Rennic was lodged in a fat-walled wooden shack at the back of the stables, built right up to the outer wall, its windows barred and door securely bolted. Two men stood guard, little more than stable-hands from their appearance; at Chel’s approach they were seated on upturned wooden buckets, pouring steaming tea from a kettle. They jumped to their feet as Chel reached them, the original Urbu a pace ahead of him. Urbu spoke low words to them and they made a show of retrieving the spears they had left propped against the shack wall. One still reached for his tea the moment Urbu turned his back.

Chel stood before the door in expectation, but Urbu nodded at the barred window.

‘Window.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Window.’

‘You’re all heart, Urbu.’

He rapped on the round-logged wall, peering into the gloom within.

‘Rennic?’

‘That you, little man?’

Chel’s eyes focused, and found him, upside down against the far wall, pushing himself up and down on his hands just as he had in the cells of Black Rock.

‘Old habits, eh, old man?’

Rennic sprang down and back, then rose from his crouch and came to the window, reaching knotted, gnarled knuckles around the bars. Chel doubted he’d ever seen the man’s hands so clearly. He looked dirty and tired, a little hollow from the isolation.

‘You all right?’

‘Had worse. They’re feeding me, and they change the shit-bucket regularly, so mustn’t grumble.’ He looked at Chel through the bars, eyes black beneath his thick brows. ‘And you, little man? You look rough. Thought they’d be giving you the treatment, one of their golden folk.’ He spat through the bars, the gobbet sailing past Chel’s shoulder and splattering on the grey mud of the stable-yard.

‘Had some, I dunno, news, I supposed you’d call it. Two decades old, but new to me.’

‘Something bad?’

Chel slumped against the wall beside the window. ‘Only that my parents never cared for each other, and it’s probably what drove my father to devote himself to charity, which is what killed him.’

‘Sounds heavy.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I was born in a whorehouse, never knew my dad, and watched my mother cut her own throat, rather than be taken by looting soldiers.’

Chel’s mouth hung open. He was wordless.

‘If we’re sharing,’ Rennic added. He seemed dispassionate, staring vacantly out into the stable.

‘That must …’ Chel tried, but he had nothing to say.

‘I tried to fight them, tried to make a stand, give myself so she could escape with her friends. They batted me aside, left me in the mud, just went on past. Didn’t even bother to kill me.’

‘How … How old were you?’