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dinner, but I knew the ‘please’ hadn’t made a request out of what she’d said. Andbesides, I was hungry. Perhaps it was a reaction to fear, but my stomach felt hollow and empty. I could have devoured a horse right then and there. Trouble was, I had a queasy feeling I’d have to sit there and watch the
abartyen
do just that.

But I was wrong. Not only did he not eat a horse, the
abartyen
did not eat anything at all. In fact, he did not make an appearance at the dinner table and so it was just Luel and I, sitting across from each other. Despite my relief at the
abartyen’s
absence and the excellent meal, it was not a cheery occasion. Luel seemed deep in her own thoughts, and I was hardly in a state to make light conversation. The small pleasure I’d felt upon looking at myself in the mirror – an ordinary mirror, I’d checked! – after bathing and dressing in a simple, perfectly fitting dark red cashmere dress with a snow-white lace collar, had quite evaporated, and the delicious food might as well have been bread and water for all the delight I took in it.
    It was towards the very end of the meal that Luel broke her silence. ‘You are afraid, I know, but there is nothing for you to be afraid of, Natasha.’
    It was the first time she’d used my name, and it made me start. ‘Oh,’ I replied weakly. What else could I say?
    ‘My lord is not what he seems,’ she said. ‘You spoke of injustice, earlier. A great injustice was done to him – a great evil – and he, well, he found himself as he is now.’
    I stared at her. ‘Do you mean . . .?’
    ‘He is not what and how he is by nature,’ Luel said quietly. ‘Please try to remember that.’
    ‘But what – what happened? Why? Who? How? –’
    ‘Too many questions for tonight,’ she said, waving her hand. ‘There will be time for you to learn, to try to understand. To repay him.’
    I forgot about my resolve not to be combative and burst out, ‘Whatever happened to the
abart
– to your lord, however bad and tragic it was, it wasn’t my fault. So why should I suffer for it?’
    ‘You won’t,’ she said calmly. ‘I told you already: joy for joy is your payment.’
    ‘But I don’t understand how I can possibly –’
    ‘Look in your heart. You have known sorrow, but you have never known real loneliness. Real despair. Think of that. Think of why. And then you will see your way clear to an understanding what it is you must do.’
    ‘But why can’t you tell me? Why can’t you at least give me a clue?’ I pleaded, beside myself.
    ‘Because it must come from you,’ Luel said, without turning a hair. ‘Or it will be worth nothing. It will not help my lord. It will not repay your debt.’ She got up from the table. ‘And now, child, it is time to retire. You must be exhausted.’
    ‘Just a little,’ I muttered ironically, half to myself.
    ‘Tomorrow my lord will meet you after lunch, in the sitting-room. You will speak with him.’
    My heart started pounding, all irony forgotten. ‘Will you be there?’ I whispered.
    ‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘Perhaps not.’
    I don’t know if it was her careless tone that goaded me. ‘Why do you have these things on your walls?’ I said harshly, waving a hand at the blank picture-frames.
    To my surprise her expression changed, so that for the first time I saw something like real emotion in her face. ‘It is part of the injustice,’ she said.
    The sadness in her eyes and voice touched me, despite myself. ‘They are terrible things to look at,’ I said gently.
    ‘Yes,’ she said, and she looked at me. ‘They are.’
    ‘Will you not tell me . . .’ I began, but she had already left the room, leaving me there at the table, gazing at the blank spaces where pictures ought to be, trying to make sense of all I’d heard that night. The
abartyen
wasn’t what he was by nature, she’d said: therefore, it meant he was not a shapeshifter by nature, not a born and bred one. I had read that people could be