The man stood unmoving, arms at his sides. ‘I am not here for Challice,’ he said.

‘If you want to think it was all your idea, fine. But I should tell you, I know her well-far better than you. She’s been working on you, filling your head-she’s pretty much led you here by the hand, even if you’re too thick to realize it. Of course, she probably didn’t want anyone too smart, since a clever man would have seen through her deadly scheming. A clever man would have walked away. Or run.’

The man tilted his head slightly. ‘What is the value of all this, Gorlas Vidikas?’

Gorlas sighed, glanced back at the foreman, who stood watching and listening-yes, something would have to be done about that-and then faced the man once more. ‘Since you’re too much the coward to actually tell me your name, I will just have to slice off your face, to take back to her as proof. Look at you, you’re not even wearing a sword. Foreman! Do we still have Murillio’s rapier? I forget, did that go back with him?’

‘Not sure, sir-want me to go and look?’

‘Well, find the waif a sword. Anything will do-it’s not as If he knows how to use it in any case. And hurry, before we lose the light and the mob down there gets bored waiting.’ He smiled at the man. ‘They’ve got bloodthirsty of late-my fault, that-’

‘Yes, about Murillio…’

‘Ah, is that why you’ve come? The duel was fairly fought. He simply could not match my skill.’ *

‘Where is the boy?’

‘So he’s the reason you’re here? This is getting difficult to believe. The child’s not some orphaned prince or something, is he? Rather, was he?’

‘Was?’.

‘Yes. He’s dead, I’m afraid.’

‘I see.’

‘So, still interested?’ Gorlas asked. ‘Of course, that’s not really relevant any more, because I want you to stay. I suppose you can try to run, but I assure you, you’ll be cut down before you get astride that fine horse-a horse I will welcome in my stables. Tell me, are you a better duellist than Murillio was? You’ll have to be. Much better.’

The foreman had gone halfway down the trail before yelling instructions, and now a youth was scurrying up cradling a sword-not Murillio’s, but some-thing found in one of the workings from the look of it. Thin, tapered to a point that was slightly bent. Iron, at least, but the patina was a thick crust over the blade’s spine, and both edges were severely notched. The handle, Gorlas saw as the foreman-breath wheezing-delivered it, wasn’t even wrapped.

‘Sorry about the lack of grip,’ Gorlas said. ‘But really, you should have come prepared.’

‘How did it feel,’ the man asked, ‘killing an old man?’

‘The duel was fair-’

‘Agreed to the death? I doubt that, Vidikas.’

‘I dislike the lack of respect in using my last name like that-especially when you won’t even tell me your name.’

‘Well, your wife calls you Useless, so if you’d prefer that…’

Gorlas flung the weapon at the man’s feet, where it skidded in a puff of golden dust. ‘On guard,’ he ordered in a rasp. ‘To the death.’

The man made no move to pick up the weapon. He Stood as he had before, head tipped a fraction to one side.

‘You are a coward in truth,’ Gorlas said, drawing his rapier. ‘Cowards do not deserve to be treated with honour, so let us dispense with convention-’

‘I was waiting for you to say that.’

The foreman, standing off to one side, still struggling with the ache in his chest from a labouring heart, was in the process of licking his gritty lips. Before he had finished that instinctive flicker, the scene before him irrevocably changed.

And Gorlas Vidikas was falling forward, landing hard. His rapier rolled from his hand to catch up in the grass lining the track. Dust puffed up, then slowly set-tled.

The stranger-had he even moved? the foreman was unsure-now turned to him and said, ‘You heard him dispense with the rules of the duel, correct?’

The foreman nodded.

‘And, think back now, good sir/did you even once hear me voice a formal chal-lenge?’

‘Well, I was part of the way down the trail for a moment-’

‘But not beyond range of hearing, I’m sure.’

‘Ah, no, unless you did whisper something-’

‘Think back. Gorlas was babbling on and on-could I have said anything even if I’d wanted to?’

‘True enough, thinking on it.’

‘Then are we satisfied here?’

‘Ain’t for me to say that either way,’ the foreman replied. ‘It’s the man this one was working for.’

‘Who, being absent, will have to rely solely upon your report.’

‘Er, I suppose so.’

The man shrugged. ‘Do as you see fit, then.’ He glanced down into the pit. ‘You get the feeling they’re about to start cheering,’ he said.

‘They ain’t decided.’

‘No?’

‘They ain’t decided if whoever replaces Vidikas is gonna be any better, you see?’

‘Because, in their experience, they’re all the same.’

The foreman nodded. ‘Didn’t think you was nobleborn.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘No, you’re pretty much like them below. Like me, even.’

‘I suppose so.’ The man walked to the body of Gorlas Vidikas, bent down to roll it on to its back, and the foreman saw the two knife handles, blades buried to the hilts, jutting from Gorlas’s chest.

He decided to lick his lips again, and somehow the dust suddenly tasted sweeter. ‘Know anything ‘bout property law, any chance?’

‘Sorry, what?’

‘Like, if I was paying on a loan to this man-’

‘No, no idea. Though I imagine if you just sit tight, maybe wait to see if any-body ever shows up to collect, well, that would hardly be considered illegal. Would it now?’

‘No, seems proper enough to me,’ the foreman agreed.

The man worked the knives back out, wiped the blood off on the stained, rum-pled cloak. ‘Did he tell true about Harllo?’

‘What? Oh. He did. The lad tried to escape, and was killed.’

The man sighed, and then straightened. ‘Ah, shit, Murillio,’ he muttered. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Wait-this Harllo-was he that important? I mean-’ and the foreman gestured, to encompass not only the corpse lying on the road, but the one that had been there the d«y before as well, ‘all this killing. Who was Harllo?’

The man walked to his horse and swung himself into the saddle. He collected the reins. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said after a moment’s consideration. ‘The way it started, well, it seemed…’ he hesitated, and then said, ‘he was a boy nobody loved.’

Bitter and scarred as he was, even the foreman winced at that. ‘Most of ’em are, as end up here. Most of ’em are’

The man studied him from the saddle.

The foreman wondered-he didn’t see much in the way of triumph or satisfac-tion in that face looking down at him. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing, in fact. Whatever it was, it didn’t fit.

Collecting the reins, the stranger drew the horse round and set off up the road. Heading back to the city.

The foreman coughed up a throatful of rank phlegm, then stepped forward and spat down, quite precisely, on to the upturned face of Gorlas Vidikas. Then he turned round. ‘I want three guards and the fastest horses we got!’

He watched the runner scramble.

From the pit below rose the occasional snatch of harsh laughter. The foreman understood that well enough, and so he nodded. ‘Damn and below, I’ll give ’em all an extra flagon of ale anyway.’

Cutter rode for a time as dusk surrendered to darkness. The horse was the first to sense a loss of will, as the rider on its back ceased all efforts at guiding its pace. The beast dropped from a canter to a trot, then a walk, and then it came to rest and stood at the edge of the road, head lowering to snag a tuft of grass.

Cutter stared down at his hands, watched as the reins slithered free. And then he began to weep. For Murillio, for a boy he had never met. But most of all, he wept for himself.

Come to me, my love. Come to me now.