“Isn’t that nice?” Toller smiled broadly at Gesalla. “Now we can all be friends together.”

“Please see that she leaves by one of the side gates,” Gesalla said. She turned and strode away, head thrown back, each foot descending directly in front of the other.

Toller shook his head. “What do you think was the matter with her?”

“Some women are easily upset.” Fera straightened up and pushed Toller away from her. “Show me the way out.”

“I thought you wanted breakfast.”

“I thought you wanted me to go home.”

“You must have misunderstood me,” Toller said. “I’d like you to stay, for as long as you want. Have you a job to worry about?”

“Oh, I have a very important position in the Samlue market — gutting fish.” Fera held up her hands, which were reddened and marked by numerous small cuts. “How do you think I got these?”

“Forget the job,” Toller urged, enclosing her hands with his own. “Go back to bed and wait for me there. I’ll have food sent to you. You can rest and eat and drink all day — and tonight we’ll go on the pleasure barges.”

Fera smiled, filling the triangular gap in her teeth with the tip of her tongue. “Your sister-in-law.…”

“Is only my sister-in-law. I was born in this house and grew up in it and have the right to invite guests. You are staying, aren’t you?”

“Will there be spiced pork?”

“I assure you that entire piggeries are reduced to spiced pork on a daily basis in this house,” Toller said, leading Fera back into the room. “Now, you stay here until I get back, then we’ll take up where we left off.”

“All right.” She lay down on the bed, settled herself comfortably on the pillows and spread her legs. “Just one thing before you go.”

“Yes?”

She gave him her full white smile. “Perhaps you’d better tell me your name.”

Toller was still chuckling as he reached the stairs at the end of the corridor and went down towards the central section of the house, from which was emanating the sound of many voices. He found Fera’s company refreshing, but her presence in the house might be just too much of an affront to Gesalla to be tolerated for very long. Two or three days would be sufficient to make the point that Gesalla had no right to insult him or his guests, that any effort she made to dominate him — as she did his brother — would be doomed to failure.

When Toller reached the bottom flight of the main staircase he found about a dozen people gathered in the entrance hall. Some were computational assistants; others were domestics and grooms who seemed to have gathered to watch their master set off for his appointment at the Great Palace. Lain Maraquine was wearing the antique-styled formal garment of a senior philosopher — a full-length robe of dove grey trimmed at the hem and cuff with black triangles. Its silky material emphasised the slightness of his build, but his posture was upright and dignified. His face, beneath the heavy sweeps of black hair, was very pale. Toller felt a surge of affection and concern as he crossed the hall — the council meeting was obviously an important occasion for his brother and he was already showing the strain.

“You’re late,” Lain said, eyeing him critically. “And you should be wearing your greys.”

“There was no time to get them ready. I had a rough night.”

“Gesalla has just told me what kind of night you had.” Lain’s expression showed a blend of amusement and exasperation. “Is it true you didn’t even know the woman’s name?”

Toller shrugged to disguise his embarrassment. “What do names matter?”

“If you don’t know that there isn’t much point in my trying to enlighten you.”

“I don’t need you to.…” Toller took a deep breath, determined for once not to add to his brother’s problems by losing his temper. “Where is the stuff you want me to carry?” The official residence of King Prad Neldeever was notable more for its size than architectural merit. Successive generations of rulers had added wings, towers and cupolas to suit their individual whims, usually in the style of the day, with the result that the building had some resemblance to a coral or one of the accretive structures erected by certain kinds of insects. An early landscape gardener had attempted to impose a degree of order by planting stands of synchronous parble and rafter trees, but over the centuries they had been infiltrated by other varieties. The palace, itself variegated because of different masonry, was now screened by vegetation equally uneven in colour, and from a distance it could be difficult for the eye to separate one from the other.

Toller Maraquine, however, was untroubled by such aesthetic quibbles as he rode down from Greenmount at the rear of his brother’s modest entourage. There had been rain before dawn and the morning air was clean and invigorating, charged with a sunlit spirit of new beginnings. The huge disk of Overland shone above him with a pure lustre and many stars decked the surrounding blueness of the sky. The city itself was an incredibly complex scattering of multi-hued flecks stretching down to the slate-blue ribbon of the Borann, where sails gleamed like lozenges of snow.

Toller’s pleasure at being back in Ro-Atabri, at having escaped the desolation of Haffanger, had banished his customary dissatisfaction with his life as an unimportant member of the philosophy order. After the unfortunate start to the day the pendulum of his mood was on the upswing. His mind was teeming with half-formed plans to improve his reading ability, to seek out some interesting aspect of the order’s work and devote all his energies to it, to make Lain proud of him. On reflection he could appreciate that Gesalla had had every right to be furious over his behaviour. It would be no more than a normal courtesy were he to move Fera out of his apartment as soon as he returned home.

The sturdy bluehorn he had been allocated by the stablemaster was a placid beast which seemed to know its own way to the palace. Leaving it to its own devices as it plodded the increasingly busy streets, Toller tried to create a more definite picture of his immediate future, one which might impress Lain. He had heard of one research group which was trying to develop a combination of ceramics and glass threads which would be tough enough to stand in for brakka in the manufacture of swords and armour. It was quite certain that they would never succeed, but the subject was nearer to his taste than chores like the measuring of rainfall, and it would please Lain to know that he was supporting the conservation movement. The next step was to think of a way of winning Gesalla’s approval.…

By the time the philosophy delegation had passed through the heart of the city and had crossed the river at the Bytran Bridge the palace and its grounds were spanning the entire view ahead. The party negotiated the four concentric bloom-spangled moats, whose ornamentation disguised their function, and halted at the palace’s main gate. Several guards, looking like huge black beetles in their heavy armour, came forward at a leisurely pace. While their commander was laboriously checking the visitors’ names on his list one of his pikemen approached Toller and, without speaking, began roughly delving among the rolled-up charts in his panniers. When he had finished he paused to spit on the ground, then turned his attention to the collapsed easel which was strapped across the bluehorn’s haunches. He tugged at the polished wooden struts so forcibly that the bluehorn sidestepped against him.

“What’s the matter with you?” he growled, shooting Toller a venomous look. “Can’t you control that fleabag?”

I’m a new person, Toller assured himself, and I can’t be goaded into brawls. He smiled and said, “Can you blame her for wanting to get near you?”

The pikeman’s lips moved silently as he came closer to Toller, but at that moment the guard commander gave the signal for the party to proceed on its way. Toller urged his mount forward and resumed his position behind Lain’s carriage. The minor brush with the guard had left him slightly keyed-up but otherwise unaffected, and he felt pleased with the way he had comported himself. It had been a valuable exercise in avoiding unnecessary trouble, the art he intended to practise for the rest of his life. Sitting easily in the saddle, enjoying the rhythm of the bluehorn’s stately gait, he turned his thoughts to the business ahead.