Did she dare do this? Crows was sad and alone, but she got the impression that her presence wouldn’t change that, that he didn’t want her to change that, that he simply wasn’t interested in her in that way. He’d never looked her up and down with predatory intent, and she – no: he was too different, too otherworldly and out of time. But they could be friends, and if they were friends, what else mattered?

She shucked the boilersuit and left it on the shore next to her boots, and ran the short distance across the sharp grit into the water.

It was cold like a knife was cold.

‘Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.’

She was up to her calves, her knees, mid-thighs, wading forward, ice water splashing on her pale brown skin like glitter, goosebumps making her skin puckered.

She tripped, and fell. Her arms came forward to stop her, and she plunged headfirst into the stirred-up silt. The water closed over her, and the shock of it, the way it thieved the heat from her, almost made her gasp. Her lungs strained for breath, and her arms and legs flailed as she tried to find her feet. It didn’t occur to her to close her eyes, and she caught a fleeting glimpse of another kingdom, of weeds and fishes and green sunlight.

Then she came up with a shout, hair coiled like oiled springs behind her and over her shoulders, the sun warm against the chill of the lake. Crows flipped himself under, reappearing wide-eyed and closer, and Mary used her hands to manoeuvre herself towards him, feeling the embrace of the water against every inch of her body.

16

16

Dalip sat on the stone of the pit, back against the curved wall, facing the door. He’d been told by the guard to wait: he had no reason to give the man a nice name, so he hadn’t, and started thinking of him as Pigface.

He was more Cowface, broad and bovine, but Pigface seemed to sum up his raisin-like eyes and sticky pink complexion. He was casually, almost indifferently, brutal, as if that was the only way to behave and he’d known no other. Perhaps that was true: perhaps he came from a long line of Pigfaces, slave keepers who were little more than slaves themselves.

Then Stanislav appeared, entering the pit cautiously, looking up at the surrounding balconies and the rings of lit candles. Behind him, Pigface was watching.

‘Why are we here?’ asked Stanislav.

‘That’s the question I keep on asking. The answer, for me at least, is to fight.’

Satisfied, Pigface turned away to the guard room, leaving both doors open, and Stanislav toured the circumference of the pit.

‘And you have agreed to such madness?’

‘I didn’t really have much of a choice.’