‘Do you think him handsome? Soldiers have a way about them, I think.’

‘But he is old, mistress!’

‘Perhaps in your eyes, he is. But I see a man still in his years of strength, younger than my father, and sure of command. No doubt Lord Draconus values him most highly.’

They came to a heavy wooden door, artfully carved in intricate geometric patterns. The girl pushed it open to reveal a narrow room tiled from floor to ceiling, and at the far end a wash basin and then a tub of copper, large enough to accommodate a man. As Sandalath entered the chamber, she felt waves of heat rising from the floor. Crouching, she set a palm flat upon the tiles. ‘There is fire beneath?’

The girl nodded. ‘I think so, yes. I am rarely here, mistress. But there are flues from the Great Hearth, leading everywhere.’

‘Then this is not a cold house in the winter.’

‘No, mistress, it is blessedly warm!’

Sandalath looked round. ‘I feel welcomed by this house, most welcomed.’

The girl smiled again. ‘You are very pretty, mistress. We’d thought—’

‘What did you all think? Tell me.’

‘We thought you’d be a child, mistress.’

‘As are most new hostages, yes. But you see, I have done this before. And truth be told, in some ways I feel a child again. Every day, the world is born anew.’

The girl sighed.

‘Born anew,’ Sandalath repeated, breathing deep the warm, scented air.

Chapter Seven

SEVEN

THERE WERE MOMENTS of lucidity, when finarra stone became aware of strange, discordant details. She was bound to Spinnock Durav, a horse labouring under them both. Black blades of Glimmer Fate’s savage grasses rasped against the mount’s wooden armour, rustled past like swirling waves. It was night and she could smell Spinnock’s sweat, could feel his heat against her chilled body.

She slipped away, only to awaken again, and this time she saw before them a wavering blur of yellow light, swimming in a penumbra that seethed with moths and bats. The frenzied motion of the creatures hurt her eyes and she looked away, to where the high grasses had been chopped down, forming a killing field surrounding the fort; and then the walls, stretched out beneath the lantern suspended above the gate – the ‘logs’ of bound grass, patchy with sun-fired black clay – the gate opening and sudden voices – she felt Spinnock sag as ropes were cut and she was gently drawn away from him.

Firm hands carried her quickly into the fort, crossing the compound, a flare of harsher light, the gust of heat from a fire, and then she was inside the main room. They set her down on a bench. A dog brushed close, wet nose smearing the back of her swollen hand, and was then sent scurrying with a slap.