With a little creaking of joints, Gramo seated himself. ‘Ah, but there is no such thing as idle time in the Commonweal. This is a time to reflect and to meditate upon one’s life.’

The idea brought a sour taste to Tynisa’s mouth. I have no more need of that kind of introspection. Anything but. ‘I can’t see how this sort of building can have stood them much stead during the war,’ she remarked, to burn away the silence.

‘Oh, this is no castle, in that sense,’ Gramo admitted. ‘This is Prince Felipe’s new home, built after the loss of his family’s original seat of power. There is little enough change in the Commonweal, but this is a new… interpretation, shall I say, of their architecture. Mind you, I’m afraid their stone castles hardly fared better than this one would. Perhaps that’s the point.’

There was a flurry of wings and a Dragonfly landed a few yards away, a lean man with high cheekbones and hollow cheeks, his hair a steely grey. As he approached them, he moved like a man in his prime, and nothing in his manner or stance suggested age. His clothing was in green and blue, a robe and under-robe as Gramo wore, but of far finer quality, being silk embroidered with gold. For a moment, Tynisa thought that this must, in fact, be the prince unexpectedly answering his own door.

‘Seneschal Lioste,’ Gramo named him. ‘You do me much honour with your presence.’

‘Ambassador,’ the seneschal replied, neither warmly nor coldly, but a simple statement of fact. His eyes flicked to Tynisa questioningly.

‘Ah, well.’ Gramo gestured vaguely in her direction, ‘we have a visitor from the Lowlands, as you may guess. She is sent by Master Stenwold Maker, who visited with the prince so recently.’ The full year that had passed did not make a dent in that ‘recent’, Tynisa guessed. ‘Tynisa Maker is here to pay her formal respects to the prince, or to his retinue during his absence.’