“Did I mention one of my many other talents? I am resourceful. Would it be hard for me to find the wife of such a memorable man as our fine guard? Not at all. Moreover, I tell a good tale. Would it be difficult for me to engage her with the tale of an attack in close quarters? Would she listen? I think she would. Would she be pleased? I think not.”

The bearded guard’s hand slid from me. “I want a look at the roster,” he said to the other guard, and stepped from my cell. When he locked the bolt home, my veins fizzed with relief. I felt suddenly, deeply tired. My eyes slid shut as I heard the soldiers walk away.

“Finally!” the voice said. “Company!”

I opened my eyes. I could see a bit better, now that the guards did not block my view, the shadow in the cell opposite mine. The light cast by the oil lantern in the hallway was dim, but still I saw the shape of a young man, hair cut close to the head, in trousers tighter than I would wear and a waist-length jacket with the short, stand-up collar allowed to Middling men. He lounged against the bars, a languid hand dangling through them, fingers slender and long. He was taller than me but not by much, the lines of his body fuzzy in the darkness, loose and lazy.

“Come closer,” he said. “I can’t see you.”

“Yes, you can. You saw the ring on that guard’s finger.”

“I would like to see you better.”

I was grateful that he had made the guard leave, and I was curious about him, too, but my curiosity unnerved me. Curiosity is too much like wanting. It comes from feeling dissatisfied, and I knew well the danger of that.

“It’s only neighborly,” he said.

I moved back into the depths of the cell.

“My name is Sid,” he said.

That was a strangely short name, and I told him so.

He hesitated, the first time I had seen him pause at all. Thus far, he had spoken so quickly after the end of someone’s words it was as though he had known long ago what that person would say. Finally, he said, “I don’t like my longer name.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t suit me.”

“Why?”

“Persistent thing. And curious. Aren’t you curious? Come closer, and you’ll see me better, too.” His voice, husky yet light, had lowered a little.

“A cheap trick.” He had dropped his voice to a whisper with the intention to make me instinctively draw nearer.

“But if a trick is so obvious, is it really a trick? If I know that you will know it? I think it’s trusting, actually. If I trust you to see through my trick then I have placed great faith in your intelligence.”

“Flattery.”

“Honesty!”

“Flattery disguised as honesty.”