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them.’
    ‘Where did you find him?’
    Bartellus shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. I was in a hunting party led by other people. I didn’t know where I was then. I don’t know where I am now.’ He sighed. A few moments previously he had felt he could stay there for ever, but his mind, his soldier’s mind, was returning as ever to his duty. Its weight was creeping back on to his old shoulders.
    ‘If the child has been fed I will take her and go,’ he told the woman. ‘We must look for her brother. If we survived the floods he might still be alive too.’
    The little girl was spooning food into her mouth as quickly as her hand would move. Her dark eyes darted back and forth from the doorway to the plate. She was afraid someone would come in and take it away from her.
    After a while she noticed the taste. It was sticky and sweet. There were hard bits in it. She spat some out into her palm and, putting the spoon down, poked her finger into the mess. The hard bits were dark and wrinkly. She put one in her mouth. It was so sweet it made her teeth hurt. It tasted like the smell of rotten pears.
    She was about to put the rest of the food back in her mouth when a memory came back to her of the last time she ate at a table with a spoon. A sharp voice had told her to wash her hands before she sat down. She looked at her grubby palm and rubbed her hand on her dress – it used to be her best pink dress, she thought sadly. Her palm looked a bit cleaner, but bits of food now lay on the floor. She slid off the chair and pushed the mess under the edge of the rug. Then she rubbed both palms on her dress again, until they were fairly clean.
    Emly climbed back on the chair and ate some more food, now savouring its taste and texture. She was very thirsty. The red woman had placed a glass and a big pitcher of fresh water in front of her, and she looked at it longingly. But she knew she was not strong enough to pour water out of the pitcher without spilling it all over the clean table.
    The cramps in her tummy came harder than usual and she rocked and moaned a little until they passed. Then she ate some more.
    At last she looked around her. She was in a huge room which stretched off into the dark. On the stone floor were coloured rugs. She eased herself down off the chair and squinched her bare toes in the blue rug beneath her. It was soft as kitten’s fur.
    Looking at the door again uncertainly, she trotted over to thenearest wall. There were lots of wooden shelves rising up to the ceiling. A strong smell came to her nose, like the scent of smoke. She put out her hand and found smooth warmth under her fingers. Something toppled over with a flat thud, and she jumped; then she saw they were the backs of books, lots of them on every shelf. She had seen books before, though she had never seen so many. She ran her fingers over the bumpy gold lettering. She could not read, though Lije could. Thinking of her brother made her tummy feel empty again. Tears squeezed out under her eyelids.
    ‘Don’t touch them, girl!’
    She spun round and saw the red woman in the doorway. Her face was stern, and sparks seemed to fly off her. Emly rubbed her hands on her dress again and remembered the food under the rug. She wondered guiltily if the woman knew it was there.
    ‘Put these on,’ the woman ordered. She held some dark garments. Emly obediently went over to her. Without hesitation the woman pulled the little girl’s dress off over her head. Rigid with embarrassment, Emly stood there under her chilly gaze. She had lost her drawers a long time ago, but she had not told anyone for fear of getting into trouble. Now this woman would tell her off.
    But the sparks seemed to die down a little, and the woman said more kindly, ‘These are too big for you, but put them on and I’ll cut them to size.’
    Emly scrambled into the long tunic, which came down below her knees, and the trousers, which flopped in folds round her ankles. The woman had a pair of scissors