"It's a very pretty little creature," I say.

She shrugs. "Animals belong outdoors."

"Do you want me to take it to the lake and let it go?"

"You can't do that, it is too young, it would starve to death or dogs would catch it."

So the fox cub stays. Sometimes I see its sharp snout peeking out from a dark corner. Otherwise it is only a noise in the night and a pervasive tang of urine as I wait for it to grow big enough to be disposed of.

"People will say I keep two wild animals in my rooms, a fox and a girl."

She does not see the joke, or does not like it. Her lips close, her gaze settles rigidly on the wall, I know she is doing her best to glare at me. My heart goes out to her, but what can I do? Whether I appear to her decked in my robes of office or whether I stand naked before her or whether I tear open my breast for her, I am the same man. "I am sorry," I say, the words falling inertly from my mouth. I reach out five dough-fingers and stroke her hair. "Of course it is not the same."

One after another I interview those men who were on duty while the prisoners were being questioned. From each I get the same account: they hardly spoke to the prisoners, they were not permitted to enter the room where the interrogations took place, they cannot tell me what went on in there. But from the sweeping-woman I get a description of the room itself: "Just a little table, and stools, three stools, and a mat in the corner, otherwise quite bare… No, no fire, only a brazier. I used to empty out the ashes."

Now that life has returned to normal the room is in use again. At my request the four soldiers who are quartered there drag their chests out on to the gallery, pile their sleeping-mats, plates and mugs on top of them, take down their strings of laundry. I close the door and stand in the empty room. The air is still and cold. Already the lake is beginning to freeze over. The first snows have fallen. Far away I hear the bells of a pony-cart. I close my eyes and make an effort to imagine the room as it must have been two months ago during the Colonel's visit; but it is difficult to lose myself in reverie with the four young men dawdling outside, chafing their hands together, stamping their feet, murmuring, impatient for me to go, their warm breath forming puffs in the air.

I kneel down to examine the floor. It is clean, it is swept daily, it is like the floor of any room. Above the fireplace on the wall and ceiling there is soot. There is also a mark the size of my hand where soot has been rubbed into the wall. Otherwise the walls are blank. What signs can I be looking for? I open the door and motion to the men to bring their belongings back.

A second time I interview the two guards who were on duty in the yard. "Tell me exactly what happened when prisoners were questioned. Tell me what you yourselves saw."

The taller one replies, a boy with a long jaw and an eager air whom I have always liked. "The officer…"

"The police officer?"

"Yes… The police officer would come to the hall where the prisoners were kept and he would point. We would fetch the prisoners he wanted and take them out to be questioned. Afterwards we would take them back."

"One at a time?"

"Not always. Sometimes two."

"You know that one of the prisoners afterwards died. Do you remember that prisoner? Do you know what they did to him?"

"We heard he went berserk and attacked them."

"Yes?"

"That is what we heard. I helped to carry him back to the hall. Where they all slept. He was breathing strangely, very deep and fast. That was the last I saw of him. He was dead the next day."

"Go on. I am listening. I want you to tell me everything you can remember."

The boy's face is strained. I am sure he has been advised not to talk. "That man was questioned longer than anyone else. I saw him sitting by himself in a corner, after he had been in the first time, holding his head." His eyes flicker towards his companion. "He would not eat anything. He was not hungry. His daughter was with him: she tried to make him take food but he would not."

"What happened to his daughter?"

"She was also questioned, but not so long."

"Go on."

But he has nothing more to tell me.

"Listen," I say: "we both know who the daughter is. She is the girl who stays with me. It is not a secret. Now go on: tell me what happened."

"I do not know, sir! Most of the time I was not there." He appeals to his friend, but his friend is mute. "Sometimes there was screaming, I think they beat her, but I was not there. When I came off duty I would go away."

"You know that today she cannot walk. They broke her feet. Did they do these things to her in front of the other man, her father?"

"Yes, I think so."

"And you know that she cannot see properly any more. When did they do that?"

"Sir, there were many prisoners to take care of, some of them sick! I knew that her feet were broken but I knew nothing about her being blind till long afterwards. There was nothing I could do, I did not want to become involved in a matter I did not understand!"

His friend has nothing to add. I dismiss them. "Do not be afraid because you have spoken to me," I say.

In the night the dream comes back. I am trudging across the snow of an endless plain towards a group of tiny figures playing around a snowcastle. As I approach the children sidle away or melt into the air. Only one figure remains, a hooded child sitting with its back to me. I circle around the child, who continues to pat snow on the sides of the castle, till I can peer under the hood. The face I see is blank, featureless; it is the face of an embryo or a tiny whale; it is not a face at all but another part of the human body that bulges under the skin; it is white; it is the snow itself. Between numb fingers I hold out a coin.

Winter has settled in. The wind blows from the north, and will blow incessandy for the next four months. Standing at the window with my forehead against the cold glass I hear it whistle in the eaves, lifting and dropping a loose roof-tile. Flurries of dust chase across the square, dust patters against the pane. The sky is full of fine dust, the sun swims up into an orange sky and sets copper-red. Now and again there are squalls of snow which briefly fleck the earth with white. The siege of winter is on. The fields are empty, no one has reason to go outside the town walls except those few who make a livelihood by hunting. The twice-weekly parade of the garrison has been suspended, the soldiers have permission to quit the barracks if they wish and live in the town, for there is little for them to do but drink and sleep. When I walk the ramparts in the early morning half the watchposts are empty and the numbed sentries on duty, swathed in furs, struggle to raise a hand in salute. They might as well be in their beds. For the duration of the winter the Empire is safe: beyond the eye's reach the barbarians too, huddled about their stoves, are gritting their teeth against the cold.

There have been no barbarian visitors this year. It used to be that groups of nomads would visit the settlement in winter to pitch their tents outside the walls and engage in barter, exchanging wool, skins, felts and leatherwork for cotton goods, tea, sugar, beans, flour. We prize barbarian leatherwork, particularly the sturdy boots they sew. In the past I have encouraged commerce but forbidden payment in money. I have also tried to keep the taverns closed to them. Above all I do not want to see a parasite settlement grow up on the fringes of the town populated with beggars and vagrants enslaved to strong drink. It always pained me in the old days to see these people fall victim to the guile of shopkeepers, exchanging their goods for trinkets, lying drunk in the gutter, and confirming thereby the settlers' litany of prejudice: that barbarians are lazy, immoral, filthy, stupid. Where civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of a dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization; and upon this resolution I based the conduct of my administration. (I say this who now keep a barbarian girl for my bed!)