Lasts until Last Quarter of Second Greater Moon. Gidesta: Wool sales and Dyestuff Mart, Inglis. Dock festivals. Dalasor: Shearing. Smoking out the Tick-King. Ring-feathering. Tormalin: Hay-making. Crop-riding days. Rushing the Shrines.

Summer Solstice

Sacred to Saedrin Greater Moon Dark.

Gidesta: Guild Elections in Inglis. Pacifying the Mountains. Dalasor: Dairy fairs and cheese-racing. Whitenight fires. Tormalin: Summer Assizes. Land taxes due. Emperor's Dole.

Aft-Summer

Sacred to Larasion

Lasts until Second Full of the Greater Moon. Gidesta: Apothecaries' Markets. Cloth-sales. Shrine-ales. Dalasor: Crowning the Stones. Dousing the herds. Tormalin: Rose Mart. Shrine Wake-nights. Corn-plaiting.

For-Autumn

Sacred to Dastennin

Lasts through Full Dark until Greater Moon waxes. Gidesta: Close of mining season. Ore-tithe to the Mountains. Dalasor: Herd-motes. Smith-motes. Foster-motes. Tormalin: Harvest. Selling Ostrin's Pig. Sea-salt sales.

Autumn Equinox

Sacred to Drianon

Greater and Lesser Half-Moons. Gidesta: Metal and Gem Fair, Inglis. Rock-salt sales. Dalasor: Cattle fairs on Drove Road. Sounding the Horn-chain. Tormalin: Meat, milk and wool taxes due. Boundary walking.

Aft-Autumn

Sacred to Talagrin

Lasts until Second Full of the Lesser Moon. Gidesta: Sale of Guild prenticeships. Journeyman quit-rents. Dalasor: Planting the Winter-stake. Hide sales. Nut-fairs. Tormalin: Wheat-queening. Last Calf feasts. Open wood-gathers.

For-Winter

Sacred to Maewelin

Lasts until Second Full of the Greater Moon. Gidesta: Candle-auctions for trapping tracts. Ice races, Inglis. Dalasor: Burning the Ails-faggot. Dressing the Sentinel-trees. Tormalin: Green-branching the Shrines. Cording the roads.

Inglis, 10th of Aft-Autumn

The night for our little enterprise arrived and Shiv and I set out. Later Geris was going to bring the hapless nephew back to the inn for a friendly game of runes. Shiv had left a few spells to guarantee no one would be able to remember seeing the man and I had left Geris a rather special set of bones to make sure he could control the game. I'd spent a few evenings teaching him some tricks and the combination of his nimble fingers and naive manner could be quite devastating. I almost found myself wondering if we might not have a longer-term future after all; cosy nights together in a feather bed did a lot to encourage such ideas.

It was chilly and dark out, but the streets were lit by the flambeaux at wealthy doors and the linkmen with their lanterns. I took a swig of the juniper liquor I was carrying and then poured a little over my clothes and hair. I had to be careful; there was no point in being invisible later on if everyone was wondering where the smell of a pot-still was coming from. We found a quiet tavern in the kind of respectable neighbourhood that Watchmen like to look after and I launched into my celebrated impression of a drunk, maudlin and argumentative by turns. Perhaps I should audition for Judal too. It was not long before the taverner sent out a boy with a message.

'Come on, sweetheart, let's find somewhere for you to have a nice lie-down.'

'He said he loved me, he swore it.'

'I'm sure he did.' The Watchman half carried me out and escorted me firmly to the lock-up. I judged him Lescari, by his accent, and keen, by his shiny breast-plate.

I didn't see Shiv following but the cell door had not been long shut when I was caught up in a dizzying invisible spiral of air. I felt completely disoriented and not a little sick so I shut my eyes to find myself standing next to Shiv when I opened them. I managed not to vomit on his shoes; I did not think that would be much of a thank you.

'Come on.' We moved as fast as we could without attracting attention.

'I've left an illusion of you sleeping,' Shiv whispered.

'Good thinking.' There's always something that doesn't occur to you and I was beginning to wonder if Shiv might be amenable to working with me and Halice in the future.

We found the discreet alley by Yeniya's house where Darni was waiting.

'She came back at seventh chime and hasn't gone out again yet. The servants left just before dusk.'

I frowned. We knew Yeniya was due to be dining with her jurist and we were counting on the fact that she'd never yet been seen wearing the chain with evening gowns.

'All right, get back and help Geris.'

Darni left and Shiv worked his magic on me. It felt really odd; I could see myself but dimly, as if I were a shadow. I took off my cloak and when I dropped it at Shiv's feet, he jumped as it became visible.

'Get back to the inn,' I whispered.

'What if there's a problem? What if she's not going out after all?' His gaze went somewhere past my right ear.

'I'll deal with it from here. We don't want anyone seeing you hanging about.'

He left and I crossed the street to take the steps down to the kitchen yard. It rather took the fun out of it, not having to watch, wait and hug the shadows. Should I go in or not? I was invisible, after all, and we knew the servants had left. Should I risk trying to find my way around the house if Yeniya was still in there? What could she be doing alone in an empty house? I could think of a few things; one at least would mean she was not actually on her own. Was that so bad? If she was busy playing stuff the chicken with some handsome lackey, they'd be unlikely to hear me playing house cat. I only hoped she had a separate dressing-room and did not keep her jewellery in the bedchamber. Good sex may make you think the earth is spinning, but it doesn't make caskets open of their own accord or things float through the air. I made up my mind to go inside anyway; if it all looked impossible, I'd just sneak out again and we'd have to come up with something new.

The kitchen and basement were dark and the locks soon gave in. I crept through the echoing darkness of the kitchen, sliding my feet along the smooth flagstones. The lingering smells of laundry and baking mixed with the hot metal scent of the range, teasing my memory; I had been reared in a place like this. There was no sign of food preparation, so Yeniya and her swain were apparently not dining in. That was a relief, but what was going on? We'd been watching her for days now, and she was usually as regular as the rains in Aldabreshi. Something was starting to feel very wrong as I skirted the long scrubbed table and headed for the door. I was starting to wish Shiv was still waiting outside or, better yet, in here too.

I crept up the stairs and into the richly furnished hall. Even in the gloom, it made the house where I'd grown up look tawdry; Yeniya or her late husband had taste as well as coin. Lustrous vases shimmered in alcoves, passing flashes of light through the windows threw splashes of colour on to the pictures that lined the walls. Dried flowers in silver stands scented the air; the house was confident, beautiful and serene. I stole silently up the carpeted steps to the first floor and found that the lady herself was now anything but these things.

Whoever they were, they'd shown no mercy. Her elegant and painted fingers had been brutally snapped, with the broken bones worked savagely against each other, ivory splinters gleaming in the ruin of the flesh. Blood on her once flawless face showed how she'd bitten right through her lip, silently eloquent of her agony, while tears made a sorry mess of her fashionable make-up. Clumps of her lustrous brown hair had been ripped out bodily leaving the rest stickily matted. The stains of bruises round her neck had stopped darkening when death finally released her but I could see the pattern of repeated strangling and release clearly enough. Her wrists and ankles showed the prints of vicious hands, and the blood and pale stains on her green satin shift told me why. Had the rape been part of the torture, or a bonus for the boys? A dagger thrust through one eye had ended her torment but the other, glazed and rimmed with blood, stared straight at me, the bright blue dimmed in death. That eye beseeched me; why had this had happened to her?