There was a delay of several minutes before the military prince came to the head of the stair. He was eating the leg of a roast quickfowl, and added to the discourtesy by continuing to gnaw at the bone in silence until it was stripped of all flesh. Toller began to get sombre premonitions. Leddravohr threw the bone to the floor, wiped his lips with the back of a hand and slowly came down the stairs. He was still wearing his sword — another incivility — and his smooth face showed no sign of tiredness.

“Well, Lord Glo, it appears I have needlessly kept you here all day.” Leddravohr’s tone made it clear that he was not apologising. “I have learned most of what I need to know and will be able to finish here in the morning. Many other matters demand my attention, so to avoid wasting time in travelling back and forth to the palace I will sleep here tonight. You will be in attendance at the sixth hour. I take it you can bestir yourself by that time?”

“I shall be here at the sixth hour, Prince,” Glo said.

“That is good to know,” Leddravohr replied, jovially sarcastic. He strolled along the line, paused when he reached Toller and Fera, and produced the instantaneous smile which had nothing to do with humour. Toller faced him as woodenly as possible, his foreboding turning into a certainty that a day which had begun badly was going to end badly. Leddravohr turned off his smile, walked back to the stair and began to ascend. Toller was beginning to wonder if his premonitions could have been groundless when Leddravohr halted on the third step.

“What is this?” he mused, keeping his back to the attentive group. “My brain is weary, and yet my body craves activity. There is a decision to be made here — shall I have a woman, or shall I not?”

Toller, already knowing the answer to Leddravohr’s rhetorical question, brought his mouth close to Fera’s ear. “This is my fault,” he whispered. “Leddravohr hates better than I knew. He wants to use you as a weapon against me, and there is nothing we can do about it. You’ll just have to go with him.”

“We’ll see,” Fera said, her composure unaffected.

Leddravohr drummed his fingers on the balustrade, prolonging the moment, then turned to face the hall. “You,” he said, pointing at Gesalla. “Come with me.”

“But…!” Toller took one step forward, breaking the line, his body a pounding column of blood. He gazed in helpless outrage at Gesalla as she touched Lain’s hand and walked towards the stair with a strange floating movement as though tranced and not really aware of what was happening. Her beautiful face was almost luminescent in its pallor. Leddravohr went ahead of her and the two were lost in the flickering dimness of the upper floor.

Toller wheeled on his brother. “That’s your wife — and she’s pregnant!”

“Thank you for that information,” Lain said in a dead voice, regarding Lain with dead eyes.

“But this is all wrong!”

“It’s the Kolcorronian way.” Incredibly, Lain was able to fashion his lips into a smile. “It is part of the reason we are despised by every other nation in the world.”

“Who cares about the other…?” Toller became aware that Fera, hands on hips, was staring at him with undisguised fury. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Perhaps if you had stripped me naked and thrown me at the prince things would have worked out more to your liking,” Fera said in a low hard voice.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you couldn’t wait to see me go with him.”

“You don’t understand,” Toller protested. “I thought Leddravohr wanted to punish me.”

“That’s exactly what he.…” Fera broke off to glance at Lain, then returned her attention to Toller. “You’re a fool, Toller Maraquine. I wish I had never met you.” She spun on her heel, suddenly haughty in a way he had never seen before, walked quickly back into the day room and slammed the door.

Toller gaped after her for a moment, baffled, then paced an urgent circle around the hall and came back to Lain and Glo. The latter, looking more exhausted and frail than ever, had clasped Lain’s hand.

“What would you like me to do, my boy?” he said gently. “I could return to the Peel if you want the privacy.”

Lain shook his head. “No, my lord. It is very late. If you will do me the honour of staying here I will have a suite prepared for you.”

“Very well.” As Lain left to instruct the servants Glo turned his large head in Toller’s direction. “You’re not helping your brother with all your running about like a caged animal.”

“I don’t understand him,” Toller muttered. “Somebody should do something.”

“What would you… hmm… suggest?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

“Would it improve Gesalla’s lot if Lain were to get himself killed?”

“Perhaps,” Toller said, refusing to entertain logic. “She could at least be proud of him.”

Glo sighed. “Help me to a chair, and then fetch me a glass of something with heat in it. Kailian black.”

“Wine?” Toller was surprised despite his mental turmoil. “You want wine?”

“You said somebody should do something, and that’s what I’m going to do,” Glo said evenly. “You will have to dance to your own music.”

Toller help Glo to a high-backed chair at the side of the hall and went to obtain a beaker of wine, his mind oppressed with the problem of how to reconcile himself to the intolerable. The mode of thought was unnatural for him and it seemed a long time before inspiration came. Leddravohr is only playing with us, he decided, seizing the thread of hope. Gesalla can’t be to the taste of one who is accustomed to trained courtesans. Leddravohr is only detaining her in his room, laughing at us. In fact, he can express his contempt all the better by scorning to touch any of our women…

In the hour that followed Glo drank four large bumpers of wine, rendering himself crimson of face and almost totally helpless. Lain had retired to the solitude of his study, still betraying no trace of emotion, and Toller was dejected when Glo announced his desire to go to bed. He knew he would not sleep and had no desire to be alone with his thoughts. He half carried Glo to the assigned suite and helped him through all the tedious procedures of toilet and getting to bed, then came into the long transverse corridor which linked the principal sleeping quarters. There was a whisper of sound to his left.

He turned and saw Gesalla walking towards him on the way to her own rooms. Her black garments, long and drifting, and blanched face gave her a spectral appearance, but her bearing was erect and dignified. She was the same Gesalla Maraquine he had always known — cool, private and indomitable — and at the sight of her he experienced a pang of mingled concern and relief.

“Gesalla,” he said, moving towards her, “are you…?”

“Don’t come near me,” she snapped with a look of slit-eyed venom and walked past him without altering her step. Dismayed by the sheer loathing in her voice, he watched until she had passed out of view, then his gaze was drawn to the pale mosaic floor. The trail of bloody footprints told a story more dreadful than any he had tried to banish from his mind.

Leddravohr, oh Leddravohr, oh Leddravohr, he chanted inwardly. We are wedded now, you and I. You have given yourself to me…and only a death will set us apart.