Acir knelt down and gently replaced the sacking over the dead Sanctuaree, murmuring the Obsequy from the Requiem Canticles. There was already a buzz of flies at the cave entrance; he feared this perfunctory farewell would be the only form of funeral rites granted to the dead Sanctuarees.

‘Here’s your list.’ Marcien thrust a paper in front of Acir’s face. Acir glanced down the list of numbers and names beside them.

‘All Sanctuarees.’

‘The Sanctuarees are here to work the stone – and we’re here to see that they get on with it.’

Acir swung around to face him.

‘I take exception to your attitude, confrère. Men cannot work in these inhuman conditions!’

‘Oh, but they can – and they do.’ Marcien smiled at him, an openly provocative smile, baring his teeth.

‘You’ll have no workforce left if you make them labour through the heat of midday – and keep them in the tunnels when you’re blasting.’

‘You make my heart bleed,’ Marcien was jeering at him. ‘Have you forgotten who these men are? Convicted criminals. Rebels. They’d slit our throats and make off across the border if we didn’t watch them night and day.’

‘But these names!’ Acir struck the sheet with his hand. ‘These men were not murderers. They were intellectuals. Musicians. Poets.’

‘Intellectuals?’ Marcien spat into the dust. ‘Word-twisters. Rabble-rousers. And they make cursed useless stoneworkers, I can tell you.’

‘Have you no sense of compassion?’

‘Compassion? This is a place of correction, not a convent.’

Furious, Acir turned away and began to retrace his steps; he could not trust himself not to strike Marcien down.

‘For a Guerrior you seem uncommonly sympathetic to these revolutionaries.’ Marcien called after him. ‘Where do your allegiances lie, Korentan?’

‘Bring in the next witness!’

Khassian stared about him in dismay. Guerriors lined the walls of the courtroom. High up in the public gallery he caught sight – behind the ranks of Guerriors – of anxious faces peering down: wives, mothers, children.

Three men stood chained together before a bench at which a panel of three judges sat in their indigo robes and wide-brimmed hats of office.

‘Is your name Amaru Khassian?’ said one of the judges.

‘It is. But –’

‘Bring him forward.’

‘Is this a trial? Who is being tried?’ Khassian cried as his guards caught hold of him by the arms and hustled him to the front of the court.

‘Amaru Khassian. Do you recognise these men?’

They were gaunt. Their sunken eyes seemed to burn with fever, and their faces showed the livid marks of brutal treatment: swollen mouths, half-healed cuts and weeping sores. But changed as they were, he knew them. They were his musicians.

Wordlessly he begged them to let him know if he should identify them – or plead ignorance. But they would not meet his eyes.

‘Do you know these men?’ repeated the judge. ‘Did you employ them?’

‘Yes,’ Khassian said miserably.

‘Their names, please. And former occupations.’