A light-well above the slab had been opened for what was — to judge from the amount of dust and debris that rained down upon the unfortunate scribe sent to do the opening by Doctor Vosill — the first time in a long time.

A brace of floor-standing candelabra added their own light to the gruesome scene.

"May we proceed?" the Guard Commander of Yvenir asked in a rumbling voice. Polchiek was a big, tall man with a single great scar from grey hair line to chin. A fall while hunting the previous year had left him with a knee that could not bend. It was for this reason that Adlain and not he was in charge of the search for Unoure. "I have never enjoyed attending any sort of event down here."

"I don't imagine the subjects of those events did either," Doctor Vosill observed.

"Nor did they deserve to," Doctor Skelim said, one of his small hands playing nervously with his collar ruff as his gaze flicked round the barrel-vaulted walls and ceiling. "It is a cramped, oppressive sort of place, isn't it?" He glanced at the Guard Commander.

Polchiek nodded. 'Nolieti used to complain that there was barely room to swing a whip," he said. The grey-faced scribe began to make notes in a small slate-book. The fine point of the chalk made a scratching, squeaking noise on the stone.

Skelim snorted. "Well, he will swing no more of those. Is there any word on Unoure, Guard Commander??

"We know which way he went," Polchiek said. "The hunting party should pick him up before dark."

"Do you think he will be in one piece?" asked Doctor Vosill.

"Adlain is not unused to hunting in these woods, and my hounds are well trained. The youth may suffer a bite or two, but he'll be alive when he is delivered to Master Ralinge here," Polchiek said, glancing at the wide little barrel of a man standing at his side and staring with a sort of greedy fascination at the wound that had gone most of the way towards separating Nolieti's head from his shoulders. Ralinge looked slowly up at Polchiek when he heard his name mentioned, and smiled, showing a full set of teeth which he was proud to have removed from his victims and which he had used to replace his own diseased items. Polchiek made a rumbling, disapproving noise.

"Yes. Well, Unoure's fate is what concerns me here, gentlemen," Doctor Vosill said.

"Really, madam?" Polchiek said, keeping his kerchief at his mouth and nose. "What concern of yours is his fate?" He turned to Ralinge. "I believe his destiny now lies in the hands of those of us on this side of the table, Doctor. Or does the lad have a medical condition that may rob us of the chance to question him on the matter?"

"Unoure is unlikely to have been the murderer," the Doctor said.

Doctor Skelim made a derisory snorting noise. Polchiek looked up at the ceiling, which for him was not far away. Ralinge did not take his gaze off the wound.

"Really, Doctor?" Polchiek said, sounding bored. "And what brings you to that strange conclusion?"

"The man is dead," Skelim said angrily, waving one thin hand at the corpse. "Murdered in his own chamber. His assistant was seen running into the woods while the body was still oozing blood. His master used to beat him, and worse. Everybody knows that. Only a woman would not see the obvious in this."

"Oh, let the good lady doctor have her say," Polchiek said. "I for one am already quite fascinated."

"Doctor, indeed," muttered Skelim, looking away to one side.

The Doctor ignored her colleague and bent over to grip the ragged flaps of skin that had been Nolieti's neck. I found myself swallowing hard. "The wound was caused by a serrated instrument, probably a large knife," she said.

"Astonishing," Skelim said sarcastically.

"There was a single cut, from left to right," the Doctor said, teasing apart the flaps of skin near the corpse's left ear. I confess that her assistant was feeling a little queasy at this juncture, though — like the torturer Ralinge — I could not tear my gaze from the wound. "It severed all the major blood vessels, the larynx-"

"The what?" Skelim said.

"The larynx," the Doctor said patiently, pointing to the roughly slashed pipe inside Nolieti's neck. "The upper part of the wind-pipe."

"We call it the upper part of the wind-pipe here," Doctor Skelim told her with a sneer. "We have no need for foreign words. Quacks and the like tend to use them when they're trying to impress people with their spurious wisdom."

"But if we look deeper," the Doctor said, levering the corpse's head right back and lifting its shoulders partly off the surface of the slab. "Oelph. Would you put that block underneath the shoulders here?"

I picked a piece of wood shaped like a miniature executioner's block up off the floor and stuck it under the dead man's shoulders. I was feeling sick. "Hold his hair, would you, Oelph?" the Doctor said, forcing Nolietis head back still further. There was a glutinous sucking noise as the wound opened further. I took hold of Nolieti's sparse brown hair and looked away as I pulled on it.

"Looking deeper," the Doctor repeated, seemingly quite unaffected as she bent close over the tangle of multicoloured tissues and tubes that had been Nolieti's throat, "we can see that the murder weapon cut so deep it nicked the victim's upper spinal column, here, at the third cervical vertebra."

Doctor Skelim snorted derisively again, but from the corner of my eye I saw him leaning closer to the opened wound. A sudden retching sound came from the far side of the table as Guard Commander Adlain's scribe turned quickly away and doubled over by a drain, his slate-book clattering to the ground. I felt my own bile rising and tried to swallow it back.

"Here. Do you see? Lodged in the cartilage of the voice box. A splinter of the vertebra, deposited there as the weapon was withdrawn."

"Very interesting, I'm sure," Polchiek said. "What is your point?"

"The direction of the cut would indicate the murderer was right-handed. Almost certainly the right hand was used, in any event. The depth and penetration points to a person of considerable strength, and incidentally reinforces the likelihood that the murderer was using his favoured hand, for people are rarely able to apply so much power so accurately and so certainly with their non-favoured hand. Also the angle of the cut — the way the wound slopes upward relative to the victim's throat — implies that the murderer was a good head or so taller than the victim."

"Oh, Providence!" Doctor Skelim said loudly. "Why not rip out his innards and read them like the priests of old to find the murderer's name? I guarantee they will say 'Unoure' in any event, or whatever his name is."

Doctor Vosill turned to Skelim. "Don't you see? Unoure is shorter than Nolieti, and left-handed. I imagine he is of average strength, perhaps a little more, but he does not have the look of a particularly powerful man."

"Perhaps he was in a rage," Polchiek suggested. "People can gather an inhuman strength in certain circumstances. I have heard they do so particularly in a place like this."

"And Nolieti might have been kneeling down at the time," Doctor Skelim pointed out.

"Or Unoure was standing on a stool," Ralinge said in a voice that was surprisingly soft and sibilant. He smiled.

The Doctor glanced towards a nearby wall. 'Nolieti was standing at that workbench when he.was attacked from behind. Arterial blood sprayed the ceiling and venous blood fell directly on the bench itself. He was not kneeling."

The scribe completed his retching, picked up his fallen slatebook and stood again, returning to his place by the table with an apologetic look at Polchiek, who ignored him.

"Mistress?" I ventured.

"Yes, Oelph?"

"Might I let go his hair now?"

"Yes, of course, Oelph. I beg your pardon."

"What does it matter exactly how Unoure did it?" Doctor Skelim said. "He must have been here when it happened. He ran away after it had happened. Of course he did it." Doctor Skelim looked disgustedly at Doctor Vosill.