I stood on a bale and peered up to see where she had disappeared. This was where the draught was coming from; there must be a hole in the thatch. My pulse quickened; if it was big enough for an owl, perhaps it could be worked on until it would fit a smallish man. I jumped down and kicked the bale until it was directly under an empty meat hook. When I climbed up again, I could just reach my arms high enough to catch the bonds on the point; it was slow work and painful – I tore my skin repeatedly – but eventually I had frayed the rope enough to pull one strand apart and loosen the others until my hands were free. I glanced at the door but it remained firmly closed. I could only hope that the ghastly sight of my fellow prisoner would be sufficient deterrent to keep the guards outside.
Before I could lose my nerve, I began to drag all the bales of straw together as quietly as I could and pile them up in the corner directly under the gap where the owl had vanished. Through the forest of hanging animals the gaoler glimpsed what I was doing and took up his keening with renewed force. I could not tell if he was shouting encouragement or trying to alert the guards, but the end result would be the same. I hissed at him to be quiet, though I was not sure he even heard me. I heaved the last bale up and judged the stack high enough for me to attempt to reach the roof beams, just as his pitch and volume increased to a frenzy and was answered by a furious banging on the door. I froze, dreading that the guard would open the door and see my makeshift steps.
‘Shut that fucking noise or I’ll come in there and shut it for you,’ shouted a rough voice from outside.
‘How? They’ve already cut his tongue out,’ I called in response.
‘I’ll cut yours out as well if you don’t pack it in,’ the guard yelled back, through the door. It was an empty threat; he could do nothing without Guise, but it would not help me if he chose to relieve his boredom by coming in to remind me that he was in charge. I decided to do as I was told. I fought my way back through the carcasses to the grotesque body suspended from the central beam, forced myself to look up at his mutilated face and pressed a finger to my lips. But even in the fading light I could tell that he barely saw me; the stumps of his limbs were still bleeding profusely, despite the tourniquets that had been tied, I guessed, by men whose expertise was learned on the battlefield. Gradually his cries grew weaker and his spasms stilled as his head slumped on to his chest. I doubted he would last the night. Though I would not have wished his fate on any man, it was hard not to recall how the gaoler had used the same words to me when I was in the oubliette, nor the leering contempt in the way he had laughed at his prisoner’s distress, with his tiny shred of power. How slippery our grasp on our position in the world, I thought. But I intended to hang on to mine a little longer. As I stood watching him, the lone candle in the lantern flickered and died, plunging the room into blackness.
I waited a moment for my eyes to adjust. The place seemed all the more sinister now, the dead deer solid black shapes against a deeper dark, their cold flesh thudding against me as I stumbled back to the far corner and scaled my stack of straw bales until I could almost reach the roof beam overhead. I could just distinguish it from the surrounding shadows; I would have to jump to catch hold, and if I fell, the guards would surely hear. I screwed up my courage and launched myself upwards, managing to hook my hands around the beam, though the pile of bales tumbled to the floor with the force of the movement and I swung there for a few moments, afraid to move in case the sound had alerted the men outside. But the door remained shut; I released my breath, tensed and swung my legs up to fasten my ankles around the beam. I was fortunate that it was solid oak, made strong enough to bear the weight of dead meat. I pulled myself up until I was sitting astride it and shunted along by inches, feeling my way to the corner where the wall met the sloping edge of the roof. Here I could breathe in ice-edged night air through a hole where the thatch had rotted, though when I reached up and groped around I found that the gap was far too small for anything much bigger than an owl to pass through. But the roof was in poor repair, and a handful came away in my fist when I grasped it. Leaning in and gripping the beam with my left hand, I began to tear away at the reeds, ignoring the pain as they sliced my palm and my numb fingers, terrified that someone would see what I was doing from outside or that one of the guards would open the door to check on us. After a few minutes, I had pulled away a hole large enough to poke my
