But again, there seemed more interest than malice in their stares, so Abu took heart and stepped forward into the room, and pushed his hood back from his head. The room was warm, the air thick with smoke.

The smuggler shook the boy by the arm. “Speak to me,” he hissed. “You weren’t followed here.”

“No, sir.”

“You took care?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The purge was out tonight. Didn’t you hear the whistles?”

“Yes, sir.”

“By God, you’re a fool.” He gave the boy a vicious shake and threw him down against a pile of burlap bags. “What were you thinking of?”

“No sir—please. We can use him. Please sir. Where’s the captain?”

“Use him? He’s a spy.”

“No,” said Abu. “I’m not.”

“No,” repeated the boy. “Listen to him. He says he’s not.”

“Of course he is. What else could he be?”

“He says he’s not. He can’t lie, can he? It’s against the law for him.”

“Yes, and I suppose you never broke the law, did you? Use him? You’re a fool.” The smuggler aimed a kick, but the boy twisted away. Abu laid his hand on the man’s arm.

“Don’t hurt him,” he said. “It’s my fault.”

The smuggler stared at him and pulled away with a curse. At the table, another man reached to turn the lamp up. Then he rose from his chair and stumped towards the prince, and peered up at him out of a battered face. “Starbridge,” he said. “You any relation to Scullion Starbridge?”

“Which one?”

“The magistrate here. He had my nose broken once a week for ten weeks. Broken and reset. That’s not standard punishment. That’s not scriptural. Second offense pickpocketing—that’s too hard. You any relation?”

“I suppose so. Not a close relation. Why?”

“Why? God damn you, that’s why.”

“I suppose so. I’m sorry about your nose. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry,” the man repeated, as if unsure of the word’s meaning. “Sorry, are you? God damn you for it, I say. God damn you.”

“No blasphemy,” said another kind of voice, a large soft voice out of the darkness beyond the table lamp. “There’s no blasphemy allowed here, Mr. Gnash. You know that.”

It was a woman’s voice. She stepped into the light and seemed to diminish it just by standing next to it, for her skin was as black as if the shadows still clung to her. Her voice, too, contained a resonance of darkness outside the glaring lamp. The light shone on the table and on a circle of pale, miserable men.

Outside the lamp, perhaps, her voice seemed to suggest, perhaps only a little way beyond, hope and happiness might still scavenge in the dark, vague, snuffling beasts. “No blasphemy,” she said. “Please.

Spider, who is our guest?”