As the bailiff seized hold of me once more, I turned to look at Snake Heart.
‘What did you do that for?’ I demanded. ‘You’re supposed to be prosecuting Lily. Who told you to start on me?’
The lawyer smiled, the way Obsidian Tongue had smiled at the mention of Kindly’s name. ‘It can be a risky business, slave, upsetting a lawyer! Now I’m off to share a pipe with my old friend Obsidian Tongue. A risky business!’
‘Hold him securely,’ warned the noble judge. ‘If he really did have a hand in that massacre he must be more dangerous than he looks!’
I was half carried, half dragged from the courtroom through a small side exit and along dimly lit passageways whose many turns might have been designed to baffle the most accurate sense of direction.
‘Where are you taking me? Is it the prison?’ I was terrified of being sent back to the obscure chamber into which Rattlesnake and Hunter had put me, the distant, dark room where Lily had suffered unspeakably and I had seen a man with crushed fingers.
‘You’ll find out,’ the bailiff grunted. ‘Did you really kill all those men? Don’t look like you’ve got it in you to me.’
‘I haven’t!’ I yelled. ‘I didn’t!’
‘No need to shout.’
The passageway opened out into a wider corridor, which had a familiar feel to it. I almost wept with relief as I realized that it led to the part of the palace where Lily had first been held, where ordinary prisoners were kept.
An official met us by the entrance.
‘Who’s this?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘New prisoner for you.’ The bailiff handed over a piece of stiff bark paper, which crackled as the official took it. ‘Here’s the judge’s order.’
‘What happened to the woman? Don’t tell me she got off’
‘No, she’s on her way back. Both of them to be held until the King decides what to do with them in the morning.’
The other man frowned. ‘Oh, no. That won’t do. You took one prisoner away; you can’t bring two back. I haven’t room for them both! Somebody should have checked.’
‘Too bad. What do you expect me to do, let this one go?’
I restrained myself from saying that I thought that sounded like a good idea.
The official handed the paper back. ‘It’s all the same to me what you do with him. Somebody should have checked, that’s all. All my cages are full.’
‘What about the one we took the woman out of this morning?’
‘Well, that one’s hers, of course, but…’
The bailiff put a hand in the small of my back and shoved me through the doorway. ‘Well, there you are, then! Put them both in together. It’s only for one night!’ With that, he turned and strode away before the other man could utter a protest, just as Lily appeared, under escort, shuffling forward as passively as an old blind woman with her trusted guide.
The official muttered something under his breath before calling out, over his shoulder: ‘Mouse! Come here! Two more prisoners, both to go in that empty cage!’
Lily’s old jailer appeared to take charge of us. He made a sympathetic tutting noise when he saw Lily and frowned as he scrutinized me. ‘Didn’t you used to be a lawyer?’
‘Briefly,’ I said. ‘What happened to her?’
He looked at the woman and grimaced. ‘I don’t know. She was moved out of here a few days ago and only brought back early this morning for the trial. Nobody said anything. It was as if we were to pretend she’d been here all the time. Now come on, I’ve got to put you both in a cage. It’ll be a bit cramped. I’m afraid, but it’s only for the night…’
I stared at him, bewildered as ever by his manner, more suited to a guesthouse proprietor than a jailer. ‘But her hands!’ I protested.
‘That wasn’t done here,’ he said firmly. Then, speaking to Lily, he said: ‘Will you come with me?’
To my surprise, she looked at him and a half-smile of recognition appeared on her face. ‘Mouse,’ she said, almost inaudibly.
‘Lily!’ I cried joyfully. ‘You can still talk! For a while I thought they’d cut your tongue out as well as… as well as…’ She looked at me blankly.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked the jailer, my sudden euphoria turning just as suddenly to despair.
‘I don’t know, but it happens sometimes. People get used to me while they’re in here, I think, and if something like… well, if Rattlesnake’s men take them, and they come back alive, sometimes they won’t talk to anyone else.’ He smiled. ‘You know, I had a dog once. My parents were fattening it up in a cage for the Festival of Offering Flowers. I used to feed him, and then when it was time to slaughter him I had to do it because he struggled too much if anyone else tried to pick him up. Some of my prisoners, I think they’re a bit like that dog. Here we are.’
He helped each of us in turn to climb into the cage, carefully avoiding touching Lily’s hands as he guided her over the top of the bars. Then the roof went on, and its stone weights placed, one by one, each with a decisive thud.
‘I’ll leave you be for a while,’ he said.
‘Lily?’
She sat with her back against the bars, hunched over as if still trying to fit herself into the tiny box Rattlesnake and Hunter had put her in, although she did not need to. If this was to be our last night on Earth, I thought ruefully, at least they had given us a big cage to spend it in. It was the one that Lily had been in when I had come to see her in my guise as her lawyer, comparatively roomy for one person, cramped, but not excruciatingly so, for two.
‘Can you
