“There’s the odd matter of four young persons that Bramley found standing over you when you were…” He paused.

“Buried up to my neck?”

“Well, yes.”

“I thought,” said Chancellor Vipond, “that was a dream. Three boys and a girl.”

“Yes.”

“What were they doing?”

“Ah, we thought you might be able to answer. Bramley wants to execute the boys and sell on the girl.”

“What on earth for?”

“He thinks they were part of the Gurrier band who attacked you.”

“They attacked us at least twenty-four hours before I was found. What in God’s name would they be doing there if they had anything to do with the Gurriers?”

“Bramley still wants to execute them. He says we need to send a message that anyone who attacks a minister of the Materazzi should know what’s coming to them.”

“He’s a bloodthirsty bastard, this Bramley of yours.”

“Oh, he’s not one of mine-God forbid.”

“What do these children have to say for themselves?”

“That they’d just arrived and were about to dig you up.”

“And you don’t believe them?”

“There were no signs of digging,” Albin paused. “And I wouldn’t say they were children exactly. The three boys are thirteen or fourteen, but hard-looking creatures. The girl, on the other hand, looks as if she’d been stored in soft soap. And what were they doing in the middle of the Scablands?”

“What did they have to say for themselves?”

“They said they were gypsies.”

Vipond laughed. “There haven’t been any gypsies in this part of the world since the Redeemers wiped them out sixty years ago.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll talk to them myself in a few days when I feel better. Pass me that cup of water, there’s a good fellow.”

Albin reached to the table beside the bed and handed Vipond the cup. He was looking very pale now.

“I’ll leave you, Chancellor.”

“You said there were two things?”

Albin stopped. “Yes. Before Bramley found you he caught IdrisPukke skulking about four or so miles away.”

“Excellent,” said Vipond, his eyes alight with interest. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

“Unfortunately he escaped.”

Vipond gasped with irritation. He did not speak for nearly a minute.

“I want IdrisPukke. If he ever comes under your hand, you will bring him to me, and tell no one else.”

Albin nodded. “Of course.” He left Vipond’s room a satisfied man.

It was the sixth day of their captivity in the cells underneath Memphis, but despite the uncertainty the three boys were in good spirits. They had three good meals a day, which is to say that by the standards of a normal person they had three revolting meals a day; they were able to sleep as long as they liked, and they did so for as much as eighteen hours, as if making up for the deprivations of a lifetime. At about four in the afternoon their jailer unlocked the cell door and showed in Albin, who had interrogated them once before, along with a clearly much-revered man in his late fifties.

“Good afternoon,” said Lord Vipond.

Vague Henri and Kleist looked at him carefully from their beds. Cale was sitting on his with his knees drawn up to his chest and his hood drawn over his face.

“On your feet when Lord Vipond enters the room,” said Albin quietly. Slowly Vague Henri and Kleist stood up. Cale did not move.

“You, stand up and remove your hood-or I’ll get the guards to do it for you.” Again Albin’s voice was quiet, unthreatening, matter-of-fact.

There was a pause, and then Cale sprang to his feet as if rising from a refreshing sleep and flicked back his hood. He stared at the floor as if he found what was in the dust of immense interest.

“So,” said Vipond. “Do you recognize me?”

“Yes,” said Kleist. “You’re the man we tried to rescue in the Scablands.”

“That’s right,” said Vipond. “What were you doing there?”

“We’re gypsies,” said Kleist. “We got lost.”

“What kind of gypsies?”

“Oh, the usual kind,” said Kleist, smiling.

“Captain Bramley thinks you were trying to rob me.”

Kleist sighed. “He’s a bad man, that Captain Bramley, a very bad man. All we were doing was trying to save an important person like yourself and he chains us up like criminals and puts us in here. Not very grateful.”

There was a strange and alarming gaiety about the way Kleist was cheeking the great man in front of him, as if not only did he not expect to be believed, but he did not care whether he was or not. Vipond had met this kind of insolence from only one other source: men he had accompanied to the gallows who knew that nothing could save them.

“We were going to help you,” said Vague Henri-and of course from his point of view he was telling the truth.

Vipond looked over at Cale.

“What’s your name?”

Cale did not respond.

“Come with me.” Vipond walked to the door. The jailer quickly opened it. Vipond turned back to Cale. “Come on, boy. Are you deaf as well as insolent?” Cale looked at Vague Henri, who nodded, as if urging him to agree. Cale did not move for a moment but then slowly walked to the cell door.

“Follow us, if you’d be so kind, Captain Albin.” Vipond set off with Cale behind him and Albin hanging back, his finger loosening the clasp holding his shortsword in its scabbard. Kleist moved to the bars as the cell was locked.

“What about me? I fancy a walk too.”

Then the two boys heard the outer door being unlocked and Cale was gone.

“Are you sure,” asked Vague Henri, “that you’re all right in the head?”

Cale found himself in a pleasant courtyard with an elegant lawn at its center. They began to walk along the path that followed the walls, Cale keeping in step with Chancellor Vipond.

“I’ve always believed in the principle,” said Vipond, after they had been walking for a minute or so in silence, “that you should never tell your best friend anything you wouldn’t be prepared to tell your worst enemy. But now is a time, as far as you’re concerned, when honesty is very much the best policy. So I don’t want to hear any nonsense about gypsies, or indeed any other nonsense. I want the truth about who you are and what you were doing in the Scablands.”

“You mean the truth like I’d tell my best friend.”

“I may not be your best friend, young man, but I am your best hope. Tell me the truth and I might be prepared to take a generous view of the fact that, while the girl and the slow-witted one wanted to help me, you and that other guttersnipe wanted to leave me there.”

Cale looked at him. “Since we’re telling the truth, Lord, wouldn’t you have thought about what you were getting into-if you were in our shoes?”

“Indeed. Now get on with it. And if I think you’re lying, I’ll hand you over to Bramley as quick as two shakes of a lamb’s tail and no questions asked.”

Cale said nothing for a few seconds and then sighed as if he had made a decision.

“The three of us are Redeemers’ acolytes from the Great Sanctuary at Shotover.”

“Ah, the truth,” said Vipond, smiling. “It has a ring about it, don’t you find? And the girl?”

“We were looking for food in the combs-tunnels and hallways the Redeemers had closed off. We stumbled across her in a place we’ve never heard of. There were others like her.”

“Women in the Sanctuary? How very strange! Or perhaps not.”

“We were seen with the girl and we had no choice. We had to go on the lam.”

“A very great risk, I understand.”

“There was no risk at all if we’d stayed.”

“Quite so.” He thought about what he had heard for a minute or so as the two walked slowly in step around the courtyard, side by side. “And the Scablands?”

“It was the best place to hide-you can’t see far because of all the hillocks and eskers that break it up.”

“The Redeemers hunt with dogs. I’ve seen one-ugly as death but great sniffers.”