 'em,' said Fiffengurt.

Pazel paced the dock, trying not to look at the bundle at Hercol's feet. After an interminable wait the skiff reached the pier. The men at oars saw Thasha and began shouting at once: 'Who did it, Mr Fiffengurt? Who would lay a finger on her? Can we kill him, sir?'

Lowering Thasha into the boat was an undignified affair. The Babqri love-knot slipped, and her golden hair spilled onto the slimy floor. They could not stretch her out, and at last placed her feet on the bench between the rowers. Neeps tried to clean her hair on his trousers.

The sailors wept. Like most of the crew they had not cared much for the Treaty Bride at first. Noble-born passengers came and went, often greeting sailors, if at all, with a barely disguised sneer. The men returned the favour, and accounts of first-class ignorance, seasickness, fear of rats and fleas and bedbugs and general uselessness were traded like hard candies on the lower decks.

But they had not sneered long at Thasha Isiq. Rather than fine food or bleached petticoats she had wished for a chance to climb the masts or explore the black cavern of the hold. She was also a virtuoso swearer: a lifetime of eavesdropping on captains, commodores and other guests at her father's table had made her a walking scrapbook of naval curses. By the Chathrand 's first landfall men were boasting of her beauty, and when a rumour spread that she had flattened a pair of thuggish tarboys in a brawl, they had added ferocity to her list of virtues. She was 'a good 'un,' they decided, and there was no higher praise.

A sudden voice from the Chathrand: 'What is this, Quartermaster?'

It was Captain Rose. The red-bearded man was studying them with intense suspicion, his enormous hands gripping the rail. Beside him stood Lady Oggosk, his witch-seer, old eyes gleaming from beneath a faded shawl.

Before Fiffengurt could reply, Hercol shouted: 'This, Rose, is the end of your conspiracy — and what will concern you far less, the end of one nobler than certain minds can grasp.'

'I've seen enough of corpses. Bury that one in Simja, whoever he is.'

Hercol reached out and uncovered Thasha's face, now deathly grey.

'You would do well not to impede the return of Thasha to Etherhorde. His Supremacy will wish to pay his respects.'

'What, what?' cried Oggosk. 'The girl is dead?'

'I believe I just said that, Duchess.'

Rose did not stand in their way. Indeed he helped by clearing the deck of all but essential hands. Nonetheless as the lifeboat drew alongside the towering vessel, Pazel heard cries of anguish and disbelief. Oggosk's voice had carried: the news was already loose on the ship.

The davit-lines were made fast, and heave by heave the men of the watch hauled the lifeboat up the ship's flank.

'Line a casket with paraffin,' said Rose when they reached the topdeck. 'We'll send ashore for an embalmer.'

'Dr Chadfallow will do,' said Hercol.

Rose nodded. 'She was brave. I am saddened by this.'

Pazel looked at him with fury. Liar.

Across the deck men stood gaping, holding their caps. Lady Oggosk muttered a prayer. As they lifted Thasha from the boat, the witch suddenly put a hand on the girl's cold, colourless forehead. Oggosk's milk-blue eyes opened wide. She turned her gaze on Pazel, and for a moment he was transfixed. It was as if she could see right through him.

'What have you done?' she whispered.

With a great effort Pazel wrenched his gaze away. Oggosk stepped back, but Pazel seemed to feel her eyes drilling at a point between his shoulders as they crossed the endless topdeck, silent but for creaks of the rigging and the sighs of stricken men.

Demons of cruelty had sewn his wedding shoes.

Half a mile behind the bearers of Thasha's corpse, Admiral Isiq kicked the silk things into the roadside brush. At once he felt better. He had been no poor runner once — ages ago, before his first command — and the feel of dry, dung-laced earth on his bare feet summoned memories of Turam, the old Isiq homestead in the Westfirth, where his father had killed a marauding bear with just a hunting knife. He loosened his cravat. He was gaining on them.

Behind him, the mob wailed in their thousands. Soon the youngest would catch up, shout their sympathies, get in his way. He broke into a cautious run. Misery it seemed, like fury, could give one strength.

I've lost my girl. Lost her mother twelve years before. Lost Syrarys — she was ever my foe but I possessed her body, her hands, possessed a lovely illusion. Even that they have taken from me. But not this body, you bastards, you filth. Not this mind pitted against you for ever.

He was thinking of his Emperor, and Rose, and above all Sandor Ott. Arunis might have killed Thasha, but Ott had spun the web in which the sorcerer found her, hopelessly tangled. Arunis had come out of nowhere; Ott had shadowed Isiq for years, disguised as an honour guardsman.

By the Gods, it felt good to run again. The road burned the soles of his feet and each slap said, You live, you can act, you have nothing left to fear.

He saw now what he had to do. Thasha's sacrifice meant the prophecy was annulled: no stirrings of revolution would begin on Gurishal, no preparations for the return of their god. But the Shaggat remained. So did the will to make him flesh again. Above all, so did the Nilstone.

Which meant that some other vessel would have to bear his daughter home: the Chathrand must never leave this port. And there was only one power in the Bay of Simja that could stop it. For all their show of guns, the Mzithrini ships would never dare to act against an Arquali vessel. Not here anyway, before the eyes of the world. But King Oshiram would have every right. Simja's navy might be a pitiful thing, but ten or twelve warships were surely enough to hold the Chathrand, immense as she was. You never dreamed I would go this far. You have counted on my blind love of Arqual, my soldier's oath. You will regret it.

Thasha's body passed through the North Gate, and Isiq was but minutes behind. The flower-collectors pointed the way. He would be mortally sick with fatigue when this task was done. But done it would be, and let the night come after.

'Your Excellency!'

He raised his eyes: a dark two-horse carriage was pulling up to the corner. The driver reined the animals in, but it was not he who had called to Isiq. On the seat beside the man sat the same well-dressed youth who had approached Hercol in the procession.

'Your valet bid me fetch you a carriage, sir.'

'Kind… not necessary…' Isiq found he could barely speak.

'Bless me, sir, you're unshod!'

The young man leaped down, ran to Isiq and took his arm. By the time they reached the corner the driver had opened the door and placed the footstool. The inside of the carriage was plush and empty. Isiq paused and stared at the boy.

'Who-?'

'Greysan Fulbreech, Ambassador. King's clerk, and your humble servant. Come, we shall reach the port in no time.'

He whipped a fresh handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to Isiq. The admiral mopped the sweat from his bald head and entered the carriage. A moment later the driver cracked his whip and they were off, and at startling speed.

But why were they turning? He was quite sure the port lay dead ahead. Isiq groped at the door and found no handle to open. He reached for the window: barred. Then he felt the handkerchief, still clutched in his fingers, yanked roughly through the bars. As the horses charged ahead he saw the Fulbreech boy on the streetcorner, waving goodbye.

The joyful whines of the mastiffs turned to whimpers: their mistress had not stirred to greet them. Jorl nudged Thasha's chin with his muzzle. Suzyt padded in breathless circles as the party crossed the stateroom.

'Quickly, now,' said Hercol.

They laid her on the bench under the tall gallery windows. Hercol opened the cabinet beneath the bench and reached inside, and when his hand emerged it held a naked sword. Pazel had seen Hercol's sword before — seen it dark with blood, and awhirl in fights — but he had never beheld it this closely. The blade was dark and cruel, and nicked in two places. A flowing script ran up the steel, but the years had worn the engraving almost to nothing.

Hercol noticed his look. 'Ildraquin,' he said. "Earthblood. That is its name. One day I shall tell you its story.'

He turned and swiftly inspected the chamber, then moved on to the sleeping cabins and the Isiqs' private washroom. When he returned Ildraquin was sheathed.

'No one has entered in our absence,' he said. 'We are as safe here as one can be on this ship.'

'Then I'd best see to my duties, if you don't need me,' said Fiffengurt.

'We need you,' said Hercol. 'But we need you most as quartermaster. Who else will keep us informed of Rose's schemes?'

Fiffengurt shook his head. 'Rose trusts me like I trust a rattlesnake. Still I overhear things, now and again. What I learn, I'll share. And I'll send Thasha's father to you the instant he boards.'

'You're a good plum, Mr Fiffengurt,' said Pazel.

'Seeing as you're an Ormali, lad, I'll take that as a compliment.'

They locked the door behind him. For a moment no one moved or spoke.

Then Hercol said, 'Are you here, Diadrelu?'

'Of course.'

The voice came from overhead. There she was, atop the book cabinet: a woman with copper skin, short hair, black clothes, gleaming eyes. An ixchel woman, a queen until she cast her lot with humans. Crouched on the edge of the cabinet she looked no larger than a dormouse. Standing, she might have been eight inches tall.

'I know you trust the quartermaster,' she said, looking down at them intently, 'but I must tell you that we consider him one of the most dangerous humans aboard. He is inquisitive, and he knows more about the crawlways and secret spaces of the Chathrand than anyone save Rose himself. And when he speaks of my people they are crawlies, and a note of disgust enters his voice.'

'Fiffengurt hates ixchel?' said Neeps. 'I don't believe it! He's the most soft-hearted old sailor I've ever met.'

'But a sailor nonetheless,' said Diadrelu, 'and schooled in the vices of sailing folk. I do not know if his feelings stem from his past experience or general fear. But I will not soon reveal our presence to this ally of yours.'

'We wouldn't ask you to,' said Pazel.

Dri gestured at the stateroom door. 'Someone tried to pick the lock while you were on the island,' she said. 'Twice. I jammed the mechanism with my sword.'

'Well done,' said Neeps.

But Hercol shook his head. 'What if they had forced the door? You would have been caught in plain sight.'

'Hercol Stanapeth,' said the ixchel woman, 'I have lived my whole life within yards of human beings, men who would have killed me without a second thought. You have little to teach me about stealth.'

Hercol smiled, not quite conceding the point. 'Are you ready, my lady?' he asked.

For an answer the woman descended — three shelves in the blink of an eye, a spring to the back of Isiq's divan, another to Hercol's shoulder, and a last jump to the bench under the window, a few inches from Thasha's neck. When their eyes caught up with her they saw that she was holding something sharp and translucent. It was an ixchel arrow, two inches long — fashioned, as she had told them earlier, from the quill of a porcupine.

'Who will say what must be said?' she asked.

'That had better be Hercol,' said Pazel.

'No,' said Hercol. 'You were there when she fell, Pazel, and yours was the last face she saw as her eyes dimmed. The task is yours.'

Pazel took a deep breath. 'All right,' he said. 'But I'd feel better if a doctor were here. I'd even settle for crazy old Rain.'

'Kneel,' said Diadrelu.

Reluctantly, Pazel obeyed. He put his face close to Thasha's own. It was only then that he realised how truly frightened he was. Thasha's eyes looked withered. The lips he had kissed the night before were flecked with dirt.

Diadrelu reversed her grip on the arrow — and with the whole force of her arm plunged it into a vein in Thasha's neck.

Her eyes flew open. And Pazel began to talk as fast as he could. Don't shout don't shout Thasha you're safe you're with us you're with me Thasha trust me don't shout.

She did not shout. She leaped away from him in terror, nearly crushing Diadrelu beneath her and striking the window so hard that a crack appeared in the nearest pane. When Pazel tried to steady her she kicked him savagely away.

'Peace!' hissed Hercol. 'By the Night Gods, Thasha Isiq, I may have trained you too well! Your pardon, Lady Diadrelu, and you too, Pazel! Enough, lass, take a breath.'

Pazel picked himself up, relief breaking over him in waves. She was awake, alive-and free of Arunis' trap. It had all gone according to plan.

Or had it? Thasha's eyes were strange, savage. At last she appeared to recognise their faces, but would let no one comfort her. She shivered as though from deadly cold.

'It worked,' said Neeps softly. 'You were perfect, Thasha.'

Thasha raised a hand to her throat. Her voice was a dry, pained whisper.

'We fooled Arunis?'

'We fooled them all,' said Hercol. 'You did not marry, and Ott's false prophecy cannot come true.'

He spread a blanket over her legs. Thasha looked out at the sunny bay. Looking at her, Pazel thought suddenly of a group of sailors he had glimpsed long ago: hurricane survivors, coaxing a ruined ship into Ormaelport, their faces ravaged by memories of wild fear.

'I touched ice,' Thasha whispered. 'I was in a dark place all crowded with people, but there was no light, and then I began to see without light and the people were hideous, they didn't have faces, and that old priest was there waving his sceptre, and there was ice under my wedding shoes, and black trees with little fingerbone-branches that grabbed at me, and there were eyes in the slits of the trees and voices from holes in the ground. I was freezing. I could feel you holding me, Pazel; I could even feel the scar on your hand. But then the feeling stopped. And then everything began to vanish in the dark — the monster-people went out like candles, one by one. And the voices faded, until there was just one strange voice calling my name, over and over, like something that would never stop, like water dripping in a cave forever. But there was no water, no walls, there was nothing but ice, ice under my skin, ice in my stomach and my brain.'

She hugged herself, looking slowly from one face to another.

'Was I dead?'

'No,' said Diadrelu, 'but you were as close to death as a human can be, and return unharmed. Blane means foolsdeath, but not because it deceives only fools. The name means rather that the spectre of death himself should not know the difference, if he came upon one in the grip of the drug.'

'And brandy on top of that,' Neeps sighed.

'Did old Druffle go through something like this, when you and Taliktrum drugged him?' Pazel asked.

The ixchel woman shook her head. 'There are several forms of blane, for various uses. We only needed Druffle to sleep. But when Thasha drove that quill into her palm on the marriage dais, she had to appear dead beyond all suspicion. That called for blane of the purest kind — and the most dangerous. Without the antidote, Thasha never would have woken from its grip. She would have slept until she starved.'

'I'm still cold,' said Thasha.

'You will not cast off the chill for days, perhaps,' said Diadrelu. 'My father once pricked his thumb with pure blane. A week later he still suffered nightmares, and felt the drug's cold grip. Sunlight helped, he said.'

'Alas, she will have little of that for a time,' said Hercol. 'This cabin must be your cage, Thasha, until King Oshiram learns the truth of our mission. If I can find a way to contact him at all, that is.'

'And what then?' asked Diadrelu. 'Has he the stomach to quarantine the Great Ship, and fight his way aboard against a hundred Turachs?'

'We must hope so,' said Hercol. 'But there is another question: what if he succeeds? No doubt he will destroy the Shaggat, lest by some guile of Arunis the madman be returned to life. But the Nilstone he cannot destroy: no power in Alifros can. Will he consent to guard it until some better resting place is found? It could break his dynasty — for although its merest touch slays the fearful, someone will always dream of using it, and perhaps succeed. Arunis for one believes that is possible.'

He looked gravely at each of them in turn. 'We must never forget that our fates are tied to the Stone. By our oath, first — to place it beyond the grasp of anyone vile enough to seek to use it — and by the mere fact that we are children of this world. Alifros is great, but the power of the Nilstone is limitless. There will be nowhere to hide if its power is unleashed.' Hercol turned to Thasha with a sigh. 'I had counted on your father's help in persuading Oshiram. But now-'

Thasha gasped. 'Oh, the fool! What happened? He hit the king, didn't he?'

The others smiled at each other but did not laugh. It would not do to be overheard; they were in mourning after all. Before anyone could explain, however, they were interrupted by a shrill cry.

'Hark the voice!'

They jumped. By the door to the washroom stood Felthrup Stargraven, the woken rat, terribly injured in yesterday's battle. They crowded around him, overjoyed. He seemed remarkably steady on his three good feet (the fourth had been crushed by a drainpipe lid) and he twitched his short tail impatiently (another rat had long ago bitten it in two). Jorl and Suzyt barrelled forwards and licked him, an act of love in which Felthrup might soon have drowned. But the rat shook them off and squeaked again:

'Hark the voice, the voice in the distance! Can't you hear?'

They held still. And hear it they did: a man's voice from an impossible distance, rising and falling gravely.

'It's that priest again,' said Pazel. 'The one they call the Father. But I can't make out what he's saying.'

'He is saying we shall die!' cried that rat.

'What?'

'Die, die! Not literally, of course Not even metaphorically. Nor by inference intended — but how, pray, does a speaker know what his listener infers? And in the strictest sense what he is saying is not the point so much as the indisputable fact that it is being said. Bellowed, blasted, harrooed-'

'Felthrup,' said Diadrelu. 'You are healed. Your chatter proves it. But whatever are you talking about?'

'There's a bell ringing now,' said Pazel.

Felthrup spun in a circle, too upset too hold still. 'Not one bell — two! Disaster, disaster!'

They opened more windows: indeed there were two bells, one high, one low, sounding precisely together so that the notes seemed to fuse as one. And now from the shore came voices, incredulous voices, crying out in delight.

'But that's the wedding signal,' Thasha said. 'Simjans ring two bells at once to show that a couple is married. But we're not! We never spoke any vows!'

'Besides, they all think you're dead,' said Neeps.

'So what's happening?' Thasha demanded.

'Oh, woe, woe, woe!' cried Felthrup.

Like the rat himself, Pazel found he could be still no longer. Despite shouts from the others he dashed across the stateroom, slipped through the door, and ran along the short passage to the upper gun deck. Men were hastening to the ladderways (really the ship's staircases; but so steep that handholds were carved into the steps), leaving swabs and buckets and half-spliced ropes where they lay. Pazel climbed with them. When they reached the topdeck the crowd was already enormous. All stood to portside, gazing at the shore.

Among them Pazel was glad to find Dastu, his favourite among the senior tarboys. He was a broad-shouldered twenty-year-old from the rough Etherhorde district of Smelter's Den. Like nearly everyone, Dastu was a bit afraid of Pazel — at his touch a man had turned to stone, after all. But Dastu had never once called him muketch (mud-crab) as almost all the other boys did when they realised he was Ormali. Dastu still looked him in the eye. And Dastu shared his knowledge of the Chathrand, its hidden corners, legends, slang. The No. 5 ladderway, close to the stateroom: that was the Silver Stair, because rich passengers used it, and sometimes sealed the Money-Gate to keep the riffraff away from their cabins. Ladderway No. 1 (at the starboard bow) was the Holy Stair, because it was there that old Captain Kurlstaf had heard the voice of Rin. In a sense these little details hardly mattered. But Dastu's efforts did, immensely.

The older boy made room along the rail. 'No one knows what's happening,' he said. 'Those cheers sound blary happy, though, don't they? Strange way to show respect for the dead.'

'Any sign of Admiral Isiq?' asked Pazel.

Dastu shook his head. 'Nobody's come aboard since you did. And the rest of us are trapped out here, blast it.'

Trapped. Dastu was not exaggerating. Captain Rose and the marine commander, Sergeant Drellarek, had authorised no shore leave: only the wedding party had touched land. Sickness had provided a handy excuse: two days earlier the talking fever had broken out in Ormael, where the Chathrand had lain at anchor for a week. Dr Chadfallow had pronounced Thasha and her family in perfect health, but cautioned that the rest of the crew would have to be examined one by one — a process that might take days.

The truth, of course, was that anyone who did go ashore would surely speak of the violent madness they had witnessed on the Great Ship. That was a risk the conspirators could not take.

'The men must be angry,' whispered Pazel.

'Fit to be hog-tied,' said Dastu. 'And the passengers! Do you realise we're holding forty passengers hostage? Just for appearances, mate! There's a big Atamyric family — parents, children, old aunts and uncles — trying to get home via Etherhorde. Some Simjans too. How do you think that would play ashore?'

'Where are they? Locked down in steerage?'

Dastu nodded. Except for Latzlo and Bolutu. Uskins boarded them up in their cabins 'til we get underway. You can bet your breakfast those two are wishing they'd disembarked in Tressik.'

Pazel shook his head. Latzlo was a dealer in exotic animals. He had been with them all the way from Etherhorde, selling walrus ivory in one port, buying sapphire doves in another, trading six-legged bats for fox pelts in a third. But trade alone had not kept him aboard. He wanted to marry Pacu Lapadolma.

No one could deny that he was an optimist. In three months Pazel had heard the girl speak just four words to her suitor: 'You reek of dung.' If she mentioned him to others it was not by name but as 'the imbecile' or 'that wrinkled ape'. Latzlo did not seem to mind: indeed he went on discussing names for their children with anyone who cared to hear.

Bolutu was an even stranger case. A veterinarian much favoured by the Imperial family, he was also a student of the Rinfaith and had taken the vows of a journeyman monk. He was a black man, and there was even a rumour that he was a Slevran, one of the savage nomads of the northern steppe — but yesterday Pazel had heard him speak Mzithrini. Surely, then, he was an enemy spy? But what good was a spy whose looks, acts and voice drew so much attention?

Pazel winced. Not his voice, not anymore. Yesterday, enraged at the man's interference, Arunis had magically forced Bolutu's mouth open and set a live coal upon his tongue. Ramachni had stopped the burning with a counter-spell, no doubt saving the veterinarian's life. But nothing could be done about the tongue. Already Pazel had noticed Bolutu communicating through scribbles in a notebook.

Another happy roar from the city. Pazel looked towards the port and saw men dashing, leaping from one tethered boat to another, making for the city centre. 'It's too weird,' he said to Dastu. 'What've they got to cheer about?'

'See that boat!' cried a sailor on their left. 'Ain't that Dr Chadfallow in the stern?'

And so it was. The doctor was seated in a long skiff, helping out with the oars. Pulling away on his right was Arunis. Uskins, the first mate, was also aboard. They were nearing the Jistrolloq, the White Reaper, fiercest warship of the Mzithrinis' White Fleet. She was anchored less than half a mile from the Chathrand: close enough for Pazel to see the enemy sailors gathering at her bows.

'They look like old shipmates,' growled Dastu. 'He's as much a villain as Arunis himself, that doctor is.'

Pazel's hands tightened on the rail. We won the first round, he thought. We smashed Ott's prophecy to pieces. So what was Felthrup afraid of? And what on earth was keeping Eberzam Isiq?

Now the little boat drew alongside the Jistrolloq, and Pazel saw Chadfallow stand to speak with a Mzithrini officer, possibly the captain himself. What the doctor said he could not hear, but the sailors clustered at the warship's rail greeted his words with astonished cries. After a moment the doctor sat again, and the skiff turned towards the Chathrand.

'By the Tree,' said Dastu. 'The Sizzies are running a new flag up their mainmast! Not their Imperial banner, either. What is it?'

All the Mzithrini ships were doing the same. There were cheers as the pennants rose.

'It's a coat of arms,' said Pazel softly. 'It's Falmurqat's coat of arms.'

'Falmurqat?' said Dastu. 'The prince who was supposed to marry Thasha? Why?'

At that very moment the fireworks began to pop. Whistlers and crackers, bomblets and boomers, followed by the neighs of frightened horses and the barks of hysterical dogs.

Pazel watched the skiff approach. Dr Chadfallow was grim, his face hardened against the rancour virtually everyone on the Chathrand felt for him. But Arunis was smiling: a smile of triumph, or so Pazel imagined. Mr Uskins just looked afraid.

Neeps appeared beside them. He looked at Pazel, ashen-faced.

'Felthrup has this horrible idea-'

'Chathrand! Urloh-leh-li! Ahoy ship Chathrand!'

It was a shout from the Jistrolloq: a Mzithrini officer on her foremast was hailing them through a voice-trumpet. On the Chathrand 's own maintop the officer of the watch put a hand to his ear.

'Felthrup's right,' said Pazel.

Dastu looked from one to the other. 'What are you talking about? Who's Felthrup?'

'Admiral Kuminzat begs the honour of serving Captain Rose, Admiral Isiq and such officers as you choose,' boomed the Mzithrini. 'An hour past sunset, aboard this his flagship. Seven dishes and a puff pastry, with Mangali cordials to follow.'

On the skiff, Arunis put back his head and laughed.

'I think I'm going to be sick,' said Neeps.

'A soldier's daughter.' Pazel ground his fists against his forehead. 'Damn him. Gods damn that man.'

Dastu was at a loss. 'Who, damn who?'

'They're chanting her name,' said Neeps.

'Whose name, blast it?' said Dastu. 'Thasha's?'

'No,' said Pazel. 'The other soldier's daughter. The one Sandor Ott had in his pocket all this time. The girl Prince Falmurqat just married. Pacu Lapadolma.'

Without another word he and Neeps turned and headed aft. All night the circle of friends huddled in the stateroom, conspiring anew but feeling checkmated. All night the fireworks exploded over Simjalla, gold and green and silver, and when the wind blew right they heard the chanting, even to the hour of dawn: Pacu, Pacu, Queen of Peace!