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sourly.
    Most of their guards had been Spanish. But when they were in the hands of Muslim factions some had come from further afield. Some Muslim radicals dreamed of retaking every piece of Waqf, the territory claimed under the first eighth-century Islamic expansion, from Spain to Iraq. And so combatants were drawn to the conflict in Spain from other parts of the Islamic world.
    The prisoners had cared nothing, really, about their guards’ provenance. All that mattered about the guards was how they behaved. Christian and Muslim alike, they were almost all very young men, almost all radicalized by the fiery words of preachers—almost all poorly educated, and obsessed with sex. Some were stable, almost normal-seeming; they could be friendly with their captives, and some even seemed to crave their captives’ affection.
    But some guards harmed them, even though the prisoners were supposed to have value as hostages. There could be punishment beatings, belt-whippings. Usually there was at least some such excuse for the violence, for instance when Lily had gone on a hunger strike. But some had gone further than any possible justification. These were mixed-up young men taking out their own frustration and confusion; it didn’t really matter who you were or what you had done. Lily’s own worst experience had been an amateurish bastinado : to be trussed up, hands behind her back and shackled to her own ankles while the souls of her feet were beaten with an iron rod, an unbelievably painful experience. That had not been Said but a man like him.
    She had come to believe that part of the motive for such assaults was always sexual, even if the attack itself wasn’t sexual in nature. You could feel the excitement in the man standing over you, smell the salty spice of his breath at your neck, hear the rapid pumping of his lungs.
    As for sex itself, Lily had been groped and pummeled by foolish boys, but she seemed to have had a manner that embarrassed rather than excited them. Helen Gray, fifteen years younger, hadn’t been so lucky. After two rapes by Said, or three—Helen had been taken away each time and wouldn’t talk about her experiences, though the blood and bruising made it obvious—the other guards had put a stop to it. After a time Said went away, perhaps posted to some other front of the great battlefield.
    But not before he left Helen with his child. Her pregnancy in captivity, aided by her fellow captives with their bits of first aid and field medicine, and then a delivery by a scared drafted-in medical student, had been terrifying. But at the end of it there was a baby, Grace, whom Helen had loved immediately, and cherished every day of her imprisonment.
    “And Helen never knew she’d given birth to a Saudi royal,” said Gary. “A princess!”
    Helen had become convinced this was why her baby hadn’t been returned to her, since the first moment of their rescue five days ago under La Seu. The baby must be at the center of some enormous diplomatic row.
    Gary said, “So you think that’s why Helen called us, why she’s so adamant we should go to the AxysCorp reception?”
    “I guess so. If Lammockson can get us out of Barcelona, maybe he can get the baby back from Riyadh, or wherever the hell she is. So we go, I guess.”
    “Sure,” Gary said. “We said we’d stick by each other, didn’t we, the four of us? But, Lily, your mom—”
    “There’s nothing I can do for Mum,” Lily said firmly,“but Helen and the baby I can help. In the meantime we’re going to my sister’s for dinner. You’ll love the kids. Come on.”
    They set off back, plodding out of the park and over sodden pavements.
    At the roundabout where the High Street joined the Fulham Road a drain had blocked, and a lake had formed. The cars were pushing through it, raising great rooster-tails of water, and Lily and Gary had to detour. By the time they made it to the Fulham Road they both had wet feet. This was life in London now, it seemed,