The maxim applied even to prisoners. There had developed a whole imperial art to the treatment of prisoners – how often they were fed; whether they had a cell a man could stand in, or even lie straight in; whether they were kept damp, kept cold; whether they were dragged out to lie on the artificer-interrogator’s mechanical tables for no other reason than it was their turn, their lowly contribution to the Empire’s sense of order.

Such prisoners as had something to offer the Empire, they could do well for themselves. They could even make the leap, eventually, from prisoner to slave – just as the threat of becoming a prisoner kept the lowest slaves in line.

Judging by such exacting standards, this man her brother had found must have a great deal of potential, for his cell lay on the airiest level of Capitas’s most accommodating prison. He had two rooms to himself, and an antechamber, and the guards even rattled the barred door in advance to announce that he had visitors. In the antechamber there sat three young pages, two boys and a girl, presumably to run errands for the prisoner’s needs. As she considered that, Princess Seda noticed how pale and drawn they all were, and that one was visibly trembling.

She was not really a princess, of course. That was a Commonwealer title that one young officer, desperately gallant and politically naA?ve, had once given her. What fate had befallen him since she did not know, but he had been a brief ray of sun through the clouds that perpetually clogged her life.

The prisoner’s reception chamber was lit by great windows, latticed with metal bars, that extended across almost an entire wall, and opened up part of the ceiling as well. There were no curtains, she saw. The sun flooded unopposed across the floor until it met the doorway into the sleeping chamber. That room was quite dark, muffled in drapes, and impenetrable to her gaze.

‘Your Emperor is here,’ one of the guards announced. ‘Present yourself!’

For a moment it seemed that nothing would happen, and then Seda heard a shuffling from within the darkness, and at last a hooded figure in tattered robes came forward tentatively to the brink of the dazzling light. One hand, pale as death and thin as bone, was raised against the sun.

‘Come forward, we command it,’ Alvdan instructed, and Seda saw how he was enjoying himself, watching the wretch quail before the sunlight.

The guard began uncoiling a whip from his belt and, with a shudder, the slender creature crept forwards, head turned away from the windows. She could see nothing of him yet but those two delicate hands, long-fingered and sharp-nailed.

‘We have brought our sister to you, since we thought that you might be of interest to each other,’ Alvdan sounded pleased with himself no end. The cowl shifted and sought her out, and she imagined watery eyes within were trying to focus on her.

‘Introduce yourself, creature,’ Alvdan said. ‘Have your kinden no manners?’

The robed thing gave a long, tired hiss and crept closer, until it was almost within arm’s reach. There were blue veins prominent against the translucence of its arms, and something about the creature sent a deep shiver through Seda.

‘This is Seda, youngest of our father’s line, as we are oldest,’ Alvdan announced. ‘Name yourself.’

The voice was hoarse and low. ‘Uctebri the Sarcad, Your Imperial Majesty and honoured lady.’ It was a man’s voice, as accentless as though he had been born here in Capitas city.

‘And is it good-mannered to conceal yourself behind a cowl?’ Alvdan demanded. ‘Surely my sister deserves better than that? Come, unmask yourself, creature.’

The figure that called itself Uctebri shuddered again, one hand gesturing vaguely towards the windows. The voice murmured something that might have been a plea.

The crack of the guard’s whip made Seda start. Uctebri flinched back from it, though it had not touched him. She feared that, had the lash struck his wrist, it might have snapped his hand off.

Trembling, those hands now rose to draw back the cowl.

The sight was not so bad, at first. An old man, or an ill one. A pale veiny head with a little lank hair still clinging behind it. A thin, arched neck bagged with wrinkles. The lips were withered, his nose pointed, and there was a florid bruise on his forehead.

Shading them with both hands, he painfully opened his eyes to stare at her. They were protuberant, with irises of pure red, and they stared and stared at her face despite the glaring daylight. Seeing those, she saw also that the mark on his brow was not a bruise after all, but blood, a clot of blood constantly shifting beneath his waxy skin.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said to her brother. ‘Who is this old man?’

‘Do you hear her, Uctebri?’ Alvdan smirked, as though he and the withered thing were sharing some joke at her expense. ‘Well even we were unsure when first we looked upon you. Even with General Maxin’s urgings, we were slow to believe – and yet here you are.’

Uctebri’s head turned to squint at him, and then his crimson attention focused back to her. He would have been just some old man except for those eyes. They seemed to look through her. She could feel the force of that crimson stare as a queasiness in her stomach, an itch between her shoulder blades.

‘Touch her,’ Alvdan commanded. Seda drew back at once, but the guard, the man who had spent all morning at her shoulder, was now gripping her arms. Uctebri shuffled forwards, those unnatural eyes craning up at her, and she saw his tongue pierce between his lips, a sharp dart of red.

Something terrible was about to happen. She could not account for the premonition but she began to struggle as hard as she could, twisting and writhing in the soldier’s grip as the old man approached her.

And then he was before her and she saw his mouth open slightly, the teeth inside sharp and pointed like yellow needles. One of those slender hands reached out to pincer her wrist.

He was not strong, but stronger than his frailty suggested nonetheless. She wrenched her hand from that cool touch, and Uctebri said, ‘I must feel the blood, your great Majesty,’ in that same calm, low voice.

She heard the whisper of Alvdan unsheathing his dagger, and then the cold steel at her throat. The old man raised his hands urgently.

‘A point, the prick of a pin only, Lord Majesty. Just for the savour of it. No more, not yet. All in good time.’

They had surely all gone mad. If there was any fraternal feeling in Alvdan’s heart she would have pleaded with him. Instead she closed her eyes and turned her head away as he seized her hand and cut across a finger.

Uctebri grasped eagerly for the weapon, but Alvdan only presented the blade of it.

‘Have no ideas above your station, creature,’ the Emperor said. ‘You know what you are. Now act as you should.’

The crabbed old man craned forwards, hands cupping beneath the stained blade to catch any drips, and then licked the steel, his sharp tongue cleaning her blood from it in scant moments. Even that small taste of her seemed to bring a new strength to him. His next glance at her was nothing other than hungry.

‘Will she serve?’ Alvdan demanded of him. ‘Or must we mount a hunt for more distant relations?’

Uctebri smiled slyly. ‘She shall more than serve, your worshipful Majesty. She is… perfect. A most delicate savour.’

‘Brother-’ Seda’s voice shook but she did not care. ‘What is this?’

‘Some small diversion,’ he told her. ‘Merely an entertainment. Fear not, dear sister. You have your part to play, but need learn no lines or dance-steps. Come, bring her.’

She was bundled after him back into the antechamber, where the pale servants waited.

‘What is he?’ she stammered.

‘Can you not guess, sweet sister?’ Alvdan’s smile was now broad indeed. ‘Think back as far back as childhood, when we sat by the fire together and listened to stories.’