The two men walked beside their Duke in silence as he wandered through the halls and corridors of his palace. From time to time he stopped and looked at a painting, a statue, a rich ornate mosaic, until eventually he led them out on to the flat stone roof of a high crenelated tower.
The air was cold and damp, but fresh, and free from any taint of the yellow, acrid fog that had choked the city streets so recently. High, grey clouds reduced the sun to a bland, white disc.
Below them they could see the walls and courtyards of the palace, and beyond them, the rooftops, spires and domes of the city rising up to the cliffs of the Aphron Dennai and sloping down to the rambling disorder of the Moras district by the river. Grey mists merged land and sky in the distance.
Ibris leaned on the parap
