I wait a bit, because that’s what she said to do. Give her time to get Branoc sitting down and having his aches and pains tended to. Then I go up to the barn. Problem: the doors are bolted. Hard to slide the bolts open without making a racket. I do it slowly, inch by inch, and my heart’s doing a bit of a dance, a fast reel it’d be. I swing the doors open and I’m in. Seems a good idea to close them over behind me, so I do, but not all the way. Might need to get out fast.

Problem: the ladder’s not there. I think of calling out, but no, Branoc might hear, and even if he doesn’t, there’s what Blackthorn said about folk sometimes being too scared to ask for help, maybe too scared even to squeak. I go back outside, look around, find the ladder lying down against the wall. Fetch it in, put it in place. Think of Blackthorn in there with that man. Hope she’ll use the knife quick and hard if she has to.

I climb up. Creak, creak, every step loud enough to wake the dead. Hope the thing doesn’t break under me. In my head are the fellows from Mathuin’s lockup, the ones I couldn’t get out and the ones I did get out who ended up dead anyway. Poxy. Dribbles. Strangler, poor bastard. Frog Spawn. The other fellows down the end. Life’s cruel sometimes. I’m at the top, on a flat bit, and in front of me there’s a wall with a door in it, like there’s a storage room up here. At the front. Over the spot where the cart was, that day. Shit. Looks like Blackthorn may have been right.

This door’s bolted too, on the outside. Bastard. I stop to take a couple of breaths, not wanting to go in there with my face all hate and anger. Then I slip the bolts and pull the door open.

It’s darkish and for a bit I don’t see her. Then there’s a shaky gasping noise, and she bursts out crying. Shutters on the window; I throw them open and light comes in. There she is, just a young thing, all bruises and big eyes, and she can’t come out of the shadowy corner because around one wrist and one ankle she’s got shackles, and there are chains joining them to rings in the wall. She’s sort of crouching. Looks like she’s too tired or hurt to stand up, but the wrist chain’s too short for her to lie down. An oath bursts out of me, a bad one, then I get a hold of myself.

‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘You’re safe now. I’ve come to get you out.’