On the slope above, the sounds of the main part of the hunt were coming closer.

DeWar glanced back at the ort. It looked very dead.

"And who fired first?" Perrund asked quietly and without moving. Her head was tipped, lowered over the "Secret Keep" board, studying her next move. They were sitting in the visiting chamber of the harem, towards ninth bell. There had been a particularly noisy after-hunt feast that evening, though UrLeyn had retired early.

"It was YetAmidous," DeWar said, no more loudly. "His was the shot that lifted the Protector's cap off his head. The cap was found downstream. The bolt was embedded inside a log by the stream. A finger-breadth lower…"

"Indeed. And so it was RuLeuin's that just missed you.

"And just missed UrLeyn, too, though I think it was his waist it missed by a hand's breadth or so, not his head by a finger's."

"Could each bolt plausibly have been meant for the ort?’

"… Yes. Neither man is regarded as a marksman. If YetAmidous really was aiming for UrLeyn's head then I imagine that most of the people in the court who consider themselves authorities on this sort of matter would judge it as a surprisingly accurate shot, given the circumstances. And YetAmidous did seem genuinely shocked that he'd missed the Protector by so small a margin. And RuLeuin is his brother, for all Providence." DeWar sighed heavily, then yawned and rubbed his eyes. "And YetAmidous, as well as being a poor shot, is just not the type to be an assassin."

"Hmm," Perrund said in a particular tone.

"What?" Only as he said this did DeWar realise how well he felt he had come to know the woman. Just the way she had made that single sound had meant much to him.

"I have a friend who spends quite a lot of time in YetAmidous" company," Perrund said softly. "She has said that he delights in card games played for money. He takes even greater delight in making it seem that he is ignorant of the subtleties of the games and pretending that he is a poor player. He appears to forget the rules, has to ask what to do at certain points, inquires as to the meaning of terms the other players use, and so on. Often he will deliberately lose a series of small bets. In fact he is only waiting until an especially large wager is at stake, whereupon he almost invariably wins, much to his own apparent surprise. She has seen this happen time after time. His friends are wise to him now, and are amused as well as wary, but many a young and smirking nobleman who thought himself in the presence of a bumbling fool ripe for the picking has been lucky to leave YetAmidous" house with a coin to call his own."

DeWar realised that he was biting his lip as he stared at the game board. "So the man is a skilled dissembler, not a buffoon. That is worrying." He looked up at Perrund, though she did not meet his gaze. He found himself inspecting the blonde mass of her gathered-up hair, marvelling at its sheen and perfect fairness. "Your friend would not have any further observations or opinions on the gentleman, would she?"

Still not looking up, Perrund took a long deep breath. He watched her shoulders in the red gown, glanced down to the swell of material over her breasts. "Once, perhaps twice," she said, "when YetAmidous has been very drunk, she has thought he revealed… a certain jealous contempt for the Protector. And I think he has little regard for you." She looked up suddenly.

DeWar felt himself rock back slightly, as though afflicted by the force of the gaze from those blue-flecked gold eyes. "Though none of this is to say that he is not still a good and loyal follower of the Protector," Perrund said. "If one is determined to find fault then looking hard enough will produce reason to distrust everybody." She looked down again.

"Of course," DeWar said, and felt his face grow warm. "Still, I would rather know such things than not."

Perrund moved one piece, then another. "There," she said.

DeWar continued with his analysis of the game.

Master, the masked ball took place six days later. The King still had a slight cold, but the Doctor had given hire a preparation made from flowers and mountain herbs which dried up his «membranes» (by which I think she meant his nose) for the duration of the dance. She advised him to avoid alcohol and to drink copious amounts of water, or better still fruit juice. However, I believe that during the ball he was quickly persuaded, principally by himself, that the definition of fruit juice might include wine and so drank a deal of that during the ball.

The Grand Ballroom of Yvenage is a dramatic circular space half of whose circumference is taken up with floor to ceiling windows. In the year since the court had last visited Yvenir, the windows had been refashioned throughout their lower quarter. The great pastel-green plaster panels had been replaced with a grid of wood holding smaller panes of thin, colourless glass. The glass was almost crystal in its perfection, affording a barely distorted view of the moonlit landscape of forested hills across the valley. The effect was extraordinarily eye-catching and it seemed, from the expressions of wonder I heard uttered and the extravagance of the estimates made within my earshot concerning the cost of such a project, that people could hardly have been more impressed had the new windows been made of diamond.

The orchestra sat on a low circular stage set in the centre of the room, each player facing inwards to watch their conductor, who swivelled towards each" section of the musicians in turn. The dancers swirled round this focus like fallen leaves caught within a spiralling wind, the intricate sets and patterns of the dances providing an order within that apparent chaos.

The Doctor was one of the more striking women present. Partly the effect was achieved through her height. There were taller women there, yet still she seemed to shine out amongst them. She possessed a bearing that was in all senses naturally elevated. She wore a gown that was plain by comparison with most. It was a dark and lustrous green, to set off the wide, netted fan of her carefully arrayed red hair. Her gown was unfashionably narrow.

Master, I confess I felt excited and honoured to be there. The Doctor having no other escort, it fell to me to accompany her to the ball, and so I was able to think with some pleasure of my fellow apprentices and assistants, most of whom were banished downstairs. Only the senior pages were permitted to attend, and the few of those not expected to act purely as servants were all too aware of their inability to shine in a company containing so many junior noblemen. The Doctor, in contrast, treated me as her equal, and made not one demand on me as an apprentice the whole ball long.

The mask I had chosen was a plain one of flesh-coloured paper painted so that one half looked happy, with a big smile at the lips and a raised brow, while the other side looked sad, with downcast mouth and a small tear at the eye. The Doctor's was a half-face made of light, highly polished silver treated with some sort of lacquer. It was, I thought, the best and perhaps the most disconcerting mask that I saw all that night, for it reflected the observer's gaze right back at them and so disguised the wearer — for whatever that was worth, given the Doctor's unmistakable form — better than the most cunning creation of feathers, filigreed gold or sparkling gems.

Beneath the mirror-like mask, the Doctor's lips looked full and tender. She had coloured them with the red oil-cream that many of the ladies at court use for such occasions. I had never seen her adorn herself so before. How moist and succulent that mouth looked!

We sat at a great table in one of the ballroom's anterooms, surrounded by fine ladies of the court and their escorts and looked down upon by huge paintings of nobles, their animals and estates. Servants with drinks trays circulated everywhere. I couldn't recall having seen a ball so well staffed before, though it did seem to me that some of the servants looked a bit rough and ready, handling their trays with a degree of awkwardness. The Doctor did not choose to stay in the ballroom itself between dances and seemed reluctant to take part at all. I formed the impression she was only there because the King expected her to be, and while she might have enjoyed the dances, she was afraid of making some error of etiquette.