'Your Grace, please let me fetch you a seat,' Lady Kinna urged. 'You're hurt and in shock; your wounds need tending.'

Natai waved the woman's protests away. The sting from her dozen small hurts wrapped her better than any bandage could. The pain took her away from the horrors of the day. Her torn and damp clothes meant nothing; changing them would change nothing.

The view had once thrilled her, as a little girl she'd been content to spend hour after hour staring out of the window at the city

beyond. Now it merely echoed the numb emptiness in her stomach. What she saw was distant and blurred, not quite real.

Again her thoughts turned to Ruhen and the child's calming effect, but then she remembered Kinna, who was continually spoiling Natai's little prince, trying to steal his affections away. During every council meeting held in the Ruby Tower, at every formal court conducted in the Duchess's Chamber, the woman would find some excuse to hold Ruhen and fuss over him, running her fingers through his soft, sooty-brown hair, delighting in his every sound.

'I still cannot believe all of this,' Lady Kinna said suddenly, 'that the clerics would even attempt this. It beggars belief.'

Natai let the woman chatter on; it was preferable to lonely silence. Gripping her hand tight enough to turn her knuckles white, Natai looked down at the open gate where she could make out the solitary figure of Major Feilin, loitering uneasily.

'They cannot believe the city will stand for it; the duke was a beloved and humble man,' she went on. 'The arrogance of the clerics has grown out of all proportion.'

'They do not think,' Natai said dully. 'They have lost all reason. The temples are places of madness now; we must close them until sense returns. We will quarantine them so the people are not infected by this evil.'

'A quarantine?' Lady Kinna asked. 'Yes, of course, I will see it is done. The infection must be purged. The people will be glad; they are unsettled by the fury and hatred being preached.'

'Better they look to Ruhen than seek answers in the temples,' Natai said with sudden vehemence. 'In his eyes you will find peace, in the temples there is only madness.' She stopped suddenly as she saw sudden activity in the street below.

'Look, here they come.'

A column of dark shapes, men huddled against the rain, trotted with surprising speed towards the main gate. A number split off and went in different directions, forming up in neat lines across the alleys and avenues that adjoined the main street.

Lady Kinna gave a tiny gasp, then straightened her shoulders. She would be strong. The duchess focused on the gate. Yes, the penitents had reached it, and knocked Major Feilin down. They hadn't waited but streamed past and over him. She couldn't tell whether he lived or not; all she could do was hope that in their haste the flood of men surging into the courtyard had left him alive. Her servants, wearing the uniform of Ruby Tower Guardsmen, were gathered in a sullen, frightened clump on the right. The penitents did not hesitate but headed straight for the pretend soldiers, knocking many down and stripping their weapons with brutal efficiency. She could imagine the angry shouts and commands. They would be forced to their knees and one or two killed as an example perhaps…

Natai found herself holding her breath, waiting for Sergeant Kayel to appear. The mercenaries continued to stream into the courtyard, scores of men, a hundred, two hundred, all desperate to be off the rain-soaked street for fear of Ushull's savage daughter, Kiyer of the Deluge. Finally knots of robed priests followed. Though she strained to see, the tower was too high for her to make out any of the faces.

'How many of them do I know?' she murmured softly, leaning forward. 'How many have laid blessings on my head?'

'Your Grace, don't stand so close to the window,' Lady Kinna said with alarm. 'They must not be able to recognise you.'

'It is too far, they will see nothing.'

'What if they use magic?'

'They don't have the strength. Peness would be able to do so, but there is not one cleric in Byora who approaches his skill.'

As the soldiers continued to enter, a distant voice in Natai's head told her she should be afraid, that there were so many her guards would not be able to hold them, but the emotion would not come.

'Look,' Lady Kinna said, pointing, 'Materse Avenue!'

Natai followed the direction of Kinna's finger and saw the first rush of water down one of the main avenues, around the left-hand side of the compound. The soldiers still on the street abandoned alI pretence of discipline and ran sloshing away from the water. One tripped and had to struggle up on his own as none of his comrades stopped to help him. In less than a minute, Natai knew, the flood would crash down the streets on either side of her compound, channelled down the four long streets of Eight Towers that had been designed to carry away the worst of the floods. Kiyer would still claim victims, she always did, but the losses would be fewer now the city had been designed to allow her passage.

Somewhere down below the message was passed to the soldiers, and the rest piled inside the compound wall. They left a respectful gap around the priests who were standing in the centre of the compound, facing the grand entrance to the tower. For a moment she couldn't see what they were looking at, until a figure lurched out towards them. Sergeant Kayel was walking none too steadily. He carried something in his hand. A club? No, a clay bottle.

Natai heard Lady Kinna gasp. He really has no fear of these priests, she realised. Neither fear – nor respect.

Kayel took a moment to return the stares he received, then lurched around and headed back inside. She knew they would follow him, and as he disappeared from view again, Natai turned for the door, throat dry and heart pounding. She ignored the urgent voice of Lady Kinna behind her. She could picture the ceiling collapsing down on their heads, snapping their withered bones like twigs, cutting off their cries like lambs in the slaughterhouse. The memory of Ganas falling, slowly, so slowly, made her stumble, but she caught herself in time and fought her way forward – down the corridor and the series of short staircases that would take her to the gallery where she could look down upon her vacant throne.

She could hear the tramp of boots starting on the stairs further down, but she went on regardless. The floors in between were the largest, with dozens of rooms each; they wouldn't reach her before the roof fell in and they raced back to find their leaders dead. With Lady Kinna following close behind, the Duchess of Byora ran through the deserted corridors to Erwillen's Landing, named by one of her ancestors out of misplaced piety for the shrine to the High Hunter, an Aspect of Vellern, he had built there – he stationed archers in it to pick off supposed assassins.

The landing, painted with garish murals, was positioned immediately above the main entrance to the Ruby Tower. Tall windows looked over the entrance and down into the Duchess Chamber. The hanging shrine was suspended from the ceiling: a wrought-iron frame from which dangled a mass of feathers, brightly coloured ribbons and small icons bearing Erwillen's image.

As she passed, the items trembled and she stopped to look at them. The colours were faded and weak. Natai touched the nearest feather lightly and it crumbled under her finger. She stared at the ash-like remains that fell into her palm for a moment before grabbing one of the painted wooden icons and crushing it in one hand as easily as if it were paper.

'You're dead. This shrine is drained and empty. This is only the first of many in Byora,' Natai promised.

Looking down into the Duchess Chamber, all she saw was her vacant throne. The fixed stone seat, large enough for a child to sit comfortably beside Byora's ruler, was set on apedestal. There was a tall wooden frame behind, painted with the city's livery. The scene was as still as a painting – until Sergeant Kayel staggered into sight and began to follow a meandering path towards a door behind the throne. Two penitents in black-painted mail followed briskly behind. They caught him with ease, one dodging a drunkenly swung bottle as the other cracked a club over Kayel's head. The big soldier dropped to one knee with a grunt.