‘You must meet Adelys.’ Tartarus prowled around the chamber, a jagged black shadow. ‘The poor woman was in the most desperate state. Since I treated her, she has quietened down and is docile and calm once more –’

Jerame slid his hands slowly along the wooden arm-rests. He tried to imagine what it would feel like to be strapped in, to feel the metal band tightening around the forehead. And then the juddering shock of the electrical spark, the ensuing convulsions –

‘No. I won’t let you experiment on Orial.’

‘There was a time when you put your trust in science. What’s happened to that trust?’ Tartarus took off the helmet and hooked it over the chair back.

Jerame regarded it with loathing and suspicion. Instrument of torture, devil’s instrument. He went over to the slit window and gazed out. And yet… what other treatment was there? Suppose he was rejecting the only possible hope of a cure?

Far below the Avenne glistened like a slick of oil in the river marshes. Water. The ever-present lure… and the ever-present threat to her life.

A sudden violent commotion broke out below.

‘Doctor Tartarus!’ a desperate voice called as the sounds of a struggle grew louder. ‘A sedative! Quick!’

‘We’re never off-duty here,’ Tartarus said with a wry curl of the lips. He seemed in no hurry to go to the aid of the nurse. ‘Fool! I warned him she was in a violent humour today. He never listens.’

‘I’m keeping you from your patients,’ Jerame said hastily. ‘I’d better be on my way.’

The great door clanged shut behind him. He stood on the weed-cracked path, listening to the screams and cries of the unfortunate inmate and her attendant until they dwindled to nothing and all he could hear was the faint, sad whine of the wind off the river marshes.

The woman lies weeping on the ground, her shoulders heaving. Orial approaches slowly, cautiously. She wants to comfort her – and yet she is afraid. The terrible weeping makes her sad. So sad.

She kneels down beside her and puts her arm around her.

‘Orial make it better, Mammie…’

‘NO!’ The woman rears up. Her face is distorted, her rainbow eyes wild, waterfall torrents streaming down her pale cheeks. ‘Go away. Go away!’

Orial shrinks away. Now she is crying too, crying that her mammie has shouted at her, crying that everything is so wrong–

‘Aiieeeee.…’

And what has happened to Mammie’s face? Raw claw marks stripe the white skin with red, she has torn the earrings from her lobes, has raked her own nails down her cheeks.

Orial stares, too terrified to move.

‘Take the child away! Don’t let her – let her –’

Someone scoops Orial up, carries her away, but still she can hear Mammie crying, so lost, so pitiful.

‘Don’t – let her – remember me like this –’

‘Mammie!’ Orial sat up in bed, still rigid with terror.