There were high narrow windows, a fire, a rough table and some stools. Another door opened, and the guard came back through, blocking out the view outside – a courtyard, a wall, a fire issuing black, greasy smoke – before closing the door behind him.

‘Get yourself cleaned up,’ he said, jerking his head at a barrel.

‘Why am I here?’ said Dalip, not moving.

‘To fight.’ The man went to the barrel himself, and plunged his arms up to his elbows into the water. ‘What else?’

‘I didn’t come here to fight.’

‘Then why are you here?’

The circular argument infuriated Dalip. The guard scrubbed at his hands with a brush, then cast it aside.

‘I’m here by accident.’

‘No, you’re not.’ The guard took a towel, if the scrap of filthy material could be called such, and rubbed himself dry with it. ‘No one comes here by accident. You were going to die, right?’

The fire, the heat. ‘Yes.’

‘That’s when you made your choice. Die there or live here.’

‘But killing dogs? That’s not living.’

‘It is if that’s what you have to do to keep living.’ The guard threw the towel at Dalip who instinctively reached up and caught it before it slapped him wetly in the face. ‘Wash. Sit.’

Dalip did as he was told. The water wasn’t clean, but it was cleaner than he was. He carefully avoided washing the wound on his arm, though. But he did gather up his hair and thrust his head into the barrel, emerging with a gasp.

On the table was a wooden plate, with some crude bread and a wrinkled apple. Now he realised just how hungry he was. Opposite was the guard, again indicating with a jerk of his head that this was Dalip’s.

He sat warily. ‘Is this my reward, then?’

‘You’ve had your reward already. This is just food. Eat it or don’t, I don’t care.’

The cup next to his plate had water in it, hopefully not from the same barrel he’d just washed in. He was going to get sick if he didn’t drink it, just as he might if he did. If there was no alternative, like everything else he was having to endure, he’d have to cope.

His teeth still felt loose from the beating he’d had when he’d been captured, so he chewed slowly, watched all the time by the guard.

‘What’s your name?’ asked the man as Dalip moved on to his apple.

Perhaps he shouldn’t tell him, mindful as he was of the wolfman’s words. ‘Singh,’ he said.

‘Singh. What does that mean?’

‘Lion.’