He gave me an amused look and came, but I could tell he was getting sullen underneath. He was thinking what was there in this for him after all, and he’d also come far enough with me and scared off enough trouble for him to think I owed him something. I decided I’d like to get rid of him soon, or else talk him into genuine friendliness, but with the city and men in this mood I wasn’t hopeful.

“Do you know who’s winning on the plain?” I said.

“Blasted Northerners,” he growled. “But if our lot can hang on long enough there’ll be reinforcements coming up, whole new army from the Temple-Town.”

“I hope Ael and his hoodlums have done their work well,” I thought.

“How did you get your leg in that state?” he said. I said it had been mauled while I was in the hills, and he said I was lucky I had him with me.

“Any of these scoundrels could have made quick work of you by now,” he said virtuously. “Well, here we are already at the 8th Winder. Which house do you want?”

“It’s all right, thanks, I can find it myself.”

“I get it. Well, we’ll part here then. Give us a good-bye kiss.” I didn’t want him to get nasty about being dismissed so I stood on tiptoe and put only one arm round his neck. Before I knew what was happening he’d taken the opportunity to grab me. He hauled me over the ruins of a broken gate and into a fitfully red and black courtyard.

“Please—please—”

“Ah, now it won’t take long. Not a virgin, are you?”

I was furious at the way I’d let myself be tricked, but I had to admit it didn’t seem the end of the world. It was anger and fear more than horror that made me fight—a good thing because I think horror is physically weakening unless one is lucky enough to go actually a bit mad with it.

“Please—” I kept saying, but he took no notice. I hooked an arm over his shoulder and got one of the goblets in his sack and tried to stun him with it. but he seized it from me and laid the sack aside. He was trying to pin me down and though he was strong I wriggled too much, though it was only this way and that, I couldn’t get free.