She sat with Arken on the cathedral steps that evening, waiting for a cart to trundle up to the gate.

“The thing you’re after is in there?” he asked, sounding dubious.

“I believe so.”

“And you’re going to steal it?”

“You can’t steal what’s yours by right . . . But yes. Is that a problem?”

“Stealing from a Fief Lord.” He grimaced and shook his head. “They’ll kill us if we’re caught.”

“No, they’ll kill me. You’re not coming.” She held up a hand as he started to protest. “I need you to secure our escape. You’ll wait with the horses at the city gate.”

“And if you don’t come?”

“Then ride away, fast.”

“I can’t . . .”

“This isn’t a story and it isn’t a song, and you’re not some noble warrior who can rescue me. You’re right, if I’m caught, I’m dead, and your waiting around will make no difference. You will take the horses, and the money, and go.”

Her gaze was drawn back to the manor as a cart arrived, laden with wine and sundry foodstuffs. The guards opened the gate and a troop of servants emerged to unload the cart, mostly men, but also a few women. She watched them closely, drinking in the details of their garb. A pale blue scarf tying back their hair, skirts black, blouses white.

“Where would I go?” Arken was asking, sounding very young.

She watched the servants disappear back into the manor. “North,” she said. “The Reaches. If you present yourself to the Tower Lord and mention my name, I’m sure he’ll find a place for you.”

His voice was hushed when he spoke again, reverent almost. “You know Lord Al Sorna?”

She got to her feet, brushing dust from her trews. “Certainly, I was his sister.”

? ? ?

She bought a plain white blouse, a blue scarf and two skirts, one black, one green. She spent the evening before petitioning day sewing them together, green outside, black inside. She had seen how punctilious the guards were in searching visitors to the manor so discounted the notion of concealing a weapon beneath the skirts. If need be, she could always find the kitchens where there would be knives aplenty. Come the morning she presented herself at the manor gate, clutching a scroll bearing a fictitious claim against an imaginary stepmother. She was a little flustered, the farewell with Arken had been awkward, the boy leaning close to press a kiss to her cheek then retreating with a hurt look as she pulled back in alarm.

“Remember, don’t wait,” she said. “If I’m not there an hour after the gate opens in the morning . . .”

“I know,” he said, scowling a little.

She hoped he would be content with a squeeze to his hand and took herself off to the manor. She got there early but a line of over a dozen people had already formed, the number soon growing to well over two hundred by the time the gate opened. A House Guard emerged to walk down the line, a sack held open in his hands, each petitioner reaching in to extract a wooden peg as he did so. Reva duly plucked one when her turn came, doing her best to look anxious.

“Six!” exclaimed the old woman behind her, reading the symbol carved into the peg Reva had drawn. The woman’s own read fifty-nine. “I’ll be here all bloody day, with my old legs about to buckle any second as well.”

Reva thought the woman had a fairly sturdy look to her, but made a sympathetic face. “Don’t worry, grandmother. We’ll swap, here.” She held out the peg.

The woman squinted in suspicion. “How much?”

“The Father loves a generous deed,” Reva told her, smiling broadly.

“Oh.” The woman glanced at the cathedral then held out her own peg. “Righto.”

From behind came shouts of discord as the last peg was chosen. “Not my problem,” the guard with the sack called over his shoulder as he made his way back down the line. “Come back next month.”

They were soon ushered through the gate, each searched for weapons before being allowed to proceed into the grounds beyond, a bizarre mix of ornate topiary and fruit trees, then into the manor itself. The petitioners were required to gather in the main hall, situated at the end of a short hallway featuring few doors, all having the varnished look of many years’ disuse. In the hall a cordon of guards stood before a raised platform where an empty chair waited. When all one hundred petitioners had been led in, a guard held up a hand to silence the murmur.

“Bow for Fief Lord Sentes Mustor, most loyal servant of the Unified Realm and ruler by the King’s Word of the Fief of Cumbrael.”

Reva had positioned herself at the rear of the hall so only had a partial view of the man who emerged from a side door. He was of average height, somewhere past his fiftieth year, well dressed but with a long tangle of unkempt hair, walking with a slight stoop. When he sat down she had a clear view of his face, finding it far from edifying: sunken cheekbones, sallow unshaven skin and eyes that were unnaturally red, even for a drunkard. She had expected to find some vestige of her own features there, some echo of shared blood, but there was nothing, making her wonder if she favoured her mother more than her father.

The guard tapped the butt of his pole-axe on the floor and spoke again. “Keep silence for the Lady Veliss, Honorary Counsel to the Lordship of Cumbrael.”

The woman who stepped onto the platform was dressed simply in a skirt and blouse, not dissimilar to the garb of the maids Reva had so keenly observed the day before, distinguished only by the bluestone amulet hanging on a golden chain that did much to draw the eye to her ample bosom. Her hair, tied back in a simple ponytail with a blue ribbon, was a dark but natural shade of brown and her comely features, full-lipped and apple-cheeked, were free of paint.

“Filthy whore,” an anonymous male voice muttered close to Reva, though not loud enough to reach the ears of the guards.

The Lady Veliss smiled and opened her arms in a gesture of welcome, speaking in precise tones but the coarseness of her Asraelin accent giving the lie to her noble title. “On behalf of Lord Mustor, I bid you welcome. Please be assured that all petitions will be heard today, and will receive careful deliberation before judgement is made. Patience, as the Father tells us, is amongst the finest virtues.” She smiled again, showing bright and perfect teeth.

“Like the Father would soil his sight on you,” the unseen voice muttered.

“We shall proceed,” Veliss went on. “Number one. Please come forward and state your name, home and case.”

The first petitioner was an old man complaining on behalf of his village about a recent increase in rents, blaming it on his landlord’s taste for spoiling his son. “Buys him a new horse every month, milord. Ain’t right, people goin’ hungry and there’s a lad no more than twelve riding about on a brand-new stallion.”

“Your landlord’s name?” Veliss enquired.

“Lord Javen, milady.”

“Ah. I believe Lord Javen lost his eldest boy at Greenwater Ford, did he not?”

The man gave a stiff nod. “Along with half the lads in the village, milady. And they weren’t lost in the ford, they were slaughtered afterwards, having surrendered on promise of honourable treatment.”

Veliss gave a tight grimace, Greenwater Ford had been an Asraelin massacre after all. “Quite so.” She looked towards the pair of scribes sitting at a desk to the side of the platform, one of them looking up and nodding. “Your case has been noted,” Veliss told the old man. “And will receive urgent consideration.”

And on it went, one complainant after another, each with a similar tale of woe; unfair rents, unjust disinheritance, theft of land, one young girl asking for sufficient alms to buy her grandfather a new wooden leg, lost in service to the Fief Lord’s mighty forebear. “I think this one can be decided now,” Veliss said, gesturing for a servant to come forward with a purse from which she handed the girl twice the amount she had asked for, drawing an appreciative murmur from the crowd. This one’s no fool, Reva judged. Uncle is wise in his choice of whore.

The last petitioner of the morning proved the most interesting, a man of middling years and somewhat shorter than most, but impressively muscular, his belly free of any paunch despite his age, the hard muscle of his arms discernible under his shirt. Archer, Reva decided as the man bowed and stated his particulars. “Bren Antesh, Tear Head Sound, seeking permission to convene a company of archers.”

For the first time the Fief Lord stirred in his chair, eyes narrowing at the man’s name. “There was a Captain Antesh at Linesh,” he said in a voice of gravel. “Was there not?”

The archer nodded. “Indeed, my lord.”

“They say he saved the Darkblade’s life,” her uncle continued, raising a murmur from the crowd. “Can that possibly be true?”

A faint smile came to Antesh’s lips as he said, “That’s not a name I use, my lord. There is no Darkblade, it’s a story for children.”

Some of the murmurs became angry mutters. “Heresy! It’s in the books . . .” The voices fell silent as a guard slammed his pole-axe stave on the stone floor.

The Fief Lord seemed unaware of the commotion, wiping a hand over his bleary eyes as he went on, “A company of archers, eh? What on earth for?”