“Aren’t we supposed to be enjoying this?” Caenis asked, both hands gripping the table as if scared he was about to tip over.

“I’m happy enough,” Barkus said, grinning merrily. His shirt was damp with ale and he seemed oblivious to the rivulets that coursed down his chin every time he took a drink.

“Two brothers…” Nortah was saying. He had been rambling about his test for over an hour. From what Vaelin could gather two of the men he had killed were brothers, both apparently condemned outlaws. “Twins… I think. Looked just the same, even made the same sound when they died…”

Vaelin’s stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch and he realised he was about to vomit. “Going outside,” he mumbled, rising and making for the door on legs that seemed to have lost the ability to walk in a straight line.

The air outside chilled his lungs and made his nausea recede a little, but he was still obliged to spend a few minutes heaving into the gutter. Afterwards he rested his back against the tavern wall and sank slowly onto the cobbles, his breath steaming in the frigid air. My wife, the tall man had said. Maybe he had been calling to her. Or summoning a final memory as he struggled to take the image of her face with him into the beyond.

“A man with so many enemies shouldn’t make himself so vulnerable.”

The man standing over him was of average height but well built, with a lean, deeply lined face and a piercing stare.

“Erlin,” Vaelin said, releasing the hilt of his knife. “You don’t look any different.” He gazed blearily around the empty street. “Did I pass out? Are you here?”

“I’m here.” Erlin reached down to offer him a hand. “And I think you’ve had enough for one night.”

Vaelin took the hand and levered himself to his feet with difficulty. To his surprise he found he was at least half a foot taller than Erlin. When last they met he had barely come up to his shoulder.

“Thought you’d be a tall one,” Erlin said.

“Sella?” Vaelin asked.

“Sella’s fine, last I saw her. I know she would want me to thank you for what you did for us.”

I’ll fight but I won’t murder. His boyhood resolve coming back to him, the promise he had made to himself after saving them in the wild. I’ll kill men who face me in battle but I won’t take the sword to innocents. It felt so hollow now, so naïve. He remembered his disgust at Brother Makril’s tales of murdered Deniers and wondered if there was truly any difference between them now.

“I’ve still got her scarf,” he said, trying to force his thoughts in a more comfortable direction. “Could you take it to her?” He fished clumsily inside his shirt for the scarf.

“I’m not sure I could find her if I chose to. Besides, I think she would want you to keep it.” He took Vaelin’s elbow and guided him away from the tavern. “Walk with me for a while. It should clear your head. And there is much I would like to tell you.”

They walked through the empty streets of the western quarter, tracing a route through the rows of workshops that characterised this as the craftsman’s district. By the time they reached the river Vaelin knew from the ache building at the back of his skull and the increased steadiness of his legs that he was starting to sober up. They paused on the towpath overlooking the river, gazing down at the moonlight playing on the currents churning the ink black water.

“When I first came here,” Erlin said. “The river stank so bad you couldn’t go near it. All the waste of this city would flow into it before they built the sewers. Now it’s so clean you can drink from it.”

“I saw you,” Vaelin said. “At the Summertide Fair, four years ago. You were watching a puppet show.”

“Yes. I had business there.” It was clear from his tone he wasn’t about to elaborate on what type of business.

“You risk much coming here. It’s likely Brother Makril is still out hunting you somewhere. He’s not a man to give up a hunt.”

“True enough, he caught me last winter.”

“Then how..?”

“It’s a very long tale. In short he cornered me on a mountainside in Renfael. We fought, I lost, he let me go.”

“He let you go?”

“Yes. I was fairly surprised myself.”

“Did he say why?”

“He didn’t say much of anything at all. Left me tied up through the night whilst he sat by the fire and drank himself unconscious. After a while I passed out from the beating he’d given me. When I woke in the morning my bonds were untied and he was gone.”

Vaelin remembered the tears shining in Makril’s eyes. Maybe he was a better man than I judged him to be.

“I saw you fight today,” Erlin told him.

Vaelin felt the ache at the base of his skull deepen. “You must be rich to have afforded a ticket.”

“Hardly. There’s a way into the Circle few know of, a passage under the walls that affords a good few of the arena.”

Silence stretched between them. Vaelin had no wish to discuss his test and was increasingly preoccupied with the suspicion that he was about to throw up again. “You said you had something to tell me,” he said, mainly in hope that further conversation would distract him from the burgeoning nausea in his gut.

“One of the men you killed, he had a wife.”

“I know. He told me.” He glanced at Erlin, noting the intense scrutiny in his eyes. “You knew him?”

“Not well. My acquaintance was with his wife. She has assisted me in the past. I count her as a friend.”

“She’s a Denier?”

“You would call her that. She calls herself Quester.”

“And her husband was also part of this… belief?”

“Oh no. His name was Urlian Jurahl. Once he had been called Brother Urlian. He was like you, a brother of the Sixth Order, but he gave it up to be with Illiah, his wife.”

Little wonder he fought so well. “I took him for a soldier.”

“He took the trade of a boat builder after leaving the Order, became highly regarded, ran his own yard building barges, the finest on the river some say.”

Vaelin shook his head in sorrow. I have served the Faith by killing an innocent builder of boats. “What was he doing in the arena? I know he wasn’t a murderer.”

“It happened during the riots. Some locals got wind of Illiah’s beliefs, quite how I don’t know, mayhap her son spoke of it when at play, children can be so trusting. They came for her, ten men with a rope. Urlian killed two and wounded three more, the rest ran off, but they came back with the City Guard. Urlian was overpowered and taken to the Blackhold, his wife too.”

“Their son?”

“He hid at his father’s bidding as the fight raged. He’s safe now. With friends of mine.”

“If Urlian was defending his wife then it wasn’t murder. The magistrate would have seen that surely.”

“Surely. But the magistrate had some wealthy friends with an eye for an opportunity. Did you know the odds that you would survive your Test were hardly worth a bet? The odds against were long indeed. With Urlian in the arena it would be worth risking some gold on the long chance. They offered him a proposition, confess his crime and be chosen for the Test, an easy thing to arrange as your Masters would be quick to spot his skill. Once he had killed you he and his wife would be free.”

Vaelin realised he had sobered completely, the nausea fled in the face of the cold, implacable compulsion. “His wife is still in the Blackhold?”

“She is. By now she will have heard of her husband’s fate. I fear what her grief will make her do.”