From the moment he grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and dragged her onto his horse, Columbine had been able to see Sir Garlon in his suit of magical armour. She had struggled and struggled with him, but he had brought his fist down on the back of her head and knocked her out. When she woke, she had found herself tied, gagged and bundled over the back of his horse, looking at the speeding ground.

As they galloped into Castle Spar-Longius her legs collided with a gate-guard who stood too close to the invisible horse. From the stables, Garlon dragged her up to his large chamber in one of the castle’s three rotating towers, where he locked the door and threw her in a chair, still bound. He disappeared from her sight as he let go of her, only to reappear as he removed his helmet, breaking the armour’s invisibility spell. When the armour was visible it had a blueish hue, but did not look much different from an ordinary suit of plate metal.

Sir Garlon had hardly changed since she had last seen him, back when Lily refused his offer of marriage for the final time. He had the same hard face that suggested he had shed much blood, not a huge amount of it his own. The only real differences were the streaks of grey in his black hair.

He took off his gloves and removed her gag. She spat at him as soon as she was able. Garlon laughed, took the edge of the pigeon cloak, and wiped her sputum from his breastplate.

‘Columbine of Vellion,’ he said with an easy smile, ‘I hear you want me dead.’

‘I do.’

‘And also that you went all the way to Camelot to recruit a champion for the task.’

‘I went to ask the king of Britain’s permission for vengeance, that’s all. I said I’d do it myself. If you let my hands free I’ll do it right now.’

‘That’s not what I heard, about you doing it on your own. They’re talking about a strange sword.’ He nodded at her rapier. ‘Not that one, I suppose, but the one you dropped in the forest. The one that cut through my blade.’

She looked at her belt and realised she was no longer wearing the Dolorous Stroke. Her head still throbbed a little from his blow, and she couldn’t remember the sequence of events after the brief fight in the woods. She saw a flash of her hand releasing the bone handle of the Dolorous Stroke as Garlon grabbed her, but couldn’t tell if that had really happened, or if her disordered brain had invented it.

Garlon unlaced his magical armour with great ceremony. As he removed each section he wiped it carefully, and then placed it in a heavy chest by his bed. Garlon was legendary for being the knight whose squire did not help him with his armour. Instead his man guarded this chest night and day – the Knight Invisible was too protective of his suit to allow anyone else to so much as touch a shoulder-plate.

‘I would like to see you try to kill me,’ he said when he had put on his robe. He locked the chest with three heavy padlocks, and moved to a chair opposite. He poured himself a goblet of wine. ‘A drink, my dear?’

She shook her head. She wouldn’t accept anything from him.

‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Deprive yourself.’ He crossed one leg over the other. ‘Let us see if we can untangle this misunderstanding, shall we?’

‘I’d rather slice through it like the Gordian knot.’

‘Ha! Goodness me, I do not remember you being this fiery in your uncle’s home. Though I only had eyes for your cousin back then, it’s true. I enjoy this side of you.’

‘Don’t mention her again.’

‘Pardon me, Columbine?’

‘You heard.’

He placed his goblet on the table and sat forward, uncrossing his legs. He rested his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers. This was his idea of earnestness.

‘You may not believe me, but I loved your cousin very much. It broke my heart when she refused me. Oh, you look at me as if I have no heart; that is not the case. Does not every successful knight, does not every man,act as he does for the love of a good woman? No matter how brutal his acts away from his hearth, they are always inspired by the hope of pleasing sapphire eyes and winning a gleaming smile. There was no better woman in the world to me than Lily of Vellion. I have separated many men’s souls from their bodies in my life, and I would have dedicated all that blood to her.’

Columbine turned her head away from him as far as she was able. ‘When you couldn’t have her, you murdered her. Some love that is.’

‘No, Columbine, no. I could never have hurt her, not Lily. Like any good knight, I lived in hope that she would return to me. I swear to you that I did not hurt her. I swear on my knighthood; I swear on the lives of my father and my mother.’

His sincerity was much-practised. She remembered how convincingly he had lied to Lily and her father.

‘It was the champion of the Ladies of the Lake who killed your cousin: the Knight of the Ice.’

‘I’ve never heard of him.’

Garlon finished his wine and took up the jug to pour himself another. ‘Besotted with Lady Nemone, you know; that’s what the daughter of the Lake tells me. Nemone made him what he is, I believe. But Lady Nemone longed for your cousin’s lover, so the ice couldn’t have her. When she realised she couldn’t have Balan of the Isles… The Ladies of the Lake are well known for the permanence and the fatality of their grudges. The Knight of the Ice killed Lily on Nemone’s orders.’ He stood. ‘I am going to fight him in King Pellam’s tournament, and I am going to kill him in her memory.

‘Now,’ he said, moving towards her. He smelled of cloves. ‘I am going to release you from your bonds, and I am going to ask you not to attack me. If you do as I ask, I will be able to prove the truth of what I have told you later this evening.’ He unhitched the rapier and its leather sheath from her side. ‘I’ll put this away first.’ He went through the laborious process of unlocking his chest’s three padlocks, dropping the rapier inside, and locking the chest again.

‘Do you agree not to attack me?’ he said.

Columbine considered her options. There was a possibility she might be able to kill him, if she could steal her rapier back out of the chest. She did not trust his story. But for the time being her sword was triple-locked in the chest, and she probably couldn’t overpower him hand-to-hand. It was better to be free so she could avail herself of other opportunities to strike.

She nodded.

‘Good,’ said Garlon. Instead of freeing her at once he left the room, leaving her tied. She heard him speak in a low voice to his squire, who was guarding the door. The squire nodded at his master’s command, and ran off into the tower.

The knight Invisible closed the door and turned back to her. ‘I hope you’re hungry, Columbine of Vellion.’

‘Eh?’

‘Oh come on, girl. I would ask you to be more ladylike than that, especially in the company we are about to join.’

‘You’re asking the wrong lass for social niceties, Garlon.’

His face hardened in anger. ‘If you are to understand the truth of what happened to your cousin, I suggest you adopt a more pleasing aspect, my girl.’ He pulled at the knots that tied her wrists, and then the pigeon cloak tied around her waist. She willed him to put the stained and torn garment on, to show her that he was lying. This cloak will find the back of the one responsible for her death, the holy man had told her. But he did not. He turned his nose up at the cloak, and tossed it onto his bed.

Sir Garlon’s squire opened the door, and two elegant serving maids entered. One of them had a scarlet dress over her arm, while the other carried a large bag. This second looked at Columbine’s hair and face disapprovingly.

‘Do what you can with her,’ Garlon ordered the women. ‘She’s to be at my side at King Pellam’s feast, and I would not have the sight of her embarrass me.’

The second maid sighed, put her bag on the bed, opened it, and began removing a series of hairbrushes. The other woman laid the dress reverently on the bed, and then came to look at Columbine.

‘Decent bone structure, Phyllis,’ she said, after she had observed Columbine from both sides. Once again Columbine felt like she were being examined by a dealer in livestock.

‘That’s something, I suppose,’ said the other woman, though it was clear she didn’t think good bones would be enough.