The attic ran long and high. It was crammed with things. She saw chests, old wardrobes, stuffed birds, indeed a dummy with a scarlet musty dress, the rocking-horse in blood and snow suspended in a shaft of light. A window pierced the end wall, round and spoked like a wheel. The glass, dusty, greenish, was clear. A dream window in the wrong place. By its shining illumination she gradually saw the ranks of brown bottles standing up everywhere, and at last Uncle Camillo seated in a rocking-chair he had perhaps mistaken for the horse.

He was out of the shaft of light, yet the attic was sprinkled by it. It touched white sparks on his clasped and wiry hands, three rings, and lit the long hood of albescent hair. His eyes were shut, but as she stared at him, he opened them.

‘Giddy-up,’ he said to the rocking chair, and made it go. The creaks were like emanations of his etiolate body.

‘The light,’ said Rachaela.

‘You’ll have to put up with it,’ he answered. ‘Avoid the direct beam.’

‘It doesn’t worry me.’

‘It will.’

‘And you,’ she said, ‘aren’t afraid of the light.’

‘Too old,’ said Uncle Camillo, rocking. ‘Do you want to go down to the sea?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Is there a way into the tower?’

‘Adamus locks the door,’ said Camillo. ‘Adamus ran away. Into the outside world, alone. Then he came back.’

‘You know the way into the tower,’ said Rachaela.

‘Easy,’ he said. ‘Over the roof.’

He pointed at the window. Rachaela walked into the full glare of the murky glass. There was a catch, the window might be opened. Outside lay a flat roof with a parapet of stone. One of the weather-vanes balanced at a crazy angle, it was a dragon. Beyond the flat roof was another, and then the cone of the tower. Under the lid of the cone a tall dark window, dyed glass and leading. It looked inaccessible.

‘Have some wine,’ said Uncle Camillo.

He did not sound as mad as she had thought him. He did mad things perhaps to camouflage an awful misfit sanity.

‘No, thank you.’ She opened the window. It was quite possible to climb through. She surveyed the roofs, the window beneath the cone. He might close and secure the window when she was outside, stranding her. He rocked, placidly. She did not think he would. He would, as he had advised her, avoid the direct beam of the light. ‘I’ll need to come back,’ she said. She did not believe she could get into the tower this way. She did not think that, even if the tower window might be opened, the man Adamus would open it.

She got through the window and stood out on the open roof.