Page 44 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy

“We’ve got to get her released.”

“She knew the risks. I say we let her hang.”

“It’s Tristane. Do you know how much she’s done for this Order?”

“All of us owe our extremely comfortable lives to her.”

“If Tristane was going to break the Peace Accords, she should’ve involved us in the decision.”

“This situation is an omnishambles. We’re going to look like a right bunch of tits at the Stánrocc.”

“I just want to know how many millions she had been promised, to do something like this.”

“Who’s going to the Stánrocc?”

“I’mnot.”

“Be repentant, Sacramore. And make it clear that this wasn’t the Fyren Order’s decision. It was hers and hers alone.”

“Exactly. We must avoid triggering hostilities with the other Orders.”

Sacramore sighed. “I’ll see what I can negotiate for her.”

“It won’t be much,” said Lirain in her velvety soft voice. “They caught her dead to rights and they know it.”

“Will they bring Tristane to the Stánrocc tonight?” asked Osric.

“Doubt it,” said Sacramore. “The Wardens will have no faith that, having violated the Accords once, the Fyren Order won’t do so again and try to free her. They’ll leave her at Tintagel.” He turned to theassembled Fyren. “Will any of you join me tonight? We’re allowed eight representatives, including myself.”

Silence greeted Sacramore’s request.

“Really?” said Sacramore. “You lot are going to send me to be chastised alone?”

The assembled Fyren muttered, “Yes” and “Sounds about right” and “Break a leg, mate.”

Eventually, Sacramore guilted Osric into coming with him, as well as Lady Windermere, Beaufort, Lirain, and—because he walked in late and didn’t know what was happening—Leofric.

The little group gathered around a waystone.

“No violence or threats of violence, please, darlings,” said Sacramore. “We must maintain the balance. Is everyone unarmed? You know the rules at the Stánrocc.”

There was a longish silence.

Lirain, touching at a locket at her throat, said, “Ish.”

Beaufort, who had a massive hammer hanging at his belt, shrugged and said, “I’m the blaecsmith.”

Lady Windermere twirled a spiked adornment at the end of her plait. Osric, who had a thin blade concealed between his right brace and shoulder, whistled. Leofric flipped his tongue out; a razor blade gleamed and slipped back into place.

“Right,” said Sacramore. “That’s about as much as I could ask of you.”

“Have you really not got anything on you?” asked Osric.

Sacramore plucked a long metal toothpick from his pocket. “I am a stickler for oral hygiene. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

Six hellhound tacn glowed red and were pressed to the waystone.

The Stánrocc consisted of an enormous solitary monolith at the centre of a ring of standing stones in the northernmost of the Tiendoms, Fortriu. For the convenience of the Orders and their assemblies there,the Leyfarers had integrated the monolith directly into the waystone graticule. Only those with tacn could use it as a waystone.