“If I can. Don’t hush yourself. Keep talking as much as you like, though not loudly.” We were now out of that gorgeous room which in one evening had become the most hateful of places, and we were walking down the stairs, he casually, myself trying but with melting knees, a lady and a priest in conversation. Oh, no one look closely. “Unluckily I found out only quarter of an hour ago that you were in such danger. If only I could have come during the feasting hours when the rest of the place is deserted—on the other hand we’ll be less conspicuous.”

“And there are few lights now because they embarrass the courting courtiers—”

“When I came in and found you in your fountain-room I thought you were emulating the last woman we tortured, who took care to bath beforehand—”

“I’m awfully sorry I soused you like that,” I said with trembling contrition. This was no time to boast that I actually do bath generally once a week.

This heavy Diary which I’d surreptitiously put in my cloak-pocket banged against my knee.

A bull-necked priest was about to pass us on the staircase. He peered at me. “Hey, hey!” He grasped my arm and started to pull me. I whimpered. Kaselm’s hands encircled his bull-neck from behind. “Keep walking up the stairs,” he said in a grim whisper. “Don’t turn round. As soon as you show signs of turning, you’ll get a thrown knife between your shoulder-blades. Keep on up the stairs and turn along the passage at the top.”

Kaselm released the bull-neck, who started resentfully quivering up the stairs. Kaselm pulled me into a dark corner and we watched for a few seconds, then he dragged me out and shoved me down the next flight. We were hidden from above.

“He’ll raise the alarm,” Kaselm said. “Run as though your Dragon-General were after you.”

Down more flights, his hand hard on the small of my back. I had no thoughts, but to trust in his competence and strength. In the very back of my head was a doubt that he might not be trustworthy, but I had no option. The vague doubt sprang from the facts that I have rarely been able to trust anyone at all for more than a short while, and I’ve long suspected Kaselm of a deep game.

Down more flights, completely unlit. Now below courtyard level. I’d never been this low before, and expected that we’d soon strike the servers’ quarters. But we continued down, his strong fingers now over mine in the blackness, and somehow I did not stumble.

“Do you really have a knife?” I dared to whisper hopefully when we reached a deserted, low-roofed, dim-lit corridor, and could hurry on the flat for a while.