‘Go to sleep,’ Isolde said. ‘It’s probably tucked up warm in the hay loft. You can get it in the morning.’

‘It’s not in the hay loft. I’m going now.’

‘Why?’ Isolde asked, sitting up in bed. ‘You can’t go now, it’s dark.’

‘There’s a ladder in the men’s room,’ she said. ‘They were mending the roof beams today. There’s a ladder from their room that goes through the beams and up to the roof.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the kitten’s still up there.’

‘It’s almost certainly gone. It’ll have got itself down when the roofer was up there.’

‘What if it hasn’t?’ Ishraq rounded on her friend. ‘Almost the last thing I saw Freize do was lift that kitten out of his pocket, and it was when it ran for the roof that he knew of the danger. It warned us. We should make sure it’s safe.’

‘It didn’t know what it was doing.’

‘But Freize did. He was kind to it, just as he was kind to everyone, to every animal. I’m going to get the kitten down. He wouldn’t leave it there till morning.’

‘Ishraq!’ Isolde cried out, but the girl was already pulling on her cape, opening the ill-fitting bedroom door, crossing the little landing, and opening the door of the men’s room.

Ishraq heard the snoring of several men, and grimaced at her own embarrassment. ‘I am sorry,’ she said clearly into the darkened room. ‘But I am going to walk through this room and go up that ladder.’

‘Is that a lass?’ came a hopeful, sleepy inquiry. ‘Wanting some company? Want a little kiss and a cuddle, bonnie lass? Want a little company?’

‘If anyone touches me,’ Ishraq went on in the same courteous tone, closing the door behind her and stepping carefully into the dark room. ‘I will break his hand. If two of you try it together, I will kill you both. Just so you know.’

‘Ishraq?’ said Luca, shocked from sleep. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ He rose up out of the darkness, naked but for his breeches, and they met at the foot of the ladder.

‘Fetching the kitten,’ she said. ‘Leave me alone.’

‘Are you mad? What kitten?’

‘Freize’s kitten,’ she said. ‘The one he had in his pocket.’

‘It’ll have got itself down.’

‘I’m going to see.’

‘In the middle of the night?’

‘I only just remembered it,’ she confessed.

‘Oh for God’s sake!’ Luca was suddenly furious with her, worrying about a kitten in a town filled with parents who had lost their children. ‘What does a kitten matter? In the middle of all this? In the middle of the night when half these people have cried themselves to sleep and everyone is missing someone?’

Ishraq did not answer him but turned and put her foot on the first rung of the ladder. ‘It’s pitch black,’ Luca cautioned. ‘You’ll fall and break your neck.’