You just come out with any old thing, do you, Challice? But it’s only after we’ve been together that you say you love me.

‘He’ll kill me,’ she whispered.

‘That doesn’t sound like the Gorlas you’ve been describing.’

She sat down on the bed. ‘He confronted me. Yesterday.’

‘You didn’t mention-’

She shook her head. ‘It seemed, well, it seemed it was just the usual game. He said he wanted to know about you, and I said I’d tell him when he got back-he’s at the mines right now. And then, and then, walking here just now-O gods! I

suddenly understood! Don’t you see? He was asking about the man he planned la kill!’

‘So he plans to kill me. What of it, Challice?’

She bared her teeth, and it was an expression so brutal, so ugly, that Cutter was shocked. ‘I said I understood. First you. Then he’ll come back to me, so he can tell me what he did to you. In every detail? He will use every word like a knife-until he pulls out the real one. And then he’ll cut my throat.’ She looked up at him. ‘Is that what you want? Does his killing me matter to you, Crokus?’

‘He won’t kill you-’

‘You don’t know him!’

‘It sounds as if you don’t, either.’ At her glare, he added, ‘Look, assume he’ll take pleasure in killing me, and he will. And then, even more pleasure in telling you all about it-yes? We’re agreed on that?’

She nodded, a single motion, tight.

‘But if he then kills you, what has he got? Nothing. No, he’ll want you to do it again, with someone else. Over and over again, and each time it’ll turn out the same-he kills your lover, he tells you about it. He doesn’t want all that to end. The man’s a duellist, right, one who likes killing his opponents. This way, he can lawfully do it to as many men as you care to collect, Challice. He wins, you win-’

‘How can you say I win!

‘-because,’ he finished, ‘neither of you gets bored.’

She stared at him as if he had just kicked in some invisible door hidden inside her. And then recovered. ‘I don’t want you to die, Crokus. Cutter-I keep forgetting. It’s Cutter now. A dangerous name. An assassin’s name. Careful, or someone might think there’s something real behind it.’

‘Which is it, Challice? You don’t want me to die. Or am I the man I pretend to be? What is it, exactly, you’re trying to appeal to?’

‘But I love you!’

And there was that word again. And whatever it meant to her probably was not what it meant to him-not that he knew what it meant to him, of course. He moved to one side, as if intent on circling the bed even it if took him through the outer wall, then halted and ran his hands through his hair. ‘Have you been leading me to this moment all along?’

‘What’?’

He shook his head. ‘Just wondering out loud. It’s not important.’

‘I want my life as it is, Cutter, only without him. I want you instead of him. That’s how I want it.’

What would Murillio say in this situation? But no, I’m not Murillio.

Still…

He’d be out through this window in a heartbeat. Duels with wronged hus-bandsl Hood’s breath! He faced her. ‘Is that what you want?’

‘I just told you it was!’

‘No, that’s not what I meant. I meant… oh, never mind.’

‘You have to do it. For me. For us.’

‘He’s at the mines went of the city? For how much longer?’

’Two days at least. You can go out there.’

And suddenly she was standing in front of him, hands on the sides of his face, her body pressing hard, and he stared down into her dilated eyes.

Excitement.

I used to think… that look-this look… I used to think…

‘My love,’ she whispered. ‘It has to be done. You see that, don’t you?’

But it was always this, just this. Leading up to this moment. Where she was taking me-or have I got it all wrong?

‘Challice-’

But her mouth was on his now, and she swallowed down all his words, until none were left.

Spin round and rush back. Murillio still lies in the dust, a crowd mechanically cheering in the pit below. The day draws to a close, and a youth named Venaz gathers his gang of followers and sets out for the tunnel called Steep.

Not much need be said about Venaz. But let us give him this. Sold to the mine by his stepfather-dear Ma too drunk to even lift her head when the collectors showed up and if she heard the clinking of coins, well, her thoughts would have crawled the short distance to the moment when she could buy another bottle, and no further. That had been four years ago.

The lesson that a child is not loved, not even by the one who bore it, delivers a most cruel wound. One that never heals, but instead stretches scar tissue over the mind’s eye, so that for that orphan’s entire life the world beyond is tainted, and it sees what others do not, and is blinded by perpetual mistrust to all that the heart feels. Such was Venaz, but to know is not to excuse, and we shall leave it there.

Venaz’s pack consisted of boys a year or so younger than him. They vied with each other for position in the pecking order and were as vicious individually as they were in a group. They were just versions of him, variations only on the surface. They followed and would do anything he told them to, at least until he stumbled, made a mistake. And then they would close in like half-starved wolves.

Venaz walked emboldened, excited, delighted at this amazing turn of events. The Big Man wanted Harllo and not to pat him on the head either. No, there would be even more blood spilled on this day, and if Venaz could work it right, why, he might be the one to spill it-at the Big Man’s nod, that’s all it would take, and maybe the Big Man would see how good Venaz could be. Good enough, maybe, to recruit him into his own household. Every noble needed people like Venaz, to do the ugly stuff, the bad stuff.

They reached the slope leading to the mouth of the tunnel. Three grown-ups were trying to fix the axle of a cart and they looked up when Venaz arrived.

‘Where’s Bainisk? Venaz asked.

‘New vein,’ one of them replied. ‘He in trouble again?’

‘He got his moles with him?’ It felt good being so important he didn’t have to answer the man’s question.

Shrugs all round.

Venaz scowled. ‘Has he got his moles with him?’

The one who’d spoken slowly straightened. His backhanded slap caught Venaz by surprise, and was hard enough to knock the boy back. He was then grabbed and thrown on to the stony ground. The man stood over him. ‘Watch your mouth.’

Venaz sat up, glaring. ‘You ain’t seen what just happened? Up on the ridge?’

Another grunted. ‘We heard ‘bout something.’

‘A duel-the Big Man killed someone!’

‘So what?’

‘And then he called for Harllo! He wants Harllo! And I come to get him and you’re stopping me and when he hears-’

He got no further as the man who had struck him now grasped him by the throat and dragged him to his feet. ‘He won’t hear nothing, Venaz. You think we give a fuck about Vidikas having a fuckin’ duel? Killin’ some poor bastard for what? Our entertainment?’

‘He’s turnin’ blue, Haid. Better loosen yer grip some.’

Venaz gasped an agonizing lungful of air.

‘Get it right, lad,’ Haid went on, ‘Vidikas owns us. We’re pieces of meat to him, right? So he puts out a call for one of us and for what? Why, to chew it up, that poor piece of meat. And what, you think that’s a fuckin’ good idea? Get outa my sight, Venaz, but you can count on me rememberin’ this.’

The pack was huddled together now, white-faced, but among some of them there was something rather more calculating. Was this the moment to usurp Venaz?

The three men went back to working on the axle. Venaz, his colour returning to normal, dusted himself off and then set out in a stiff-legged march towards the tunnel mouth. His pack fell in behind him.