While still captain of apprentices, Severian meets and befriends the Chatelaine Thecla, a woman who is part of the Autarch's court who has been imprisoned because her sister had become the consort of Vodalus.
Severian is briefly imprisoned, but it is decided that his life is to be spared, and (after being given the sword Terminus Est) he is sent to be the Lictor of Thrax, a city in the north.