‘Febryl has wearied of your spying. He wants Bidithal blind and deaf in this camp. It grieves me, Scillara. It does. Truly.’ He took her by the arm, gauntleted fingers closing tight. ‘It’s a mercy, I think, and I will make it as painless as possible. For I liked you, once. Always smiling, you were, though of course that was mostly the durhang.’ He was leading her away as he spoke, down from the main avenue into the rubbish-cluttered aisles between tent-walls. ‘I’m tempted to take my pleasure of you first. Better a son of the desert than a bow-legged Napan for your last memory of love, yes?’

‘You mean to kill me?’ She was having trouble with the thought, with thinking at all.

‘I’m afraid I must, lass. I cannot defy my master, especially in this. Still, you should be relieved that it is me and not some stranger. For I will not be cruel, as I have said. Here, into these ruins, Scillara – the floor has been swept clean – not the first time it’s seen use, but if all signs are removed immediately there is no evidence to be found, is there? There’s an old well in the garden for the bodies.’

‘You mean to throw me down the well?’

‘Not you, just your body. Your soul will be through Hood’s gate by then, lass. I will make certain of that. Now, lie yourself down, here, on my cloak. I have looked upon your lovely body unable to touch for long enough. I have dreamt of kissing those lips, too.’

She was lying on the cloak, staring up at dim, blurry stars, as the guard unhitched his sword-belt then began removing his armour. She saw him draw a knife, the blade gleaming black, and set it to one side on the flagstoned floor.

Then his hands were pushing her thighs apart.

There is no pleasure. It is gone. He is a handsome man. A woman’s husband. He prefers pleasure before business, as I once did. I think. But now, I know nothing of pleasure.

Leaving naught but business.

The cloak was bunching beneath her as his grunts filled her ears. She calmly reached out to one side and closed her hand around the hilt of the knife. Raised it, the other hand joining it over and above the guard.

Then she drove the knife down into his lower back, the blade’s edge gouging between two vertebrae, severing the cord, the point continuing on in a stuttering motion as it pierced membranes and tore deep into the guard’s middle and lower intestines.

He spilled into her at the moment of death, his shudders becoming twitches, the breath hissing from a suddenly slack mouth as his forehead struck the stone floor beside her right ear.