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Even as she said it, Thalric sensed a shifting and a frowning from some quarters, most especially those he had identified as nobles. Dal Arche was indeed beneath a princess’s notice, unfit to clean her boots, let alone challenge her, but, even so, the refusal did not sit well. Perhaps there are simply those who value their followers’ lives more than she does.

‘Why should you?’ Thalric echoed. ‘I’d thought you wanted to see Tynisa’s blood, Princess. How better than if your own Weaponsmaster whittles her down for you? I understand he knows his trade.’ He looked around, spotting the pale-haired old Mantis not far off, and instantly recognizable. ‘Having her spear-riddled corpse dragged before you over a carpet of your own dead soldiers would be less satisfying to you? It would be to me, certainly.’

‘A strange way to speak of your champion,’ she remarked drily.

‘Mine?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘As I said, this is not my fight.’ He felt the tide of honesty rising, and let it take him where it would. ‘I care only for myself and for the Beetle girl I arrived with, Princess. For the others, the brigands, I care nothing. I have no doubt that you feel you’ve just cause to put them on the pikes, or string them up, or however else you like your executions around here. But as for Tynisa, well . . .’ His grin was harsh. ‘You have no idea how much simpler my life would be without her. If she got carved up by your man, why, I’d be dancing with joy inside. We’ve tried to kill each other enough times in the past, and whenever she had me at her mercy she made me regret it, every punch and kick she did, and even when I did her a good turn, she cast it back in my face with a curse. To have Tynisa dead would be the world’s own gift to me, Princess. Let her come and let her die, and then I shall depart with Cheerwell Maker, and the rest are for your justice. Why would you say no? Why would you wish victory any other way?’

Finishing his speech, he examined his feelings on the matter. And how much of that did I mean, and how much was just for show? He found that he had absolutely no idea. The vein of bitterness he had tapped surprised even himself.

‘Let her come then,’ Elass said, just loud enough for him to hear. ‘I grant this Dal Arche the honour of my agreement to his challenge. Let the murdering bitch come, and my champion will be waiting for her.’

Thalric nodded, then raked his black and gold gaze across the assembled court, seeing plenty of them flinch or drop their eyes rather than meet his.

‘In one hour?’ he suggested.

‘An hour,’ agreed Salme Elass, whereupon Thalric sketched a brief, almost disdainful bow to her, and went to spread the good news.

Gaved the Turncoat darted across the sky, the patchy forest rushing beneath him. For a Wasp he was a fair flier, which made him at best adequate and workmanlike by local standards, and normally he would not have tried to travel these distances trusting to nothing but his Art. He needed his high vantage point from which to search the land ahead, though. A great deal was resting on him just then.

That he was selling out one ally for another was a depressing weight in his stomach. He had tried, sincerely tried, to be an honest man, but nobody in the Commonweal wanted an honest Wasp. He seemed to have spied on everyone for everybody else, told each that they were the only one, like a faithless lover. He had lost track some time ago of precisely where his loyalties were supposed to lie.

The thought that he and Thalric had all this in common was a miserable one.

The weather was taking a turn, he felt – the air become crisp, snow on the way most likely. Just another way for the world to make his life harder just then. Let it snow when Sef and I are out of here. Let it snow all it likes.

And where the pits are they?

He pulled higher in the air, feeling the wind buffet him, taking his bearings, even checking his compass against the landmarks on offer. The Commonweal was so cursed big, and so much of it looked just like this, especially in