He had nodded wearily.

After Mrs Gunson had gone, a youth with a patchy beard and a pox-scarred complexion brought in an extra blanket that Silas took from him wordlessly.

‘The lady asked me to fetch this. Don’t they teach thee any manners where tha from?’

‘I thank thee for the blanket.’

‘Sarky bastard.’ He made fists and jumped lightly from foot to foot, his shadow leaping up the wall behind him. Silas flinched away and the youth laughed and picked up the lamp. ‘Farm boy, stinking o’ cow shit. Tha knows nowt. This cellar’s haunted by a low life like thee that hanged himself in ’ere and good riddance an’ all. Watch tha don’t bump tha head on his swingin’ feet.’

He took the light with him.

Silas cocooned himself in the blanket and lay curled on his side. The pitch dark was a suffocating, almost tangible presence so he closed his eyes against it and tried pretending he was in his own bed at the King’s Arms. His ears were as attuned as a bat’s, pricking at every sound from outside his cell – a murmur, a rattle of keys, muffled footsteps on the street outside – and then there were no more sounds and he guessed it must be the dead of night. He imagined he felt a breeze across his face, a motion in the air as if it was being disturbed by a swinging body, and he began to sob quietly.

A constable he had not seen before came for him the next morning.

‘Put out your hands,’ the man said, not unkindly.

Silas did. Humiliatingly, they were shaking hard, his own body betraying him. Similar wrought iron bracelets had been used to circle his wrists when he was taken from the King’s Arms, his shoulder blades forced painfully together as his arms were pulled behind his back. This time, his hands were bound in front, almost as if he was in prayer, and he was grateful for this smallest of concessions, recalling his animal terror on the night of his arrest of being unable to save himself should he stumble and fall.

Silas’s hair fell in his eyes and he automatically lifted a hand to sweep it back, and bit back a cry of distress when the other followed.

He was led up a narrow flight of stairs. At the top, two burly men stepped forward, dressed in rough wool and wearing heavy boots, and took up position on either side of him. Guards, the constable told him, as he handed over to one of the men the screw key for the handcuffs, come from the prison to carry out your punishment.

Outside, Silas squinted up at the white overcast that was too bright for his eyes, a light drizzle falling on his face.

‘Tha’s a lucky bugger not to be comin’ back wi’ us to Wakefield.’ The guard who had spoken peered into his face and said to the other man, ‘Lad’s white as a sheet.’