‘From all you’ve told me, you shouldn’t blame yourself for what happened with her. You’re a good man, Randur Estevu.’

He shook his head, self-consciously, as if only just beginning to comprehend himself. ‘Not really. I’m a liar, a thief, a womanizer, and I get in too many fights – a good deal because of the way I dress. I try not to hurt anyone unnecessarily in the process, though.’

‘But it’s what you are attempting to do that carries real honour. This is an age with no great battles to speak of, no heroes for future stories. I think it’s intensely honourable that a son should want to give his mother the chance to live a while longer.’

He said, ‘It’s not as easy as that.’

‘Talk, Randur,’ she urged, dancing a thin line between mockery and seriousness. What would it take for her to get this man to really open up?

‘Have you ever come to feel so indebted to someone that, on reflection, everything you’ve ever done merely seems to have let them down?’

She said, ‘Is this your way of freeing yourself from that guilt then? If you can employ a cultist to add years to her life, then you feel you have redeemed yourself?’

‘Think you know so much about me?’ he bristled.

‘I find you fascinating, that’s all,’ she said, wanting to add, in ways you’ll never quite know, at this rate.

‘Well, if I’m that much of an open book, you certainly don’t need to try to get me to talk further.’ He then steered her into another sequence of moves, where the woman did the leading. She wasn’t quite managing it properly, forcing herself into awkward body-shapes, so he had to keep repeating those same steps until she could do them without thinking.

Eir suddenly felt the need to be more honest about how she herself felt. ‘Randur, I find you’re quite different from other men about Balmacara. You never try to impress me, and you don’t compliment me for every little thing I do. Quite the opposite, in fact, because you’re downright rude to me at times, and so flippant, and… Well, whatever in Astrid’s name you’re doing, it makes me more interested in you.’

‘Makes sense, I suppose, what with my dashing good looks.’

‘You know, I’ve also worked out that you only joke because you’re uncomfortable with being honest.’

‘Crap, my lady,’ he muttered.

‘Followed by rudeness when you’re obviously wrong about something.’

Silence for a while, their feet moving with precision across the stone floor.

‘One thing more,’ Eir finally said. ‘Given your certain, shall we say, moral indiscipline…’

‘Yes?’

‘Why haven’t you tried it on with me?’

‘Because I value my life for one thing. I don’t fancy being castrated and my manhood hurled over the city walls. Also, your position, you’ve got official channels, as it were, in which you must operate.’

‘So, would you otherwise? I mean to say, if I wasn’t the Empress’s sister?’

‘Well, you’ve got a great little behind, Lady Eir, a cute smile and more than a handful of the right things in exactly all the right places. Sure, why not.’

Something about his directness, the obvious fact that he didn’t care what he was saying, was so refreshing. And she liked that. She wanted to possess the ability to whisper dirty and loving things to him in return. ‘Officially, you have my permission to make a move.’

‘Fair enough.’ He shrugged. ‘That would be the easy thing to do, wouldn’t it? But I’m not that predictable.’

She stepped back. ‘Randur Estevu… you infuriate me at times!’

‘Hey, relax. I was only joking.’

After she had calmed, they resumed the dance steps and kicks and flourishes. He placed his body against hers, the palms of his hands resting on her shoulder blades. ‘I know you like me, Eir. This isn’t cultist science we’re talking about, just a guy and a girl, and it’s all a bit inevitable. You’re a handsome woman, I’m a pretty man. Anyway, the day you offered to pay my debts, that was a decent indication of your feelings.’

‘Well, why haven’t you reacted?’

He leaned in close to her ear, the space between the two of them becoming charged. ‘Because, Stewardess, we must think only of the dance and for success there are certain tensions that must be maintained. You do want to be seen as the best at the Snow Ball, don’t you?’

She was so stunned by his serious response she did not know how to reply. Instead she blurted her response. ‘So even if I offered myself naked, you still wouldn’t want to…’ She wanted to use his words, but couldn’t. ‘Take me?’

‘I couldn’t because I respect you too much for that.’

‘Oh. Right.’ She could not resist taking advantage of this closeness, because, to hell with the dance, to hell with etiquette of the court, she wanted him right there and then. His cocksure brashness had reduced her confidence, and now she wanted to impose upon him her Imperial stamp.

She slid her hands further up his lissom body, gripped him, angled her head, kissing his neck, and as she tasted his skin he gave a sigh. His heart pulsed against her breasts. His arms had fallen uselessly to his sides, but soon he took hold of her head, drew her lips closer to his own. A slight groan, more rapid breathing.

She moved away slightly to regard him, and all he did was stare at her in confusion, struggling to read her. Surely this inveterate romancer would know better how to react at a moment like this?

He tried vaguely to say something, but she pressed a finger to his lips. It took all the strength of will she had to turn away, to move across to a wall tapestry. She pulled it aside to reveal a window through which a wind blew from across the city. She waited for him to come to her, determined she would not turn back to face him, the spires and bridges meaningless and empty under her gaze.

But he didn’t come near, and she was driven to ask, ‘Has the great Randur Estevu finally been silenced?’

She heard his footsteps approach, felt his words brush against the back of her neck: ‘I don’t know what to do now.’

‘You’re no amateur, from what I’ve seen.’

‘Those women… they didn’t matter. It’s just that I’m not sure what I feel right now. I mean, ever since you offered to help me… well, I’m just not sure what it is that’s going on in my head. I don’t want you to think you’ve bought my attention.’

‘Perhaps you have genuine feelings after all?’ she said, expecting some witty response from him which was calculated to anger her.

Instead he said, ‘I know I’ll end up hurting you and I don’t want to do that. Like I said, I feel I’m in your debt.’

‘There are ways of clearing such debts.’

‘Wouldn’t that simply make me a man-whore?’

She shrugged. ‘Not if you wanted to do it anyway.’ She felt a little desperate and out of control.

‘I thought ladies in high positions had responsibilities about how they acted.’

‘After all this is over, the dance, I mean,’ she said, ‘when you travel back to Folke, won’t it be dangerous?’

‘Probably,’ he said. ‘Time is fairly urgent, because she hasn’t got too much of it left.’ His tone changed, became brighter. ‘Anyway, if you want to, we can slip down Caveside tonight and practise before the ball. There’s a street dance organized, so Denlin said, and I think we should go, because it’ll get you used to dancing in public. You’ve enough time to slip into something a little scruffier – if you have anything scruffy, that is. It’ll be cold and dirty.’

‘I’m sure I can find something suitable for the occasion,’ she said. ‘You certainly take me to the loveliest of places.’

With some urgency they moved through the narrow streets, their footsteps light on the cobbles. They had tricked soldiers in Balmacara into thinking Eir was retiring early, wasn’t feeling well. Eir herself felt a warm thrill of anticipation at the venture. Occasionally, she gripped Randur’s hand when descending steep stairwells. The sky was a dull smear of blue-grey, the air filled with snowflakes that fell so hypnotically slowly they seemed stationary. Icicles glinted on the bridges as if they were decorated with daggers. People seldom ventured outside in the evenings these days, but you could see their faces peering from between curtains, gloomy silhouettes staring from their warm prisons.