The door creaked open, as if someone was trying not to make too much noise. The light that came through was not the light of day, but the glow of a lantern. Out there it must still be night time. They were robbing me, not only of midsummer day and the council, but of half the night before as well. Typical of this piss-hole and the foul apologies for men that ran it.

Slammer was at the bars. I stood by my pallet, the blanket around me, trying to breathe.

‘You got a visitor.’

‘A what?’ How many stupid tricks could he inflict on me before this was all over?

‘A visitor. Make yourself tidy, and be quick about it.’

I was dreaming. Nobody had visitors in here, and especially not me. Who was there to come? Unless it was Mathuin wanting to gloat, and he’d hardly do that at a time when all sensible folk were in their beds fast asleep.

Slammer was unfastening the door of my cell; swinging it open. ‘Hurry up,’ he said. ‘Haven’t got all night.’

A lie. It had to be. The only reason they’d let me out of here was so they could kill me without anyone finding out, or at least anyone that mattered. Night time would make that easier. I’d be neatly buried in some corner before the sun was even thinking about rising.

‘Slammer.’ Grim spoke in a tone I had never heard before; it sent a chill right through me. ‘You’re top of my list. When I get out of here, I’ll hunt you down, I swear it. Before I’m done with you, you’ll be in such little pieces nobody will know you were ever a man.’

‘Hah!’ Slammer was scornful. ‘When you get out of here? By that time you’ll be an old man, Bonehead, a dotard dribbling into your beard.’

‘Shut up!’ mumbled a sleepy voice from further along the cells.

Slammer seized me by the arm and hauled me out of my cell, then along the walkway beside him, blanket and all. There was nobody at the guard post and the door was ajar. We were going outside. Out into the open air, under the night sky.

‘Get a move on,’ Slammer said.