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cut down at his altar in the chapel over there. Denke had thrown himself from his own window as they had broken down his door. Pantethon? He had a mental image of Pantethon lying somewhere, with his favourite peacock-blue-and-gold doublet all soaked inhis own blood. He could not remember where it had been. The scholars, the servants, the officers of the house, even the animals …
    The courtyard was busy. There were scholars, servants, animals, all doing as they always had done in this place. They were not the ones he had known.
    The keep and the hall towered over him. Their outlines were familiar, yet at once he was aware of changes that were both subtle and real. The old hall roof had sagged in two places. Now it did not. And the tiles, though weathered, were no longer the old dingy brown that he remembered. All that side of the upper courtyard had been burned in the sack. The roof had been replaced since. Presumably the floors of the living quarters had been, too.
    The school was unchanged – a plain rectangular building, jutting into the courtyard. At his back rose the Wool Tower, also unchanged. There, in the big guardroom chimney, he had hung for hours with his eyes weeping from the faint fumes and his heart jumping every time someone entered the room below. His muscles and fingers had screamed to be released, until all his world had shrunk to the simple, agonizing battle between body and mind. Even now, looking up at the blunt circular shape of the tower, he imagined that he could still feel those pains: the torture of Develin, and the torture of Thomas Padry as he hung in the soot.
    Sweating, he wiped his brow on his sleeve. His memories disturbed him. At the same time the thought of his mission gnawed at him. He was agitated, more than he should be.
    ‘Tell your mistress that the King’s lord chancellor begs for an audience as soon as may be,’ he huffed to the gate-guard.
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Now
, man. At the run!’ He turned to his escort. ‘Go to the stables. Find us fresh horses. You may drink and unbuckle, but be ready to ride again as soon as I appear.’
    ‘How long, sir?’
    ‘Heaven knows. But not long, I hope.’
    And that was all he could do. All, except to calm himself as far as he could, and wait.
    He took himself to the old school building. Automatically his feet climbed the stair to the first floor where the library of Develin was housed. The library was the same: a long chamber with rows and rows of great open cupboards and a passageway down the middle. The scholars at the benches looked up as he entered. Their eyes held no recognition. He was a stranger here. Yet some of the best hours of his life had been spent in this very room. He paced fretfully up and down, peering at the books chained to their places. Some were new. Others were like old friends whom he was seeing again after years of exile, and yet with no time to renew their acquaintance. Some, indeed, were ones he himself had recovered from Tuscolo or Velis, where they had been taken by the men who had pillaged Develin. Yet others were still missing. There were many gaps in the shelves.
    A woman’s voice sounded in the stairwell behind him. Footsteps were approaching – dozens offootsteps, crossing the landing from the living quarters. They were entering the library in a great bustle. Students were rising from the benches, startled by the sudden invasion. He turned.
    ‘Well! Thomas Padry!’ cried the Lady of Develin as her councillors crowded in behind her. Padry bowed. She came to take his hand.
    ‘Now I give thanks to Michael that he has guarded you,’ she said formally. ‘And to Raphael, for he has guided your way. For you are safe come. Padry, I could hardly believe it when they told me you were here.’
    ‘Nevertheless, my lady, it is true. And I am grateful indeed that you are able to receive me.’
    He straightened and looked at her.
    She was the same. She might have been just that bright, fair, wilful sixteen-year-old