Llian picked up the scattered books of the Histories, climbed the library ladder and replaced them on their shelves. He had learned nothing about either the Merdrun or the summon stone. Two days had passed since Tallia’s departure, and two almost sleepless nights, alone, for Karan had taken to sleeping in Sulien’s room.

He had never felt more useless. Karan, who was utterly focused on protecting Sulien, went about her work like an automaton, and she was so touchy that even Rachis tiptoed around her. She was trying to find a way to attack the magiz and Llian could do nothing about it. She was going to be killed, he knew it, and all he could do was stay calm and hold the family together, for Sulien’s sake.

But he couldn’t do it. He wasn’t even sure he could hold himself together.

“The judge has come,” Karan said from the doorway. “Benie is going to be sentenced this afternoon.”

Llian started and almost fell off the ladder. “There’s no trial then?”

“He admitted to killing Cook.”

“He might have changed his story…”

“He hasn’t. Benie just keeps telling the truth in that bewildered and desperate way. I’m going to plead for him one last time, but I don’t think it’ll do any good.”

“Would it help if I came too?”

“I don’t think the judge would see you.”

“Why not?”

Karan’s eyes slipped away from his. “The usual reason.”

“Because I’m Zain,” Llian said bitterly. “If I’d known the trouble I was going to bring you —”

“Please don’t start that again,” she said wearily.

“Karan?” he said, sensing an opening.

“What?”

“You said the old family papers were lost in the great flood, but I know you burned them in the fireplace.”

She spun around. “Have you been spying on me?”

“Sulien saw you.” He reached out to her. “Please don’t shut me out. This is eating me alive.”

She took his hands in hers, sighed and sat down. “I’m sorry. I can’t think about anything except stopping the magiz.” She looked up, flushing. “It’s really hard to pass from the void into any of the real worlds, but the terrible sorcery Basunez and my father did made it a lot easier. I had to get rid of the evidence.”

“All right, but we’ve got to work together.”

Her mouth set in a hard line. She wrenched a crumpled sheet of paper out of her pocket and slammed it down on the table. “How is this working together?”

It was the letter he’d written to Thandiwe. “It… it’s just asking for her help.”

“That’s not how it reads to me.”

“How does it read to you?”

“As though you’re planning to abandon your family for your mistress.”

Why was she acting this way? He hadn’t looked twice at Thandiwe in a dozen years. “You told me to find answers. Do whatever it takes, you said. I’ve got to have the ban lifted first.”

“Thandiwe was your lover.”

“More than twelve years ago!”

“She still wants you, Llian. I’ve seen it in her eyes, every time we’ve met.”

Llian could not restrain himself. “So what?” he roared. “I don’t want her.”

“What if the drumming starts up the next time you’re with her? Will you be able to resist her?”

“You don’t trust me,” he said bitterly. “With Thandiwe or Sulien.”

Things were so tense afterwards that he was not displeased when Anjo Duril, a chronicler he knew from his student days, dropped in unexpectedly.

“Who is he?” Karan whispered after Llian had shown Anjo to a guest room in the southern wing that ran off the keep. “I’ve never heard you mention him before.”

“He was a couple of years below me. Can’t say I liked him much.”

“Why not?”

“He never went to the taverns and got drunk. Never mucked around or went wenching.” Llian flushed.

“Students!” she sniffed.

“Anjo wasn’t clever but he was ambitious, and always sucking up to the masters. He just did his work and nothing else, a very tedious fellow all round.”

“And now he’s a chronicler and a master, earning good coin.”

Again there was an edge to her voice, enough to sting, but Llian did not defend himself. He had let the family down.

After dinner, when they were sitting around the fire, he said to Anjo, “What’s the latest news from Chanthed?”

Anjo sat back, a faint smile playing on his full lips. A well-fed, self-satisfied fellow rapidly going bald, he filled his clothes to bursting and his olive skin had an oily gleam. “About you?”

“No, about the college. How’s old Wistan?”

“Fading. No, dying.”

“He was dying when Llian was awarded his Great Tale,” Karan said sourly. “At least, Wistan said he was dying.”

“He spins a good story when he needs to,” said Anjo, “though this time it’s true. He can barely get out of his chair, and don’t the other masters take advantage of it.”

“How do you mean?” said Llian.

“Time was when nothing got past Wistan. If any student committed the slightest misdemeanour, he knew about it.”

“I remember,” Llian said ruefully.

“You would,” said Anjo.

“Really?” said Karan waspishly. “Llian hardly ever talks about the old days at the college, even though he spent a third of his life there. I’d love to hear some of your stories, Anjo.”

“What were you saying about the other masters?” Llian said hastily.

“They’re taking the students for every grint they can get. Even the entrance scholarship has a fee these days. Seven silver tars.”

“That’s outrageous.” Llian banged his goblet down, slopping wine everywhere. “The entrance test was always free, on principle.”

“Not any more. The students pay until they bleed. Even to sit their exams. Even to get their marks.” Anjo paused, then smiled wolfishly. “Even to pass.”

“You mean if they don’t pay, they don’t pass?”

“Some of the masters – the corrupt ones – are doing very nicely,” said Anjo, chuckling.

He was expensively dressed: thick rings on his plump fingers, a massive silver amulet on a heavy chain, and his coat was finest black lambswool. Anjo was so sure of himself that he was prepared to boast about the corruption. Or sure that no one would listen to anything a disgraced chronicler had to say?

Llian could feel his gorge rising but he forced himself to keep his temper. The man was a guest.

“How do you get on with Wistan?” Llian said carefully. He could suck up too, when he was desperate.

“I have his ear,” said Anjo. “Good old reliable, boring Anjo. Asinine Anjo, I think they used to call me when I was a student. I don’t suppose you’d remember that?”

“Can’t say I ever heard it said,” Llian lied. He had coined many such a phrase about the dull students, the unattractive ones and the physically afflicted, which went to prove what a shabby person he had been. Then, in desperation, he said, “I don’t suppose you could have a quiet word with him?”

“What about?” Anjo’s smile broadened.

“Me.” It came out as a croak.

Anjo rubbed his glistening scalp with his fingers, studied the oil on them, then casually wiped them on the tablecloth. Llian felt an urge to throttle him. If the drumming sounds now, you’re a dead man. He half hoped it would.

Anjo frowned. “What could I possibly say to Wistan about you?”

Llian flushed. Anjo wasn’t going to make it easy.

“That I’ve served my time. Learned my lesson. The ban was originally for seven years, and that’s well up.”

“As I understand it,” said Anjo, “Wistan’s ban was unlimited.”

Karan leaned forward. “But Thandiwe,” the name sounded like spider venom, “commuted it to seven years.”

“That’s not strictly true,” said Anjo. “Wistan said, ‘A master who has been banned can’t be considered for readmission in less than seven years. And that requires a two-thirds majority of all the master chroniclers.’”

“But Thandiwe, the Magister-Elect, said it would be reconsidered in seven years,” said Llian.

“Unfortunately Wistan didn’t die and her position lapsed years ago.”

“That’s ancient history,” said Llian. “Will you —”

“But that’s what we deal in, Llian. The Histories.”

“Will you put in a good word for me with Wistan?”

“I’m not sure that would be wise – for me, I mean.”

Llian suddenly felt that he was standing on a trapdoor and there was a snake pit beneath it. “Why not?”

“There are malicious rumours circulating about you.”

“Rumours?” Again that desperate croak. Time was when Llian had had absolute control of his voice – it was part of the teller’s art he had worked sixteen years to master.

“Apparently a cabal of the masters is determined to destroy what remains of your good name. Some of them – can you believe it? – even say that your Tale of the Mirror is a fraud.”

“How dare you!” Llian cried, leaping to his feet and knocking his goblet over.

Anjo put his hands up, still smiling. “You asked what was going on at the college and I reported it… as an impartial chronicler should. I’ve no doubt that your tale deserves to be the twenty-third Great Tale… despite how it came about.”

Always the sting in the tail. Llian sat down again.

“What are you talking about?” said Karan.

“What Llian was banned for,” said Anjo. “There are those who say – and again, I’m not one of them – that he didn’t meddle in the Histories just because he’s a reckless fool, but…”

“What are they saying?” she said with quiet menace.

Anjo’s head snapped back, as if he’d only now realised where the real threat lay, then the smug smile returned. “That Llian shaped the Histories to his will, to improve his tale.”

Pain sheared through Llian’s chest. A teller could be accused of no greater crime. It would destroy him so utterly that there could be no coming back. He reached out blindly for the wine bottle, which was empty save for a few teaspoons of purple, gritty dregs. He drank them anyway.

“Llian the Liar, they’re starting to whisper in the halls,” said Anjo.

“Why?” said Karan. The glint in her green eyes would have melted iron.

“Why what?”

“Why are the masters trying to destroy Llian’s good name? How can he possibly be a threat to them when he’s still under a ban?”

“I should have thought that was obvious,” sneered Anjo. “The common people love the Tale of the Mirror. They ask for it to be told more than all the other Great Tales put together, and that amounts to a kind of power – a valuable currency in these troubled times.”

“To lead an uprising?” Karan let out a hollow laugh. “Llian has many fine qualities, but he couldn’t lead a hungry goat to a blackcurrant bush.”

“Thanks,” Llian muttered, trying to swallow the dregs stuck in his throat.

“In the past,” said Anjo, “great tellers have twice become Master of the College through the weight of public acclamation. They’re making sure it doesn’t happen a third time – especially not a foul, treacherous and deceitful Zain, as they view you. So I can’t possibly intercede with Wistan on your behalf. It wouldn’t be wise.”

Anjo rose, stretched, yawned. “Thank you for your hospitality, and I bid you goodnight. I’ve a long ride tomorrow and I must leave at dawn.”

“I’ll make breakfast and see you on your way,” said Karan.

“No need to trouble yourself. I’ll get a pie from the baker at Tolryme.” Anjo bowed and left.

Llian looked up. Karan was gazing at him, the firelight shining on her red hair. She had never looked more beautiful, and he had never felt less worthy of her.

“That’s it then,” he said.

She launched herself at him and held him close, squeezing so hard that she was compressing his lungs.

“No, it’s not. Come to bed. We’ll talk about what to do after he’s gone.”

Llian rose late the following morning with a throbbing head and the feeling that things were going to get worse. Karan and Sulien were out somewhere. In the manager’s office Rachis had his head bent over a ledger, his watering eyes just a few inches from the page.

Llian took his gruel to the library, put it down on the table and reached out to draw the Tale of the Mirror to him. It wasn’t there. He looked across to the special place on the bookshelf where it was kept. It wasn’t there either. Ice formed in his belly as he looked around frantically and saw, on the other side of the table, a small piece of notepaper with three battered copper grints resting on it.