“You think a High Priest would carry a knife?” he whispered reprovingly and pulled from under the side-loop of his robe a curved gold sheath which must usually hang hidden against his thigh.

“Will you suller greatly for helping me?” He laughed quietly, the sound resonant in the pit of his throat.

“I am the Superlativity’s right ear, right eye, right arm. I have my finger in a thousand plots of my own and if any dare to accuse me weightily I have all the clever vermin of the wharfs at my back.”

I remembered how I’d met him talking like an old friend to the captain of the boat I’d stowed away on. I’d wondered then about such things as smuggling, no more …

At the end of this corridor, down again. Damp blackness. And now we could hear some kind of commotion above us, but descending.

“Kaselm—They’re coming!”

He pulled me right against a blank wall. His hand, still with mine in it, went over the wall surface which was very old and musty and scarred with cracks and split seams. A little trickle of mouldy mortar drifted down. I sneezed and began to sniffle. The priest’s finger found one crack, which seemed to me indistinguishable from the rest of the network, and there was a grating noise right before us. I started and clung to him.

“In, child. Part of the wall has swung open. Get in.”

I groped. Suddenly my hand went right through the wall. A damp, musty breeze breathed straight in my face. I tried to scramble through but my knee struck wall. My hands were already through and I was in a panic. Strong arms hoisted me up from behind. I dropped into a cold, stony dark. Landed on one knee and scraped my hand on rough stone paving. I heard him come through after me and then the harsh grating as the wall swung to shut out the growing noise of pursuit as righteous priests flurried down the wooden flights, clattering in their hurry against the treads and each other. We heard them go past on the other side of the wall.

Kaselm and I, hand in hand, started walking. I was sure the echoes from the stone enclosing us must be heard for hundreds of yards. The steady sounds of our steps hit the walls and roof more than the pavings. From the sounds I thought the roof must be vaulted.

Speaking of vermin, scuttlings now began across our path. I knew they must be rats and kept calm. But a whirr above my face, flapping a wind through my hair, made my hand twist in Kaselm’s.

“Bats,” he said. “It’s not the last you’ll meet now. They don’t like to be disturbed but probably they won’t attack. However, the only sure thing to keep them off would be a fierce torch held high.”