‘That was very clumsy, Chacole,’ Elysoun drawled, carefully selecting a piece of fruit from the silver platter on the table. ‘She might have gone along if you hadn’t gone into such detail. She didn’t have to know that you were actually going to send out your assassins. You weren’t really sure of her yet, and you went too fast.’

‘I’m running out of time, Elysoun.’ Chacole’s tone was desperate.

‘I don’t see the need for all this urgency,’ Elysoun replied, ‘and how much time did you save today? That Tegan hag’s going to be watching your every move now. You blundered, Chacole. Now you’re going to have to kill her.’

‘Kill?’ Chacole’s face went white.

‘Unless you don’t mind losing your head. One word from Gahennas can send you to the block. You aren’t really cut out for men’s politics, dear. You talk too much.’ Elysoun rose lazily to her feet. ‘We can discuss this later,’ she said. ‘I have an enthusiastic young guardsman waiting for me, and I wouldn’t want him to cool off.’ She sauntered away.

Elysoun’s casual attitude concealed a great deal of urgency. Chacole’s Cynesgan upbringing had made her painfully obvious. She had drawn on the hatred of Sarabian’s other wives for Empress Cieronna. That part was clever enough, but the elaborate, involved story of staging an imitation assassination-attempt was ridiculously excessive. Very clearly the attempt was not designed to fail, as Chacole and Torellia so piously proclaimed. Elysoun began to walk faster. She had to get to her husband in order to warn him that his life was in immediate danger.

‘Xanetia!’ Kalten said, starting back in surprise as the Anarae suddenly appeared in their midst that evening. ‘Can’t you cough or something before you do that?’

‘It was not mine intent to startle thee, my protector,’ she apologized.

‘My nerves are strung a little tight right now,’ he said.

‘Did you have any luck?’ Mirtai asked.

‘I gleaned much, Atana Mirtai.’ Xanetia paused, collecting her thoughts. ‘The slaves are not closely watched,’ she began, ‘and their supervision is given over to Cynesgan overseers, for such menial tasks are beneath the dignity of the Cyrgai. The desert itself doth confine the slaves. Those foolish enough to attempt escape inevitably perish in that barren waste.’

‘What’s the customary routine, Anarae?’ Bevier asked her.

‘The slaves emerge from their pens at dawn,’ she replied, ‘and, unbidden and unguarded, leave the city to take up their tasks. Then, at sunset, still uncommanded and scarce noticed, they return to the city and to the slave-pens for feeding. They are then chained and locked in their pens for the night to be released again at first light of day.’

‘Some of them are up here in these woods,’ Mirtai noted, peering out through the trees that concealed them. ‘What are they supposed to be doing?’

‘They cut firewood for their masters in this extensive forest. The Cyrgai warm themselves with fires in the chill of winter. The kenneled slaves must endure the weather.’

‘Were you able to get any sense of how the city’s laid out, Anarae?’ Bevier asked her.

‘Some, Sir Knight.’ She beckoned them to the edge of the trees so that they could look across the valley at the black-walled city. ‘The Cyrgai themselves live on the slopes of the hill which doth rise within the walls,’ she explained, ‘and they do hold themselves aloof from the more mundane portion of the city below. There is yet another wall within the outer one, and that inner wall doth protect Cyrgon’s Chosen from contact with inferior races. The lower city doth contain the slave-pens, the warehouses for foodstuffs, and the barracks of the Cynesgans who oversee the slaves and man the outer wall. As thou canst see, there is yet that final wall which doth enclose the summit of the hill. Within that ultimate wall lieth the palace of King Santheocles and the temple of Cyrgon.’

Bevier nodded. ‘It’s fairly standard for a fortified town then.’

‘If thou wert aware of all this, why didst thou ask, Sir Knight?’ she asked tartly.

‘Confirmation, dear lady,’ he replied, smiling. ‘The city’s ten thousand years old. They might have had different ideas about how to build a fort before the invention of modern weapons.’ He squinted across the valley at walled Cyrga. ‘They’re obviously willing to sacrifice the lower city,’ he said. ‘Otherwise that outer wall would be defended by Cyrgai. The fact that they’ve turned that chore over to the Cynesgans means that they don’t place much value on those warehouses and slave-pens. The wall at the foot of “Mount Cyrgon” will be more fiercely defended, and if necessary, they’ll pull back up the hill to that last wall that encloses the palace and the temple.’

‘All of this is well and good, Bevier,’ Kalten interrupted him, ‘but where are Ehlana and Alean?’

Bevier gave him a surprised look. ‘Up on top, of course,’ he replied, ‘either in the palace or in the temple.’

‘How did you arrive at that?’

‘They’re hostages, Kalten. When you’re holding hostages, you have to keep them close enough to threaten them when your enemies get too close. Our problem is how to get into the city.’

‘We’ll come up with something,’ Sparhawk said confidently. ‘Let’s go back into the woods a ways and set up for the night.’

They moved back among the trees and ate cold rations, since a fire was out of the question.

‘The problem’s still there, Sparhawk,’ Kalten said as evening settled over the hidden valley. ‘How are we going to get inside all those walls?’

The first wall’s easy,’ Talen said. ‘We just walk in through the gate.’

‘How do you propose to do that without being challenged?’ Kalten demanded.

‘People walk out of the city every morning and back again every evening, don’t they?’

‘Those are slaves.’

‘Exactly.’

Kalten stared at him.

‘We want to get into the city, don’t we? That’s the easiest way.’

‘What about the other walls?’ Bevier objected.

‘One wall at a time, Sir Knight,’ Talen said gaily, ‘one wall at a time. Let’s get through the outer one first. Then we’ll worry about the other two.’

Daiya the Peloi came riding hard back across the gravelly desert about mid-morning the next day. ‘We’ve found them, your Reverence,’ he reported to Bergsten as he reined in. ‘The Cynesgan cavalry tried to lead us away from where they’re hiding, but we found them anyway. They’re in those hills just ahead of us.’