Someone knocked at the door and she rose to her feet. "That will be food and drink. You can fill me in on details as you eat. And then I trust you will have time to take a bath."

Gerelda pecked at the food and downed the better part of a flagon of cider, describing all she had found out in Ardrone and East Denva. When she'd finished, Fritillary leaned forward and asked the question that had loomed large in her mind for well over a year. "Why do these peoplethe lancersleave their homes and their loved ones? Not for a single coin, I feel sure. That's just an enticement to listen. You saw them, Gerelda. How did it happen?"

"Wewell, Peregrinedid overhear the lancers sometimes, talking among themselves. They never mentioned what they were doing, or why. They never spoke of home, or of anything much, except the next meal, or a sick horse, or maybe to curse the weather. They weren't normal. They didn't sit around the camp fire and tell bawdy stories. It was the same when I saw the ones recruited on the village green in Needlewhin. It was as if they were..."

"Go on."

"Ensorcelled." She snorted as though she didn't believe she'd actually said that. "Can A'Va do that?"

"Of course not. Well, not to those who follow Va-faith. Tempt, perhaps. But not turn a person into something he or she is not, no."

"Well, if you want my opinion, something did just that. Or someone. Like Fox."

"One man? Recruiting from Ardrone to Staravale? Gerelda, the last time I saw the Prime, he was still just one individual."

"His family is a large one," Gerelda pointed out.

"The Fox estates are large, certainly. They are administered, as far as I have been able to ascertain, by servitors. I've never actually met anyone who told me they were a member of the family. Have you?"

"Possibly that recruiter?"

"But he didn't say his name was Fox."

"No. Do you have people investigating the family?"

"I do. It is amazingly difficult to find out anything. The idea that this Peregrine could recognise these lancers intrigues me, though. I want him to meet Valerian Fox."

"You are going ahead with this meeting?"

"My only possible victory will be to make Fox look bad in the eyes of true believers of Va-faith, and I think I know just how to sow the seeds of that."

"By allowing yourself to be killed?"

She swallowed her irritation with Gerelda and said mildly, "I really don't think he's going to murder me in my own audience hall. That would make others, including King Edwayn, wonder about his ambition and his motives. Besides, I want to speak to him. I want to know what he's up to."

Gerelda snorted. "You think he'll tell you what he's planning?"

"It's all a matter of asking the right questions. Gerelda, I'm going to tell you something that I've only ever told two people, and one of those doesn't know everything there is to know. Have you ever wondered what my witchery is?"

"Of course! There can hardly be a person in the whole of Vavala who hasn't wondered at some time or other. The most popular guess is that you read minds, because you have an uncanny way of knowing too much."

"A lot of that stems from the knowledge I gain from my many agents. However, my witchery does help. I have the knack of knowing the general essence of someone's thoughts when they speak to meespecially if those thoughts pertain to something of importance to me. For example, I know you are fearful for my safety. I know when you speak of Fox he worries you deeply. When you speak of Perie, you are both protective and exasperated. If you were to lie deliberately to me about anything of importance, I would know. Lies in a conversation are to me like... flames flaring up out of coals in the fireplace. On the other hand, if you were to let your thoughts stray to some handsome fellow you wanted to bed on the morrow, I wouldn't have a clue, because it's not important to me."

Gerelda opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. There was a long silence before she said, "That's very... disconcerting."

"I agree. It's handy, because it so often tells me not only if someone is lying to me, but how important that lie is. I'll admit, though, it is a somewhat uncomfortable witchery to have. Not one I want you to mention to anyone."

"No."

"Unfortunately, Fox's mind is closed to me, and always has been. Imagine that: of all the people I have met since the day I received my witchery, he's the only one I can't read. Luckily, it seems that you have delivered just the right instrument into my hands."

"Wh-? Peregrine is not a weapon! He's a lad who's been to the deepest misery of horror and is still clawing his way back-"

"We are all weapons in this war. Why has he been granted a witchery if not to use it? I shall use your lad, in the service of Va."

"He's not my anything. I'm no nursemaid, but I do think he needs care. He hasn't shed a tear for his father, that I know of, not once. He has a... a bloodcurdling coldness that's not healthy in a lad of his age. Your reverence, that boy pulled his father's severed feet out of his boots so he could wear them. He saw his father's gnawed ribs tossed to the ground by men who ate him."

She said, deliberately cold, "Witcheries are Va-bestowed for a purpose. It is perfectly obvious to me that Va has seen to it that your Peregrine has arrived at precisely the right time."

"He is here because I endured and murdered and stole and fought to get him here. And he went through a Va-less hell on the way to become what he is. If that's Va's way of achieving things-"

"I don't want to get into a religious discussion centring on doctrinal interpretations right now, thank you, Gerelda. I want him to take a look at the Prime and then tell us what he sees. And then you and he are going to Lowmeer."

That finally halted her. She thought about that in silence, then asked, "You'd seek help from Regal Vilmar?"

"Perhaps, later. But there is another matter that concerns me first. I've had a communication from Saker, delivered in a somewhat unconventional manner. There is a possibility I will need to make a... a clerical visit to Ustgrind to call on the Regal and the Regala and the Prince-regal. However, I think I want you and Peregrine to look into the matter first. Then I will need to know if such a visit by me is necessary."

"You want to send me to the Lowmian court?" The look Gerelda gave her said she thought the idea was odd, to say the least.

"Oh, you haven't heard anything yet," Fritillary said. "I'm going to tell you about a set of royal twins and a compact made between the Vollendorns and A'Va. Then there's the matter of a lascar's dagger, some golden plumes and a letter sent to me by a bird..."

By the time she had finished explaining, half an hour later, Gerelda was looking at her as if she had two heads.

Fritillary waited.

"Let me see if I have this right," Gerelda said slowly. "For the past four hundred years, regals have been giving instructions for twin babies to be slaughtered because A'Va uses them as minions called devil-kina right granted to A'Va by those very same regals. I don't think I have ever heard of anything more disgustingly vile. Or absurd!"

"It's certainly not very plausible," she admitted. "I'll say this to you, but not to anyone else: I've always had grave doubts about the actual existence of A'Va. However, there is something... evil... going on here that needs to be investigated. I want you to look into it. With Peregrine."

As the day progressed, Gerelda tried several different arguments, but nothing she said could make the Pontifect change her mind about meeting Prime Valerian Fox. Privately, though, she had to admit Fritillary's meticulous planning would ensure she wasn't going to be assassinated, at least not during the meeting itself.

The Commander of the Vavala Guards arranged a ceremonial honour guard to line the walls of the audience hall, with every man holding his pike. Invitations had been sent to all the Va-cherished Hemisphere ambassadors, as well as to the local clergy and the local shrine keepers, not to mention all the notables of Vavala. As most of those invited had accepted, and many of them would, as was customary, bring their secretaries or scribes, the number of people present would be substantial. Some of them would have witcheries. It would take a foolhardy man or woman to attempt violence against the person of the Pontifect in front of such an audience. Even so, Gerelda was still worried.

"All it would take is one person," she said to Fritillary that morning as they prepared the details, "someone willing to sacrifice his life. A single person to shove a knife between your ribs. You fall in public, tragically assassinated by a madmanand who is the noble fellow of stature who will step into the breach, full of concern and so conveniently on hand, doubtless vowing immediate vengeance on the killer? Prime Fox. The next thing you know, the assassin is dead, Fox's lancers are on the streets of Vavala, ostensibly to keep everyone calm, and the way is clear for Fox to be elected the new Pontifect. Only you wouldn't know, because you'd be dead."

Fritillary regarded her thoughtfully, head tilted. "Sometimes I wonder just what the study of law does to a normal person's mind. Do such convoluted plots occur to you often?"

"Only when merited. And you can't tell me you haven't considered this, or something like it, because I don't believe you."

"Fox is nowhere near ready to seize power, but just suppose you're right. It seems to me we have the perfect solution. You and Peregrine will wait at the entrance to the hall. Everyone who enters, from my own personal servants and guards to every guest, must enter through the same doors. Every main guest will have to halt there momentarily for their name and rank to be announced. Peregrine can tell you if any are his pitch-hearted people. You will signal my guards to bar anyone he denounces."

Gerelda had breathed a little easier then, especially when Fritillary invited the guests to arrive earlier than the meeting had been scheduled, so that when the Prime did arrive with his staff, he'd be faced with a room full of people.

"And the other entries to the building, through the kitchens and so on?"

"Don't patronise me, proctor! Guards will be on duty. No one enters. Deliveries are dropped off and searched. All right?"

Gerelda, suitably chastened, sought out Peregrine, now well-fed and rested, and asked him if he could do his part. He looked surprised that she should even ask. "Of course," he said.

"I'll arrange to have some banners hanging from the ceiling that we can hide behind, with a slit to look through. Some of the Vavala guards will stand right in front of us, ready to help."

"I don't need to see pitch-men to know them. I hope some of them do try to enter the palace. I want them to try. Then they can be killed."

Perie, I would like you a whole lot better if you weren't soso cold in your bloodthirstiness... Aloud, she said, "Prime Valerian Fox may be one of your pitch-men. If so, don't make a fuss; just quietly tell me and I shall signal the Pontifect. He mustn't have any warning that we know him for what he is. That's important, Perie. No guards will be pouncing on the Prime. At least, not yet. You understand?"

"Not really. But my da once said some men are too powerful to be challenged. Is that what you mean?"

"Yes, I suppose I do." The sick feeling she'd had in her stomach roiled.

"That's wrong. But I'll do what you say."

She stifled a sigh, which was something she seemed to do a lot when she was talking to Peregrine.

Perie watched from behind the banners and remembered another time, back when Ma and Da had been alive. A windy day, it'd been, on the town green. An older lad had given him the string of his kite to hold. He hadn't known what to expect, but now recalled how he'd felt: thrilled by the thrum of the string as it pulsed and quivered like a living thing, afraid that he might not have the strength to hold on, overwhelmed with a sense of responsibility, yet taut with excitement. That was how he felt now, as he waitedwith a difference.

Now those feelings were all held under a coating of ice, and he gloried in the change. That's part of my witchery.

He didn't want that ice ever to melt because then he'd feel again what he'd felt when he'd seen Da's feet still in his boots...

On his way to Vavala, he'd grown used to pitch-men, their internal tarry darkness, the way they scared and filled him with a fog of dread, reminding him more of unthinking savage animals than reasoning men. But he could handle that, because the fear was encased under the ice, neatly imprisoned so it couldn't grab him by the throat.

He watched the guests arrive at the Pontifect's palace, and marvelled at the richness of clothes, the plumpness of overfed bodies, the painted faces, the glitter of jewels. There were ordinary people too, of course. Shrine keepers, even. One of them, a tall woman with skin like crumpled silk, walked over and stared at him through the gap between the banners. Then she winked and walked on.

"Nothing yet?" Gerelda asked.

"No. I don't understand why some of them want to wear those fancy clothes, though. Aren't they uncomfortable?"

Gerelda looked down at her plain garb. Her one concession to the occasion had been to shine her boots to a spotless sheen. "I'm sure they are. But then, they wouldn't understand why I prefer comfort."

"Well, it's more sensible too. You couldn't fight wearing a dress like that woman in blue over there. And you couldn't run in shoes like that man in the black and red stripes."

She laid a hand on his arm. "Secretary Barden has just signalled Fox is coming." She'd been keeping an eye on the secretary where he was standing in the entry hall, looking out towards the main entrance.

Perie felt the man's presence and winced. "Pitch-man," he whispered. "The tall man in the centre. Is that Fox?"

She nodded.

As the Prime walked past, he felt his composure slipping away. The man did not remind him of an animal at all. Fox was a force, saturating the air around him with raw power.

If he looks at me I'll die.

Gerelda gave the prearranged signal to the captain of the Guard, who would pass it on to the Pontifect. Then she glanced back down at him. "Are you all right?"

No, he wasn't. He tried to explain. "He's more than a pitch-man. He's a... a... hole so black there's no end to it. Like looking into a well and not seeing the bottom."

She looked at him askance, dubious, not understanding any more than he did.

"Wait," he said. "There's another one coming. In the Prime's retinue."

"Can you tell who?"

The fellow was the most insignificant of all, clad in a servant's garb, scurrying on behind with his head down.

This time Gerelda stepped out from behind the banners and spoke to the captain.

It was all done very neatly. One moment the man was following the Prime's party, the next he was cut off by a group of men dressed as palace servants suddenly appearing from behind banners and tapestries. He was whisked away without anyone from the Prime's party being aware he was gone.

Perie should have felt satisfied. Instead, there was a lump in his chest that wouldn't go away.

As he strode through the throng, clearing a path direct to where Fritillary was sitting on the Pontifical throne at one end, Fox wore an expression she recognised. She hadn't seen him since the ceremony of his consecration as Prime of Ardrone, but the subtleties of his anger were familiar: the grim line of his brow, the smooth flat look in his eyes that could have meant indifference in any other man. She knew what they signalled. He was planning her humiliation, or worse. He had been outmanoeuvred, and he would seek revenge.

"I thought we were to have a quiet confidential conversation, your reverence," he said as he arrived in front of her, making no effort to soften his tone. He meant to be heard. "Instead you've turned this into some sort of market-day carnival."

"Surely it is a cause for celebration when the Prime of Ardrone comes to pay his respects to the Pontifect of Va-faith?"

"There is no respect, as I am sure you are aware."

Shock reverberated through the silence of the hall, visible on the faces of those listening, heard in their gasps.

Fritillary smiled benignly, or so she hoped. "No matter what you think of me personally, you owe respect to the position I hold." She held out her hand and followed the gesture with a sweet smile of forgiveness. "Respect, your eminence."

Fox hesitated long enough to be rude. Then he knelt on one knee and took her hand to kiss. His lips barely hovered over her knuckles. He didn't wait for her to withdraw her hand, but dropped it and stood. "I can give no respect to a woman who sent a blasphemer to be the adviser of a young princess. I can give no respect to a woman whose rule as Pontifect has seen the revival of the primordial heresy and so many clerics dying of the Horned Death. I can give no respect to a woman who shows her preference for the Way of the Oak over that of the Way of the Flow and who favours both of those before the will of Va and the supremacy of Va-faith over the old ways."

Everyone in the hall was standing motionless, utterly silent.

Then Fritillary rose abruptly to her feet, and there was a startled intake of breath across the room. As the throne was on a dais, Fox was forced to look up, while she appeared taller and more regal. In a trick of the acoustics, her voice carried, her words clear to all assembled.

"I am merely a humble cleric, your eminencea woman without eminence, in fact. Just one who serves Va with humility and acceptance. If you know the way to halt the spread of the Horned Death, then how is it that shrine keepers died in Ardrone under your personal ministrations? And if I truly discriminate against the Way of the Flow, why have I received no complaints from Lowmeer, where the Flow is central to their faith? But it is not meet that we argue in this august company. We shall adjourn to my private office to discuss these matters."

She looked out over the hall. At the far entrance door Gerelda Brantheld stood. When their gazes met, Gerelda placed her hand in the middle of her chest, confirming the captain's warning a few moment's earlier.

Fritillary's heart turned over. Leak on you, Valerian Fox, you whoreson. You are indeed one of Peregrine's pitch-men.

"Esteemed guests," she continued, her voice calm, "refreshments will be served. Pray you, enjoy the hospitality of my household, while the Prime and I settle our differences." She didn't wait for Fox's agreement or otherwise. She swept towards the doors to her workroom, shoulders back and chin up. Her guards opened the doors and she paused there, making a gesture with her hand to usher the Prime before her. He had not moved, but when she fixed him with her glare, he shrugged and walked through the doors ahead of her. Members of his staff moved to follow him, but she signed the guards to shut the doors in their faces.

"So," she said coldly, "we can now drop all pretence, Fox. No need for you to be anything but the ambitious, conscienceless man that you are."

"What, no invitation to be seated?"

She did not bother to reply to that, saying instead, "How long do you think the rulers of these lands will allow you to build an army?"

"You will, I think, be hard pressed to prove I'm doing any such thing. These lancers amassing all over the Va-cherished Hemisphere are merely a spontaneous peasant uprising in answer to social problems and religious heresies. Why, even their particular weapon of choice, the lance, harks back to the famine riots of three hundred years ago."

"Don't take me for a fool."

He shrugged. "I admit nothing. You are the one saying they are connected to me." His lips curled up in a smile.

"You can't possibly think that either Regal Vilmar or King Edwayn will let you get away with sitting on the Pontifect's throne after an illegal invasion. In fact, the whole of the Va-cherished Hemisphere would be unhappy. The Pontifect must be seen to be impartial and peace-loving. What I'd like to know is why you would ever decide to serve A'Va."