"The door behind him," Adlain said. "There, behind where the screen was. Was the door open?"

"No, sir."

"You are sure."

"Yes, sir."

Quettil leaned towards the King. "My man Ralinge will make sure this is the truth," he murmured. The Doctor heard this and glared at the Duke. The King only frowned.

"Is the door locked?" Adlain asked Polchiek.

Polchiek frowned. "It should be," he said, "and the key should be in the lock." He crossed the room to the door, found that there was no key, looked to the floor for a few moments, then pulled and pushed at the door.. He felt inside a fat pouch at his waist, pulled out a ring bristling with long keys and eventually found one which he tried in the door's lock. The lock clicked, the door opened inwards and a couple of armed guards dressed as servants looked quizzically in, straightening when they saw their Commander, who spoke briefly to them and closed and locked the door again. He returned to the group round the table. "The guards have been there since a little after the alarm was raised," he told Adlain. His big, clumsy-looking fingers fumbled with the ring of keys, trying to fit it back into the pouch at his waist.

"How many keys to that door are there?" Adlain asked.

"This one, one for the palace seneschal and the one which ought to be in the door, on this side," Polchiek told him.

"Droythir, where was this dark bird you saw?" the Doctor asked.

"Where the gentleman was, ma'am." Suddenly her face seemed to collapse and a look of uncertainty and sadness wrote itself across her features. "Perhaps it was just a shadow, ma'am. The candle, and the screen falling." She looked down. 'A shadow," she murmured to herself.

"Let the Duchess in," the King said, as one of the guards dressed as a servant approached Quettil and muttered into his ear.

"The Duchess has fainted and been taken to her room, sir," Quettil told the King. "However, I am told there is a young page who may have something to tell us."

"Well then, bring him in," the King said, sounding annoyed. Droythir and Uoljeval were pulled back towards the centre of the room by those holding them. The young man staggered to his feet, still weeping quietly. The girl stared ahead, silent.

Feulecharo approached from the doors, looking smaller than I had ever seen him look, his face almost translucent, his eyes bulging.

"Feulecharo?" Adlain said. He looked round the others. "Page to the late Duke," he said by way of explanation to those who needed it.

Feulecharo cleared his throat. He looked nervously round us all, then saw the Doctor and gave me a small smile. "Your majesty," he said, bowing to the King. "Duke Quettil, sirs, madam. I know something — very little, but something — of what happened here."

"You do?" Quettil said, his eyes narrowing. The King shifted from one leg to the other, winced, then nodded in appreciation as the Doctor brought up a chair for him to sit in.

Feulecharo nodded towards the far corner of the room. "I was in the corridor, behind that door, sirs, earlier."

"Doing what, might one ask?" Quettil said.

Feulecharo swallowed. He glanced at Droythir and Uoljeval, who had been brought forward again to the side of the table, their arms still held behind them. "I had been asked by the Duchess to…" Feulecharo licked his lips. "To follow the Duke and see what he was doing."

"And you followed him here?" Adlain said. He knew Feulecharo a little, and sounded purposeful but not unkind.

"Yes, sir. With the two young people." Feulecharo glanced at Droythir and Uoljeval, neither of whom responded. "The Duchess thought perhaps there was some arrangement between the young lady and the Duke. I watched them enter this withdrawing room, and found my way to the corridor outside. I thought I might hear something, or see something through the keyhole, but it was blocked."

"By a key?" Adlain asked.

"I think not, sir. Rather by the little shutter on the far side. However," Feulecharo said, "I had with me a small metal mirror and thought to see something under the bottom of the door."

"And did you?" Quettil asked.

"Only a single light, like a candle flame, Duke Quettil. I could hear the young man and woman making the sounds of love, and sense some movement, but that was all."

"And when the Duke was stabbed?" Polchiek asked.

Feulecharo took a deep breath. "Just before that, sir, I think, I was hit on the back of the head, and rendered unconscious. I imagine for just a few minutes." He turned and held his hair up at the back, exposing a scab of glistening, half-dried blood and a large lump.

The King looked at the Doctor, who went forward and looked at the wound. "Oelph," she said. "Some water, please. And a napkin or something similar. Is that a bottle of spirit wine there on the floor? That, too."

Feulecharo sat in a seat while his wound was cleaned and inspected. Adlain looked closely at the injury. "That certainly looks to me like it might knock a fellow out for a moment or two," he said. "You would agree, Doctor?"

"Yes," she said.

"And when you woke up, what was there to be seen then?" Polchiek asked Feulecharo.

"Sir, I could hear the commotion in the room and people crying out. There was nobody else in the corridor where I was. I was very dizzy and went to the privy to be sick, then I went to find the Duchess, and that was when I heard that the Duke had been murdered."

Adlain and Polchiek exchanged looks. "You did not sense anybody behind you when you were hit?" Adlain asked.

"No, sir," Feulecharo said, wincing as the Doctor dabbed some spirit wine on his wound. "I was concentrating too sorely on the mirror."

"This mirror…" Polchiek began.

"It is here, sir. I had the presence of mind to retrieve it before I made my way to the privy." Feulecharo dug into a pocket and pulled out a coin-sized piece of highly polished metal. He handed it to Polchiek, who passed it round the other men.

"Is the Duchess Walen a particularly jealous woman, would you say, Feulecharo?" Adlain asked, turning the small mirror over in his fingers.

"Not especially so, sir," Feulecharo said. He sounded awkward, though that may just have been because the Doctor was holding his head forward while she completed the cleaning of his wound.

"You have told us everything of the truth, have you not, Feulecharo?" the King asked gravely.

Feulecharo looked at him as best he could with his head still bent forward by the Doctor. "Oh, yes, your majesty."

"When you were hit, Feulecharo," the Doctor said, letting go of his head, "did you fall against the door, or to the floor?"

Quettil made a tutting noise. Feulecharo thought for a moment. "I woke up resting against the door, ma'am," he said, then looked at Adlain and, the others.

"So if somebody had opened the door into the room," the Doctor said, "you would have fallen in too."

"I suppose I would have, ma'am. I would have required being put back into the same position after it had been closed again."

"You are hiding nothing from us, young man?" Quettil asked.

Feulecharo seemed to be about to speak, but then hesitated. I had thought him more intelligent than that, but perhaps the blow to his head had addled his brains.

"What?" the King said sternly.

"Your majesty, sirs," Feulecharo said in a dry, strainedsounding voice. "The Duchess thought the Duke might be seeing the young lady here. That was what exercised her jealousy. She would not have minded so much, perhaps not have minded at all if she had known it was only to… to watch others." Feulecharo looked round the men in the room, avoiding my eyes and the Doctor's. "Why, she would have laughed to have known what was going on in here, sirs. No more. And there is nobody she would trust more than me. I know her, sirs. She would not cause such a thing to be done." He licked his lips and swallowed hard again, then looked despondently at the mound of table cloth covering the body of the Duke.