Sean met his gaze coolly. 'You expect me to go along with this?'

Horace answered without hesitation. 'Yes. Because you know it's the only way. And you know that he,' he jerked his thumb at the unconscious Ferris, `is willing to sell this country out to Tennyson and his thugs.'

His confidence was a mask. As he said the words, he found himself hoping that he'd been right in his judgement of the young Hibernian. Halt, disguised as Ferris, and in the company of the King's steward, would most likely be accepted as the King. If Sean wasn't with them, they'd never get past the guards outside the throne room doors.

Sean hesitated a moment longer. Yet he realised that, when he failed to call the guards the moment he had seen Ferris sprawled on the floor, he had already decided to throw in his lot with the two Araluans.

`You're right,' he said. 'I'll get the knives. I suppose it'd be too obvious if I asked for a razor?'

`My dagger will do. It's sharp enough,' Horace said. But Halt demurred as Sean began to turn away.

`Not the dagger. Get my saxe. It's good enough to cut my hair. It'll shave me.'

Horace was looking at him, fascinated by the revelation.

`So it's true,' he said. 'You really do cut your hair with your saxe knife.' It had long been a subject of discussion in Araluen; now Halt was confirming it. The Ranger didn't bother to reply.

`And get a bowl of hot water,' Halt continued to Sean. Then he glanced at Horace. 'You're not shaving me dry.'

`Make it tea,' Horace corrected him. 'A pot of hot tea. People might wonder why we'd want a bowl of hot water. But a pot of tea won't make them curious.'

Sean hesitated. 'You're going to shave him in tea?' `You're certainly not going to shave me in tea,' Halt added. But Horace made a conciliatory gesture.

`It's still essentially hot water. And we can use it to darken the parts of your face where the beard has been.'

Sean looked from one to the other. Then he nodded agreement. Horace was right. Shaving Halt would expose an area of his face that had been protected from sun and wind for years. It would show like a beacon unless they disguised it somehow.

`Saxe knife and tea,' he muttered, as if it were some bizarre kind of shopping list. Then he hurried from the robing room.

`Have you considered,' Halt asked Horace, 'that Ferris's hair is dark, while mine is a dignified shade of grey?'

`He dyes it,' Horace said and Halt exploded irritably. `Well, of course he dyes it! But somehow I don't think tea will do the trick for me. Any thoughts?'

`Soot,' Horace told him. 'The fireplace and chimney will be full of it. We'll rub it through your hair. We might wi mix a bit into the tea for your face as well.'

Halt reached down and righted the chair that had been knocked over when Ferris went down. He slumped on it, resigned to his fate.

`It just gets better by the minute,' he said gloomily.

An hour later, the doors of the throne room crashed open. The six guards in the outer room all came to attention as Sean emerged.

`The King has decided to visit the market ground,' he announced. 'Form up to escort him.'

The guards hurried to obey as the King, dressed in a heavy green satin cloak, decorated with intricate brocade work and trimmed with pure ermine, swept out of the throne room. The cloak reached to the ground and had a high collar, which the King had turned up. One of the foreign visitors accompanied him. There was no sign of the second foreigner but the guards, if they registered his absence, didn't have time to dwell on it. They formed up rapidly, two in front of the royal party and four behind, maintaining a respectful distance so that they were close enough to protect the King if required, without being able to eavesdrop on the royal conversation.

Sean led the way, with the King and Horace side by side behind him. Sean had to agree that Horace's handiwork had been effective. Halt's hair, darkened with chimney soot, was parted in the middle, slicked down with tea and drawn back beneath the royal crown. A close inspection of the King's face would have revealed a rather patchwork effect on the lower areas, where an uneven paste of soot, dirt and tea dregs had been smeared on the pink flesh left bare by Horace's inexpert efforts with the saxe knife. The paste also went some way towards concealing half a dozen small nicks and cuts on his face, where the saxe had not been quite up to the task of dealing with Halt's wiry beard. Horace had quickly found that a thick slurry of soot and tea served to staunch the bleeding quite effectively.

`I'll get you for this,' Halt had told him as he dabbed the disgusting mixture on the worst of the cuts. 'That soot is filthy. I'll probably come down with half a dozen infections.'

`Probably,' Horace had replied, distracted by his task. `But we only need you for today.'

Which was not a comforting thought for Halt.

Also aiding their deception was the fact that Ferris, over the years, had made it clear that he did not want his subjects looking directly into his face. Most people, even many of those in the castle, had never had a chance to study the King's features in detail. They had an overall impression of him and that impression was matched by the way Halt looked, talked and moved.

Preceded by two of the throne room guards, the party marched out of the keep tower into the courtyard. Abelard and Kicker were standing close by the doorway. Kicker's reins were fastened to a tethering ring. Abelard, of course, simply stood where he was until he was wanted.

He looked up as the party emerged and nickered a soft hello to his master, who was dressed in an unfamiliar green cloak and had dirt plastered on his face. Halt glanced at him, brow furrowed, and silently mouthed the words 'shutup'. Abelard shook his mane, which was as close as a horse could come to shrugging, and turned away.

`My horse recognised me,' Halt said accusingly out of the side of his mouth to Horace.

Horace glanced at the small shaggy horse, standing beside his own massive battlehorse.

`Mine didn't,' he replied. 'So that's a fifty-fifty result.'

I think I'd like better odds than that,' Halt replied.

Horace suppressed a grin. 'Don't worry. He can probably smell you.'

`I can smell myself,' Halt replied acerbically. 'I smell of tea and soot.'

Horace thought it was wiser not to reply to that.

The small group marched down the ramp to the town itself As they approached, Halt was conscious of the fact that, while people drew back from their path and lowered their heads or curtseyed as their King passed, there was no sign of cheering or waving. Ferris, now unconscious and bound and gagged in the wardrobe of the robing room, had done little to endear himself to his subjects.

They made their way into the town proper and the way continued to clear for them – whether' out of respect or because of the armed men who flanked them, Halt couldn't tell. He suspected it was a combination of the two. They turned down a side street and at the end of it he could make out an open space. The buzz of hundreds of voices carried to them. They were approaching the market ground, where Tennyson was already addressing a large crowd.

`They've started without us,' he said.

`They may have started,' Horace replied, 'but we'll finish it.'