A moment later, the bolts were withdrawn with a screech, indicating the ironwork of the gate was as rusty as the hedgepig sign. The door opened slowly, but Clariel could not see who had opened it. Roban stepped inside, bending low. Clariel followed, then Valannie, but Heyren and Linel remained outside.

The sally port opened onto an enclosed bridge over what appeared to be a very deep pit or even crevasse, with an arched ceiling overhead the most prominent feature of which was a series of holes the size of oranges, clearly for the application of heated oil or pitch onto unwelcome visitors.

‘Murder holes,’ said Roban, again noting Clariel’s stare. ‘Stopped up now. I had to check once. Long ago, when the … Well, I had to be sure it was safe.’

Clariel blinked, accustoming her eyes to the relative darkness. There were some dim Charter marks for light set into the ceiling, but they did not illuminate very much. The bridge crossed some fifteen paces over the pit and led to another great gate, with another smaller sally port set into it. This door was half open, though she didn’t think there had been time enough for a doorkeeper to run back from the outer door.

‘I don’t like this place at all,’ pronounced Valannie as they crossed the bridge. ‘It’s no wonder that the Governor wants it knocked down.’

‘Does he?’ asked Clariel. ‘Why?’

Valannie immediately reverted to the smiling ignorance she displayed so well to any of Clariel’s significant questions, and shrugged her shoulders.

‘Who opened the door?’ asked Clariel.

‘You’ll see, milady,’ said Roban, as he hunched down to go through the inner door.

Clariel followed him into a small hall that took up most of the tower’s lower floors, the vaulted ceiling and the beams studded with many bright Charter marks for light some thirty feet above her. Unlike the dilapidated exterior, this large room was clean, tidy and in good repair, though furnished in an eccentric fashion. There was a very long table of some dark, dense timber, bearing many scars and scratches. It could easily seat twenty people or more, though there were now only two old benches drawn up to it, and a single high-backed chair at the very end. A chair that had once been very grand, for it still showed patches of gilt here and there, the rest having been long worn away.

There were no windows as such, but there were arrow slits every four or five paces around all four walls, about twelve feet up, with a few broken beam ends protruding from the stonework to indicate where a wooden walkway had once given archers somewhere to stand.