“What I must have from you, my lady, is an authorisation. Trinor or Grif must command that army when it meets the Moidart, or failing one of them, myself-this Waterbeck is a peacetime general, I would guess, and has not the experience of a Methven.

“You must not fear too greatly. Can it be done, we will do it, and fall bringing a victory about. Keep order here and faith with what Methven remain, even though we have not used you well.”

She smiled, and the smile passed barriers he had not thought existed in his morose soul. She took off one of the steel Rings of Neap and slid it onto his left index finger, which was hardly of greater diameter than her own, saying:

“This will be your authorisation. It is traditional. Will you take a launch? They are swifter-”

He rose to leave, and found himself reluctant.

“No launch, my lady. Those, you must keep jealously, in case we fail. And I prefer to ride.”

At the door of the room with five windows, he looked back through the drifting shapes and curtains of light, and it seemed to him that he saw a lost, beautiful child. She brought to mind his dead sister Galen, and he was not surprised: what shook him was that those memories somehow lacked the force they had had that morning. Cromis was a man who, like most recluses, thought he understood himself, and did not.

The great white sloth watched him out with almost human eyes, rearing up to its full height, its ambered claws glinting.

He stayed in the city for that night and another day. It was quiet, the streets empty and stunned. He had snippets of rumour that the Moidart’s remaining supporters skulked the narrower alleys after dark and skirmished with groups of the city guard. He did not discount them, and kept a hand on the nameless sword. He expected to find Trinor somewhere in the old Artists’ Quarter.