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‘Luck go with you, Gaved.’ Tynisa put out a hand and he took it cautiously, clasping wrist to wrist. It was, she reflected, a Lowlander gesture, therefore unlikely to see much use amongst Wasps.

After he had gone, and Che had taken up watch again, Dal turned back to his fellows. ‘When they come tomorrow . . . if we can beat them off just once, then we’ll sally out,’ he suggested. ‘Those that can get away, go. Split up and lose them in the trees.’

‘They’ll be overhead and waiting for that,’ said his halfbreed follower.

He shrugged. ‘We’re at the end of the wire now. Maybe someone will get clear. But wait till tomorrow for that talk. Let’s have something more cheerful now. A song, anyone?’

One of the Grasshopper-kinden had a little instrument, a holed gourd small enough to be cupped in one hand, but she played something soulful on it, pleasant in its way but hardly qualifying as cheerful. After that the Spider, Avaris, told them some unlikely story about ghosts and buried treasure, and told it well enough to take their thoughts away from their cramped and grim surroundings. Then the other Grasshopper tried for a song, with a voice that was strong and pleasant at first, but the refrain seemed inexorably to speak of things past, things lost, time’s hand closing the book of days, until a quaver came into the singer’s tone, and he let his words fumble to a halt.

‘Ah, well,’ said Mordrec, into the ensuing quiet. ‘This is it, then. I’m glad we gave them the run in the end, but all we’ve done is move our prison cell eastwards a ways. No last-minute schemes, Dala? You always did have a head for them.’

Dal Arche’s expression suggested not. ‘I’d rather Ygor was with us now. He was always a good man in a scrape.’

Maure took a deep breath. ‘And Varmen, too,’ she said, and there was an odd tremble in her voice as she said it, suggesting something more than mourning.

‘And him,’ Mordrec agreed. ‘Why not? In fact, I’d rather we had about two hundred old friends and relations.’

‘But Varmen . . .’ Maure cast a guilty glance back at Che. ‘Varmen had a way out. Because Varmen was in this place before.’

‘Varmen’s dead,’ Thalric declared, probably more harshly than he meant, but Maure barely flinched.

Dal’s face remained expressionless. ‘What are you talking about?’ he demanded. ‘Explain.’

‘He told me about a time during the war when he and some of his people were penned in by us Commonwealers, no hope of getting out – only of holding on a little longer before the end.’

‘Maure—’ Che started, suddenly understanding, but the magician hurried on with her story.

‘He challenged them to duel of champions. That’s the old way, here in the Commonweal. Before the Empire, that was the way that lords and ladies did it, to spare their people. Of course, the Wasps never saw the need, but Varmen used it to buy time.’

Tynisa saw that every pair of eyes had turned to her, inexorable as the dawn.

‘No, absolutely not,’ she heard Che saying distantly. ‘They have a Weaponsmaster with them. A real killer.’

‘I thought we had one here, too,’ Dal Arche said quietly.

‘But how will it help?’ the Beetle girl demanded.

‘Che, when two Weaponsmasters fight, people watch,’ Maure pointed out. ‘Even in the Commonweal it is a rare thing to see. There will be a chance to escape, win or lose. More of a chance than by staying trapped in here until . . .’ She faced up to Che’s accusing stare and shrugged unhappily. ‘Che, I want to live. I agreed to help you, but not to end like this. I want to live.’

‘As do we all,’ Dal Arche agreed.

‘You can’t ask her!’ Che snapped at him.

Dal stood up abruptly, with enough threat in his posture that Thalric intervened, hand extended, getting between him and Che. With that, everyone was on their feet, hands reaching for weapon hilts – everyone save Tynisa and Maure.

‘Hold! All hold!’ Dal snapped. ‘Listen, Beetle,’ he addressed Che, ‘we are due to die on the morrow. I have no illusions about the justice of our cause. We are robbers and killers, and so are those that oppose us, and all