“It’s all I can afford on my pay,” he pointed out. “Aren’t you being a little demanding, doxy darling, considering that I now have to feed two mouths—and buy you clothes to make you presentable.” He always likes to mention the fact I belong to him, he seems full of resentment for the time when I kept holding him at arm’s length or forcibly rejecting him. Apparently we were not such good friends as I thought in those days. “You should have kept the clothes Terez threw at you,” he finished, then pushed his plate across the table and kissed me. He can never stop touching and kissing me nowadays, and it is true, Smahil and I call fiercely to each other, flesh to flesh, bone to bone, youth to fierce youth.

Wanted by the law, no longer with a place in the Northern headquarters, I am offered a home and protection which I must take: Smahil is not the good gay playmate I had once got into the habit of thinking him, but it is true, we are violently young together, his lithe hardness makes me tremble and it is the one stable thing I have to cling to in a rather squalid little world of loneliness, chilly dreariness, cold, dirt and the corroding tongue of someone who resents the hold I have over his body and the long time for which I denied him even that hold. Physically he seems to have a core of fire.

Terez came uninvited to see him one evening. I was sitting alone, listlessly staring into the empty fireplace, empty that is except for cobwebs. I have nothing to read, I can’t remember reading properly since the days I raided the library of my tower; books used to be passed backwards and forwards between the hostages and the young leaders and waiting-girls of the Beauty’s household, but they were all either coquetishly pornographic, or endless lovesick poetry.

Sometimes I sew on buttons and cobble tears in Smahil’s shirts, though I loathe sewing, but that doesn’t take up much time—and I can’t be writing in my Diary all the time. And I’m rather nervous of walking alone about these streets.

So there I was, pouting at nothing, when the door opened and in walked this superb vision in gold.

She had been magnificent in the headquarters’ kitchen, now she was overpowering. She stood in the middle of the room, stared at me, and said abruptly: “Do you know—the lord Smahil? A fair gentleman, is he in the house?”

My mind ranged quickly over the three uncouth young officers. Which did she guess I belonged to? I rose, smiled and said, “He’ll be in soon. Do sit down. Would you like some kind of refreshment while you’re waiting?”

She looked surprised, but sank into a rickety chair and loosened her flimsy wrap.

“It’s a nice day outside,” I remarked.