Corporal Smiler cleared his throat again, his thick neck shifting. “Well, normally—”

“So where are the rest?”

“I guess… watching the trial…”

Vick gave him a few breaths to stew in his worry. His fellows were easing away from him, like you might from a man infected. One was trying to hide behind a portcullis, failing to realise the essence of a portcullis is that you can see right through it. “Who’s in charge here?” Vick snapped at him.

“Sergeant Hambeck!” No doubts now he was naming someone else. If there was one thing everybody knew how to do these days, it was denounce.

“Don’t tell me. He’s watching the trial.”

“They say this one’ll likely be a real zinger, so we drew lots and—”

“You two, go and fetch him. Now.”

“Right away!” squeaked Smiler, grabbing his friend from behind the portcullis and hurrying for the door, Gorst pressing himself against the wall to let them past.

And as easily as that, the odds were even. Only two guards: the lopsided one and an older one with a beard, frowning at Gorst as if he couldn’t quite place him.

“You!” she snapped, bringing his head snapping towards her. “Show me the windlasses.”

“The windlasses, Inspector?”

“I need to check they haven’t been sabotaged,” she said, while wondering what the best way to sabotage them would be.

“Sabotaged, Inspector?”

She took a step towards him. “Is there an echo in here?”

“It’s just… that’s silly.”

“Really? Maybe you want to stand in the dock and tell Judge how silly it is?”

It was plain from his face that he didn’t. “The first one’s here,” he croaked, ducking under a couple of low-hanging chains to lead her over. “Ain’t that complicated. This thing with the handles like a ship’s wheel, you turn that to raise it, those are gears for the weight, but it still takes three strong men to lift one o’ these bastards, believe me…” Vick could hardly hear him over the thudding of her own heart as she slid the mace from her belt. She tried not to look at the scarf he was wearing. A nice patterned one, the kind a wife knits for a husband or a daughter for a father. She focused on his bald spot instead. Few grey hairs there. Didn’t want to kill him, but in her experience it was far better to hit a man too hard than not hard enough. “Push this here lever to drop it in an attack—”

The mace made a meaty crunch as Vick smashed him across the back of the head. He crumpled over the windlass, blood squirting from a ragged gash across his scalp, sprinkling across the chains, the gears, the floor.

She heard a muffled cry from the other end of the room. Saw vague shapes shifting in the shadows. Then one dropped and Gorst stood there, short steel gleaming red.

“Oh.” The bearded one was pushing himself up from the windlass, blood running down his face in regular spurts and soaking into his scarf. “My head’s all—”