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chamber-pot, which added a certain piquancy to the atmosphere. There was one miserly window with a fine view of the noisome compost heap and only two places where he could stand completely upright without cracking his head on an exposed roof beam.
    'Reg?' he called softly as he kicked the bedsit door unstuck and shoehorned himself inside. 'Reg, are you here?'
    A resounding silence was the only reply. He flicked on the light-switch and looked around, but the room was empty.
    Dammit.
Where the hell
was
she? He'd left the window open, just in case. She should
be
here, all broody and complaining on the tacky, revolting old ram skull she insisted on using for a perch. Eating a mouse and leaving the tail on the floor because tails always get stuck halfway down. Why wasn't she here? They'd quarrelled before. Hell, they quarrelled practically every day. Just because he'd lost his temper and called her a moulting feather duster with the manners of a brain-damaged hen, was that any reason to fly off in high dudgeon and not come back?
    Had she gone for
good?
    Scrunching down to avoid the rafters, he crossed to the window and stuck his head out. The last of the daylight was almost gone and the first faint stars were starting to sparkle. A thin rind of moon teetered low on the distant horizon. All in all, it was a beautiful evening.
    He couldn't have cared less. 'Reg!' he called in the loudest stage whisper he could manage. 'Reg, are you out here?' Nothing.
    'Don't be an idiot,' he told himself sternly. 'She's fine. She's only a bird on the outside. Anybody who tries to mess with Reg is making their last mistake. She'll be back. She's just trying to wind you up.'
    And it was working, dammit.
    Defeated, Gerald pulled his head back into the room and slumped on the edge of his horrible bed. Two more springs died, noisily.
    His stomach grumbled. Lunch had been hours ago and he'd been a bit busy since then, one way and another. But steak and chips in the club's dining room was an expense he could no longer afford and anyway ... Errol Haythwaite and his ghastly friends were downstairs.
    He didn't have the heart to face them. Not without Monk Markham as back up, at least. And if that made him a coward then fine. He was a coward.
    There was a tin of baked beans in the cupboard, and a can opener, and a spoon, for emergencies. If this didn't qualify as an emergency he didn't know what did.
    Bloody hell. I hate baked beans.
    Morose, disconsolate and feeling more alone than he'd ever felt in his life, he went about eating his pathetic, solitary suppe
     

CHAPTER THREE

    Melissande heard the commotion when she was still one dingy corridor away from the palace's Large Audience Chamber. Raised voices. Indignant expostulations. The
rat-a-tat-tat
of ebony canes on marble-tiled flooring. She felt her insides clench. Her brisk footsteps slowed, and her heart suddenly felt too large for her chest.
    Someone was arguing with Lional.
    She started hurrying again, breath caught in her throat. More than likely it was the Council. Oh, how could they be so
stupid?
Didn't they understand her brother yet? When were they going to realise that Lional wasn't his father? The late king had been a kind, mostly ineffectual man who was more than happy to let the Council run the kingdom on his behalf. Leave him alone to potter in his gardens and trundle out once or twice a year for public display and he was perfectly content.
    Lional wasn't. For a start, he didn't like gardens.
     
    Even less did he like being told what to do by a bunch of nattering old men. The only thing Lional and the late king had in common was the name. And in the last few months, as kingship took its toll, Lional s temper had grown markedly short.
    Fearing the worst she sprinted the final eight yards and skidded around the corner to the audience chamber's reception area. Now she could make out actual words in the shouting. Words like 'foolish' and 'ridiculous' and 'misguided'.
    Saint Snodgrass preserve