‘Oh, oh oh.’ He laughed, and all she could see of him were his fine white teeth. ‘The King of Crows and his Red Queen it shall be. But you’re not a queen yet, are you? What shall we call you in the time before you claim your throne?’

‘Mary,’ said Mary. ‘When do we start?’

12

12

When they dragged Dalip’s hood off, he was sitting in a chair, wrists tied awkwardly behind his back by someone who enjoyed their work just a little too much. There was also a rope around his neck, a noose that would tighten when jerked.

That was all there was. Him, in his chair, and on the stone floor in front of him, a single candle. The light barely reached him, let alone the walls. He was inside, he could tell that much, and he’d passed through a corridor and another room to get where he was. Beyond that? He’d been force-marched, blind and bound, for a night and a day, along with the others.

Everything hurt. He was bruised and battered. They’d taken his kirpan, his kara and his kangha. They’d taken his turban and his patka, leaving his hair to tumble, sweaty and knotted, over his shoulders.

They’d all but stripped him of everything that made him who he was and set him apart, and the only thing that stopped him from slumping to the flags were the last vestiges of his pride. Whoever had hold of his hood now was walking away into the darkness, leaving him alone.

He tried to pull his hands apart. The cord used to tie them was stiff and strong, and all his struggling seemed to do was make the bindings dig deeper into his skin and threaten to cut off his circulation.

That he couldn’t see the knots made it impossible to even try and undo them. If he could bring his arms down under his body, and slip his legs through – he’d seen it done once, but the escape artist had limbs seemingly made of rubber.

He forced his shoulders down and tried to straighten his arms, but his wrists had been held parallel and in opposition to each other before they were bound. There was no slack to take up, and he didn’t think he could physically do it, even if he could stand the pain. He stopped and waited for his muscles to uncramp.

He had, as far as he knew, done nothing to deserve this. He had been the one to offer the wolfman hospitality, and he’d been repaid with violence and betrayal. The ember of anger burning inside ignited into righteous fury.

Dalip stood up, deliberately knocking the chair over on to its back.

‘How dare you treat us like this! How dare you! Untie us at once and let us all go.’