'My son… you look unconvinced.'

Carnelian shook his head. 'No, it is something else.' He looked his father in the eye, seeing something of Tain there, then blurted out, 'Did you know Tain would be blinded?'

The puzzlement in his father's face forced Carnelian to describe the events in the tent the night Tain had seen Jaspar's face. Horror glazed his father's eyes.

Then you did not know this would happen?' said Carnelian.

'Of course I did not! How could you even… think that? Tain… is… my son.'

Carnelian felt like a bow being unstrung.

Suth was embarrassed by the emotion that came over his boy's face. 'Does he ask for… something?'

Carnelian blushed.

'Is there a price… for Tain's eyes?'

Carnelian squared up to his father. 'Knowledge of what power it is that the Lord Aurum has over you.'

'He did it on purpose… to trap you.'

Carnelian gaped. 'On purpose…' He shook his head, unable to comprehend such wickedness.

Suth closed his eyes, thinking.

Carnelian poured the unguent into the bowl, dipped in a pad and concentrated on cleaning the blood away. He felt the need to confess everything. 'Vermel told me that our exile was long ago rescinded.'

Suth opened his eyes, saw the boy's pain, closed them again. That one… looks at me… with vulture eyes. But he spoke truth. I will try to explain.' His eyes opened once more to look at his son. The man that later became God Emperor… Kumatuya…'

'My uncle.'

'We shared love.'

Carnelian's eyes grew round.

'His sister, Ykoriana… coveting all his love, resented me. When their sister…' Suth closed his eyes. 'My mother…' suggested Carnelian. Suth nodded.

Carnelian resumed the cleaning, waiting for his father to muster enough strength to continue.

Suth went on. 'When she died… Ykoriana's resentment turned to hatred. At the last election… she threatened to use her votes against Kumatuya unless… unless I swore on my blood to quit Osrakum.'

Carnelian frowned. ‘She blackmailed you.'

'Without her eight thousand votes… Kumatuya would have died.' There was a long pause. His father stared at the ceiling. 'By the time that I was released from my oath… other factors.'

'And these other factors lie behind Aurum's influence?'

Suth nodded, then seeing the doubt returning to his son's face, he added, They are not shameful… but cannot be discussed. Will you trust me, my son?'

Carnelian looked into his father's eyes and was moved by their appeal. He jerked a nod.

'Good,' his father sighed.

Carnelian resumed the cleaning. He had found the wound's slack mouth. He cleaned carefully around its swollen lips as his father trembled with the agony of it. Carnelian stopped and wiped away the sweat that threatened to blind him. Then he looked round, thought for a moment, checked to see his father was not looking, bent down and began to release the bandage from around one of his ankles. It gave and he unwound a length up to his knee and cut it off, as quiedy as he could. He took another length from his other leg and then began to wind them round his father's body to cover the wound.

'And Aurum?' he said as a distraction.

'He thinks me weak… I let him believe it… but I will cheat him yet,' he looked at Carnelian, 'with your help, my son.

'You see how they have exploited… our disunity… cleave to me. When we… enter Osrakum, I will be taken into the Labyrinth… but you must go to our coomb… will write letter… trouble there

… too long away… if I die…'

Carnelian began an emotional protest but his father's hand raised to stay him.

'… find Fey… let her advise you…' 'Aunt Fey? Brin's sister?'

His father gave a nod. 'Beware of the other lineage… and my mother… she knows nothing of reasons for exile…' The last words were sighs.

Carnelian could not bear to look at his father's pain-scrunched face. He busied himself with his handiwork. The bandages over the wound were already blushing. 'We…'

'You are squandering your strength, Father.'

'We must save Tain's eyes.'

Carnelian looked at him with hope.

'If Jaspar wants you… betray me, then betray…' His fingers hooked in spasm. Tell him of the oath… blood oath, I swore to Ykoriana… best to stay close to truth… oath kept me in exile…'

'Will he know nothing of its rescinding?'

'He might know of oath… but not of…'

'Rescinding.'

Suth lifted his hand. Take it…'

Carnelian gripped his father's hand. He could feel the pain in its trembling. 'But-'

His father's hand squeezed. There is more.' He took some ragged breaths. 'God Emperor and Aurum found a loophole… in Law. Oath made as Suth… not as He-who-goes-before. As long as I hold… post, I am free… to return… but…'

'But Aurum controls the Clave and thus your appointment to that post and can at any point strip you of it and force you back into exile.'

Carnelian felt his father squeeze his hand.

'I understand, Father. Please rest now.'

Suth gave another squeeze. Carnelian carefully laid his father's hand down on the bed and disengaged his grip. He scooped up the filthy bandages and turned to leave. His father's hand grazed his. Carnelian looked round at him.

'Make sure… bind him with blood oath.'

Carnelian leaned forward to kiss his father's forehead. 'Sleep, father, I will do everything as you say.'

The next day his father put on a show of strength. Carnelian rode beside him and helped him make the changeovers. At first he was surprised when Aurum did not challenge his new place. Then he realized how fearful the Master was that his most important piece might yet be snatched from the game.

'My father will die.' Carnelian hoped to cheat his fear by speaking it.

'If we can get him there in time, the Wise will heal him,' said Aurum.

They hurtled down the channel that centuries of couriers had worn in the leftway. Although they maintained a furious pace, it seemed to Carnelian they were not moving at all. Each time they stopped they were in the same place: a watch-tower amidst a simmering plain.

That night his father began to burn with fever and had to be carried up to his cell. Carnelian tended him and made a bed on the floor beside him. He hardly slept. He cooled his father by smearing water on his face and sprinkling it over his bandaged body. The wound had already stained the new bandaging. Carnelian dabbed the blood with water to soften the crust. His father moaned and whistled like a wind among trees. Carnelian looked down at him bleak with fear. He could not understand how quickly the Master of the Hold had been stripped of all his granite strength.

Morning found them already slicing through the wind. Another long, long day melted past. Carnelian nodded in a stupor, trying to snatch some sleep. He had still found no chance to be alone with Jaspar.

The horizon had been thickening for a while before he noticed it. His mask's eyeslits reduced the glare enough to see there was a definite smudging along the lower sky. His stomach tightened. Although he knew what it was he dared not name it, but watched it grow as they rode a few more stages down the road.

When next they stopped he saw all eyes looking in that direction.

'My palaces, my treasures, my slaves,' said Jaspar with greedy delight.

To be rid of these filthy wrappings,' said Vennel. Carnelian watched the Master's mask move round just enough to bring his father within reach of its eyeslits.

The Marula were gazing at Osrakum as if she were their hated mother. All day they had lolled in their saddle-chairs. At the changeovers they moved with the slow, careful deliberation of the aged. Like his father, they were dying. He could see what Osrakum meant to them but what did she mean to him? The end of this cursed journey? Tain's blinding? He looked over at his father, slumped lifeless. For the hundredth time, Carnelian reassured himself that his father was only asleep behind his mask.