DeWar looked at the doors with a pained expression, as a small boy with no coin might look at a sweet shop counter. "I really do think I ought to be with you during these briefings, sir."

"Now, DeWar," UrLeyn said, taking hold of his elbow. "I shall be safe with my military men, and there will be a double guard on the doors here."

"Sir, leaders who have been assassinated have usually believed that they were safe until the instant before it happened."

"DeWar," UrLeyn said kindly. "I can trust all these men with my life. I have known almost all of them for most of it. Certainly I have known most of them for longer than I have known you. I can trust them."

"But, sir-"

"And you make some of them uncomfortable, DeWar," UrLeyn said, with a hint of impatience. "They think a bodyguard should not be so opinionated as you have been. And your mere presence suffices to unsettle some of them. They think there's an extra shadow in the room."

"I shall dress in motley, put on the uniform of a fool-"

"You will not," UrLeyn told him, and put his hand on the other man's shoulder. "I order you to amuse yourself as you see fit for the next two bells and then return here and resume your duties after my generals have told me how many more towns we've taken since yesterday." He clapped DeWar's shoulder. "Now be gone. And if I'm not here when you come back I shall have returned to the harem for another bout with your opponent." He grinned at the other man and squeezed his arm. "All this talk of war and victorious battles seems to put a young man's blood in my cock!"

He left DeWar standing there, staring at the tiled floor of the corridor while the doors opened and closed on the sound of talking men. The two palace guards joined their comrades on either side of the doors.

DeWar's jaw worked as though he was chewing on something, then he spun and walked quickly away.

The plasterer had almost finished the remedial work on the Painted Chamber. A final layer was drying and he was kneeling on his white-spotted sheet surveying his tools and buckets and trying to remember the correct order to put them away. This was a job normally done by his apprentice, but he had had to, do it himself on this job because it was all so secret.

The chamber's door was unlocked and the black-clad figure of DeWar, the Protector's bodyguard, walked in. The plasterer felt a chill go through him when he saw the look on the tall man's dark face. Providence, they didn't intend to kill him now he'd done his job, did they? He'd known it was secret — what he had plastered up was a hidden alcove for someone to spy on people, that was obvious — but could it be so secret they'd kill him afterwards to stop him from talking? He'd done jobs in the palace before. He was honest and he kept his mouth shut. They knew that. They knew him. One of the palace guards was his brother. He could be trusted. He wouldn't tell anyone about this. He'd swear to that on his children's lives. They couldn't kill him. Could they?

He shrank back as DeWar approached. The bodyguard's sword wagged from side to side in its black scabbard while the long dagger at his other hip bounced in its own dark sheath. The plasterer looked into the other man's face and saw only a blank, cold expression that was more terrifying than a look of pitiless fury or an assassin's lying smile. He tried to find his voice, but could not. He felt his bowels start to loosen.

DeWar hardly seemed to see him. He glanced down at him, then at the new plaster partition still drying between the other painted panels, like a blood-drained lifeless face between living ones, then he walked past, to the small dais. The plasterer, his mouth dry, swivelled round where he knelt to watch. The bodyguard clutched one arm of the small throne on the dais, then he went and stood before a panel on the far side of the room which showed a scene set within a harem, full of stylised images of languidly buxom ladies in revealing dresses all lounging around, playing games and sipping from tiny glasses.

The black figure stood there for a moment. When he spoke, the plasterer jumped.

"Is the panel finished?" he asked. His voice was loud and hollow-sounding in the bare room.

The plasterer swallowed, coughed dryly and eventually was able to croak, "Ye-ye-yes, yes, sir. Ready for the p-painter by tomorrow."

Still facing the painting of the harem, still with hollow-sounding voice, the bodyguard said, "Good." Then without warning, and with no back-swing, just a single startlingly sudden thrust, he rammed his right fist straight through the panel he was standing in front of.

On the other side of the chamber, the plasterer yelped.

DeWar stood there a moment longer, half his lower arm protruding from the harem painting. A few painted plaster pieces fell dryly to the floor as he slowly withdrew his arm again.

The plasterer trembled. He wanted to get up and run but he felt glued to the spot. He wanted to raise his arms to defend himself but they seemed pinned to his sides.

DeWar stood, looking down at his right forearm, slowly brushing the white plaster dust off the black material. Then he spun on his heel and walked quickly to the door, where he paused and looked back with a face that seemed now to have taken on an expression of inconsolable torment. He glanced at the panel he had just punctured. "You may find another panel which needs repair. It must have been broken earlier, must it not?"

The plasterer nodded vigorously. "Yes. Yes, oh yes, of course, sir. Oh yes, very very definitely. I noticed it myself earlier, sir. I'll attend to it immediately, sir."

The bodyguard looked at him for a moment. "Good. The guard will let you out."

Then he was gone, and the door closed and was locked.

The Guard Commander of Yvenir palace held a scented kerchief to his nose. Before him was a stone slab fitted with iron manacles, leg-irons and hide straps. None of these was required to restrain the current occupant of the slab, for spread upon it lay the limp body of the King's chief torturer, Nolieti, naked save for a small cloth draped over his genitals. Beside Guard Commander Polchiek stood Ralinge, chief torturer to Duke Quettil, and a young, grey-faced and sweating scribe sent by Guard Commander Adlain, who had taken personal command of the hunting party seeking the apprentice Unoure. These three were faced on the other side of the slab by Doctor Vosill, her assistant (that is, myself) and Doctor Skelim, personal physician to Duke Quettil.

The questioning chamber underneath the palace of Yvenir was relatively small and low-ceilinged. It smelled of a variety of unpleasant things, including Nolieti himself. It was not that the body had started to decay — the murder had happened only a couple of hours ago — but from the dirt and grime visible on the otherwise pale skin of the dead chief torturer it was obvious that he had not been the most personally hygienic of men. Guard Commander Polchiek watched a flea crawl out from beneath the cloth over the man's groin and start to travel up the slack curve of his stomach.

"Look," Doctor Skelim said, pointing at the tiny black shape moving over the mottled grey skin of the corpse. "Somebody's leaving the sinking ship."

"Looking for warmth," Doctor Vosill said, reaching quickly out to the insect. It disappeared an instant before her hand got there, jumping away. Polchiek looked amused, and I too wondered at the Doctor's naïveté. What was that proverb about there being only so many ways to catch a flea? But then the Doctor's fingers snapped closed in mid air, she inspected what she had there, nipped their tips more tightly together and then brushed the remains off on her hip. She looked up at Polchiek, whose face wore a surprised expression. "It might have jumped on one of us," she said.