In the capital, a magnificent house.

In one of its wide rooms, more than a dozen women, none of them twenty yet, stood white-faced and shivering.

They wore nothing but bodices and undershorts, with great stretches of pale, soft skin bare.

Every one of them was a beauty, each as lovely as the next.

Each of them had an apple balanced on her head.

Opposite them, wearing nothing but undershirts and drawers, a plump, pale young man held a great bow.

He bent the bow and nocked an arrow and drew it full and round.

Whip!!!

The arrow flew, went clean through the apple on one woman's head, and carried on to bury itself in the wall.

The wall was full of holes. The little punctures the arrows had left ran across it close and thick, and it was plain from that the plump, pale young man had done this before.

The woman was so frightened her eyes had gone blank, and she was shaking like a sieve of chaff.

The plump, pale young man's smile was dark and cold. "Lucky."

As he said it he bent the bow and nocked another arrow.

"Young Master."

A middle-aged man in close-fitting black came in.

Whip!!!

The arrow left the plump, pale young man's hand.

Perhaps the middle-aged man's voice put him off. The shot went wide and took the woman full in the chest.

The woman screamed once and went down.

The rest of the women were frightened out of their souls.

The plump, pale young man's face darkened, and he turned his head to look at the middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man's face changed. He dropped to his knees with a thump. "This servant deserves to die!"

The plump, pale young man carried the great bow over and swung it in a full arc and brought it down on the middle-aged man.

He hit him more than a dozen times.

The middle-aged man's head was broken and running with blood, but he did not dare move.

The plump, pale young man dropped the bloodied bow, went over and picked up…