‘I’m not going in there again. I’m just not.’

The knife, drawn in a flash, lunged across the table at Dalip, and he stepped back. ‘You’ll fight or you’ll die. Doesn’t bother me where you do it.’

Had Dalip imagined a hint of desperation? ‘She won’t be happy if I die in my cell, will she?’

‘I’ll drag you out by your mane, little lion man.’ The guard passed the knife hand to hand and began circling the table. Dalip began to side-step, keeping the man opposite.

‘The moment you touch my hair is the moment you’d better be ready to finish it one way or the other. Just because I won’t fight in your pit doesn’t mean I won’t fight in my cell.’

‘We’ll come in mob-handed and take you down. Fists and feet, just like they did in the forest.’

‘And once you’ve beaten me up and thrown me in front of her, what then? I’m not stupid. I know that that dog was just the beginning. Next time it’ll something bigger, with more teeth, and sooner or later I’ll slip or fall, or drop the knife, or just get beaten. So you can either stop this nonsense, or kill me now. I’m not dying because someone thinks it’s fun to watch.’

He’d moved around the table far enough that the door leading to the outside was at his back, and his guard was between the table and the wall. There was an opportunity, if he was willing to take it.

He slapped his palms on the table’s edge, then quickly turned them so that his fingers were underneath. Then he heaved.

The guard didn’t realise what was happening at first. The table top reared up at him, and caught him squarely in the chest. As it started to fall it kept on turning.

Dalip didn’t wait to see where it landed. He bolted for the door, wrestled with its unfamiliar latch for a second before dragging the wood aside and running through, heedless of where he might end up.

Sun and sky. Momentarily dazzled, he tried in an instant to spot a way out, or somewhere that might lead to a way out. Whichever way he looked, there was a wall: tall, wide enough to walk on. Between him and it were, to his left, a short stone building, surrounded by crude wooden ones, and to his right, a patchwork of vegetable plots.

Dead centre, a gate, which he’d missed the first time.

He started to run.

The gate was open. There was no one even near it. The two bent backs over the rows of cabbages were turned against him. He was closing on them fast, head down like he was heading for the boundary, then past them without either of them looking up.