‘No? Deserving of what then? Do the guilty choose their own punishment? Does the wrongdoer set the wergeld?’ he said in Norse. ‘The priests say the wages of sin is death. What sin then do you cherish in the depths of that. . . shapely bosom?’

‘Name my crime. If I have offended His Majesty – or done some wrong against him, or any person in his realm – tell me. Tell me now!’

‘It is not for me to feed you words. A confession must be a pure act. An act of truth. I give you this chance now. Speak freely. Or else –’ he shook his head regretfully, making the little gold rings in his hair jingle softly – ‘we must help you reach the truth by other means.’

She gazed down at his face. An expressionless mask of beauty, devoid of life, empty of joy or sadness. A blankness, like a slab of granite cut from a mountain quarry, its smooth surface unchangeable by time if left unworked by the stonecutter’s chisel. Yet strangely something in it reminded her of Erlan. There was something unknowable in him, too. Some secret locked away. . .

Was she guilty? Was she guilty of hate, of lusting for vengeance, of violent thoughts and wounded pride, and boiling anger? Aye. All of those and more. Of deceit and crooked motives. Of untamed passion. Of a yearning for something she could not name, of a dissatisfaction with the world as she found it. Ingratitude. A maddening, unslakable thirst. It was not enough. What she had was not enough. If she had the whole world, it could not satisfy her. But why? Why? She wished she knew. Wished she could mine the answers that lay hidden in her heart and bring them to the light.

But she said nothing.

‘No?’ The eunuch’s mouth flickered in a sad smile. ‘Oh, dear.’ He turned to the pair of smaller men and nodded. At once they moved in and set about unfastening her and lowering her to the ground. She made no effort to resist, not knowing what they intended. In any case, their grip was too strong, their short, hairy fingers digging hard into her arms and shoulders. They forced her to sit upon the bench and then stretched her out on it on her back, rebinding her arms tight beneath it and her ankles to its legs.

‘You should recognize this.’ Katāros was standing behind her now. There was something deeply unnerving about seeing his painted mouth upside down. He was holding something out, something blue and gold. He let it fall over her face. Soft as silk. ‘Proceed,’ he said in Greek.