“What d’you want me to do?” His voice was strangled, shrill, as if he was on the verge of sobbing. “Hang here and wait for them to start cutting us?”

“I…” She felt the unfamiliar thickness of tears at the back of her own throat. She didn’t have the shadow of an idea of a way clear of this. Helpless. How could you get more helpless than chained up naked, deep underground, in the pitch darkness? “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know.”

There was the clatter of a lock turning and Monza jerked her head up, skin suddenly prickling. A door creaked open and light stabbed at her eyes. A figure came down stone steps, boots scraping, a torch flickering in his hand. Another came behind him.

“Let’s see what we’re doing, shall we?” A woman’s voice. Langrier, the one who’d caught them in the first place. The one who’d knocked Monza down the stairs and taken her ring. The other one was Pello, with the moustache. They were both dressed like butchers, stained leather aprons and heavy gloves. Pello went around the room, lighting torches. They didn’t need torches, they could’ve had lamps. But torches are that bit more sinister. As if, at that moment, Monza needed scaring. Light crept out across rough stone walls, slick with moisture, splattered with green moss. There were a couple of tables about, heavy cast-iron implements on them. Unsubtle-looking implements.

She’d felt better when it was dark.

Langrier bent over a brazier and got it lit, blowing patiently on the coals, orange glow flaring across her soft face with each breath.

Pello wrinkled his nose. “Which one of you pissed?”

“Him,” said Langrier. “But what’s the difference?” Monza watched her slide a few lengths of iron into the furnace, and felt her throat close up tight. She looked sideways at Shivers, and he looked back at her, and said nothing. There was nothing to say. “More than likely they’ll both be pissing soon enough.”

“Alright for you, you don’t have to mop it up.”

“I’ve mopped up worse.” She looked at Monza, and her eyes were bored. No hate in them. Not much of anything. “Give them some water, Pello.”

The man offered a jug. She would’ve liked to spit in his face, scream obscenities, but she was thirsty, and it was no time for pride. So she opened her mouth and he stuck the spout in it, and she drank, and coughed, and drank, and water trickled down her neck and dripped to the cold flags between her bare feet.

Langrier watched her get her breath back. “You see, we’re just people, but I have to be honest, that’s probably the last kindness you’ll be getting out of us if you’re not helpful.”

“It’s a war, boy.” Pello offered the jug to Shivers. “A war, and you’re on the other side. We don’t have the time to be gentle.”

“Just give us something,” said Langrier. “Just a little something I can give to my colonel, then we can leave you be, for now, and we’ll all be a lot happier.”