'Her boys, Master?'

'Keal's on the road, coming here. Tain's in the quarantine.' 'With others?'

Carnelian shook his head. Fey lifted a bowl of filigreed turquoise and offered Carnelian its peaches. Carnelian took a fruit, bit into it. He was vaguely aware of its sweetness.

'Our orchards are famous,' said Fey.

Carnelian looked at her and then the fruit. 'Yes… it is delicious.' He put it down. Fey lifted a ewer and poured water over his hands to clean them. Carnelian watched her put it down on its three legs. Each had a human form. Carnelian ran his finger over one of them.

'A Quyan piece, Master, and very rare,' said Fey.

'I promised my people that I'd make this place ready to welcome them,' said Carnelian. There won't be any problems, will there?'

She stretched a smile over her lips.

The other lineages resent my return?'

Fey looked at her hands.

'I see that they do.'

She looked up. Her face in anger was so like his father's that Carnelian started. 'It's not their place to resent you, Master. If you demand the Seal, they'll have to give it to you.'

She clapped her hand over her mouth. Carnelian could see her eyes expecting punishment. He gently peeled her hand off and squeezed it. 'You've not spoken out of turn.'

She frowned and regarded him as if he were a creature come alive out of a story.

'Please, tell me about the Seal,' he said.

Her eyebrows showed a flicker of surprise. 'Whoever holds it rules this coomb.'

'But my father…' Carnelian thought about it. 'It controls all our wealth?'

Fey gave a slow nod.

Carnelian suddenly understood something of the poverty of the Hold. 'But why did he leave it behind?' 'Without it here the coomb wouldn't work.'

'And you're trying to tell me that my father left all this power in the hands of the second lineage?'

Fey compressed her lips, shook her head erratically. 'Fey…?'

The Master left it with the Mistress.'

'You mean my grandmother?'

The Lady Urquentha,' said Fey, using the Quya.

Carnelian frowned. 'I have a letter from her.' He watched Fey go yellow as she dug her chin into her chest. 'What's the matter, Fey?'

Fey would not look up at him. She jerked back from the table, slapped her hands down on the floor and cracked her forehead down between them. Her abject prostration spiked Carnelian with anger.

'Get up, woman.'

Fey looked up with blood smearing above her eyes.

Carnelian winced. 'Look what you've done to yourself.' He reached up but she pulled away. He dug the letter out of his mask and held it up. This isn't for me, Fey, but for my father.'

The Mistress must've received garbled news, Master… the forbidden house… it's closed against the world… she's not allowed to see anyone…'

Carnelian examined her eyes as she rambled. 'Fey, what's the matter? Why are you so frightened?'

She hid her face again. He was trying to think what he could do when a deep clanging made them both look across the courtyard to its gate.

'By your leave, Master.'

He jerked a nod.

Fey rose and fled down the steps. Carnelian watched her recede. The sun was painting colour into the porticoes on his left. Friezes carved into the lintels animated their crowds of marble in the morning sun. A pyramid rose behind from which faces stared out. Beyond it was the striped green sky of the Sacred Wall.

Fey was labouring back towards him looking flushed and distressed. The Masters come.'

The second lineage? Down here?'

She gulped. 'Yes, Master.'

Carnelian's heart sank. 'Here?' He looked at the courtyard with its dead trees and then down at his body wrapped only in the blanket of feathers.

Fey shook her head. The Masters'll want to meet you on neutral territory… probably the Great Hall of Columns.'

Carnelian spread his arms and grinned. 'Shall I go dressed like this?'

She managed a smile. 'By the time we're finished, Master, you'll look like an angel.'

In a chrysalis chamber he stood naked while they painted him with camphor. Its evaporation was like drizzling quicksilver. Fey supervised the shaving of his head and then the polishing of unguents into his skin. In their shimmering perfume, Carnelian outshone the glowing circuit of the alabaster wall.

Inner robes swam through the air as lazily as jellyfish to engulf him. Layer after layer the robes grew heavier, the threads of their weaving more discernible, although the cloth was still so delicate that it would not hold folds but only, and temporarily, flakes of light.

'Do we really need more robes?' he said at last.

Fey looked horrified. The Master must put on an outer robe.' She clapped her hand to have them paraded. Each was carried by two servants like an elaborate piece of furniture. Some were panelled brilliantly with feathers. Others were sculpted into ridges of brocade up whose slopes climbed ladders of ivory and spinelled jewels. In honour of his father, he chose a sombre one of raven plumage flecked with bird-eye opals. His father's ring burned against his chest where he had hung it on a chain.

Fey had them bring Carnelian masks so fine that it seemed as if he held nothing but sunlight in his hands. He chose one whose face might have been stolen from a boy gazing out over a summer sea. Fey nodded her approval as they bound it on.

She surveyed her work proudly. 'All that is needed now is a crown.'

'A crown?' Carnelian's exasperation vibrated the gold skin of his new mask. 'I broil and the woman wants me to wear a crown.'

'You must wear a crown, Master, when you meet them.'

His head drooped. He had almost managed to forget the meeting with the Masters. He brooded as crowns were shown to him, many-tiered, like houses or ships, inlaid with precious leathers, haloed, startling with iridescing feather fans. He would have none of them. He overruled Fey and settled for a simple diadem of black jade. She herself climbed on a stool to put it on his head.

'Beware the father,' she whispered in Quya and then stepped down.

Carnelian thought to ask her what she meant but he saw the servants all around them. Thank you,' he rumbled and they all fell flat upon the floor.

Fey ordered a door to be opened in the alabaster wall. Beyond Carnelian could see only gloom. His skin felt as if it were being pricked with needles. He lurched into movement. The robes were heavier than armour. He had to breathe slow and hard to lift them with his chest. After a few steps he steeled himself but the tug of the cloaks never came. He turned his head as far as he could and glimpsed some of the children carrying his train. He looked back to the lamp-striped corridor and putting one foot before the other began to journey along it.

At first Carnelian thought they were a guard of diamond men, but as he drew closer he saw they were ice blocks. It seemed strange that such vestiges of winter should be found in this land where it was always summer. He passed through their cordon into cooler air, then through another of lamps and saw the two towers of sculptured silk awaiting him. Slabs of samite stiff with jewels joined by barrelling brocade. High in these structures, surrounded by coronas of quetzal plumes, was the gold of their disdainful faces.

As he stopped, he felt the mass of his robes settling round him. The green coronas inclined. He returned the bow. Sweat was soaking into his robes.

Facets flashed as one of the creatures began to move. A long white hand gleamed into being. Shall we be alone?

Carnelian lifted his arm against the weight of his sleeves and made a gesture of affirmation.

The other's fingers shaped a sign of dismissal. There was an impression of movement in the shadows. Carnelian felt something pull at his shoulders, looked round and saw the children arranging his train in folds over the floor.