For what? she would later ask herself. What did it serve her not to break? Was not death by execution in a sudden, single instant preferable to this slow erosion into Hel’s shadow in this dark place under the city? She had staked all and all had unravelled. There had been a murder. That much she now knew. She also knew there was evidence against her. But it was nothing without her confession. Enough to hold her; not enough to condemn her. Although the whole city, Katāros assured her, was clamouring for her head.

Others had confessed. She had heard their screams in that gloomy underworld of pain. A man called Silanos had admitted to betraying secrets to the enemy for which he had already paid with his life. He was Persian by blood and had cause to hate the Byzantines, so Katāros told her. There were others, too. Those of religious sects that stood at odds with the main body of the Church – dangerous, dissident voices whose dearest love was to see the empire fall and usher in some new age. Lilla knew nothing of that. But they had talked and so they died.

Only she would not.

Instead she became inured to her dread of the sounds that roused her from half-consciousness to face still more ordeals. Perhaps the half-wisdom of her younger years was at last growing into its fullness. She had plumbed the depths of despair and found she still had hope to live. She had scaled the heights of fear and found she still had courage to go on. She accepted the opening of the door to her cell and the entering in of pain like a wrestler welcoming an old opponent. Steadying herself before him, knowing his moves, wise to the tricks he liked to play.

But when one day, or night – she knew not which – the door opened, and instead of the tall figure of the eunuch, she perceived dimly a different shape, a different shadow, she wasn’t ready for it.

‘Lilla.’ The voice was strong and low. She lifted her head and saw, half-lit in the torchlight, an ordinary face, eyebrows creased in concern. ‘Lilla.’

‘Leo?’ Her voice a hoarse whisper. She tried to look at him, but found her gaze welded to the doorway which was still ajar.

‘I’m alone,’ he said, seeing this. ‘There’s no one else.’ He stood awkwardly, his mouth working. She wondered bitterly what fatuous questions rose and fell in his mind.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Are you getting your sleep?’

‘Are they feeding you well?’

‘I told Katāros he cannot kill you,’ he said suddenly. ‘Though word has spread that you are being held and many tell me to make an example of you. The patriarch warns that—’

‘I’ve done nothing against you or against this city,’ she said, the words coarse as rust. ‘Nor ever would I.’

‘Why did you befriend the lampros?’