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divided into two big cells, barred from floor to ceiling all along the front. Silvia, Beatrice and the girls were pushed into one cell, and Luka, Noah, Jacob and Ruben into the other.
    The cell was crowded with men. Two looked as though they had been in a fight, with black eyes and bloodied noses. Several looked tired and poor and beaten down by life. There was a one-armed soldier in a tattered uniform, one sleeve pinned across his breast, and several filthy hedge-birds, their beards matted with leaves, their rags stinking of dirt and ale. Lying on the floor was a young man, very thin and pale, who coughed and coughed and coughed into a blood-stained rag.
    There was also a thin man of about fifty, very neatly but shabbily dressed, who was seated at the table scribbling away at a scroll of paper with a tattered quill. He raised his head as Luka and the others were shoved in, shook it sadly, and went back to writing. Every now and again he spat in his inkwell to thin the ink, for it had almost run out.
    Luka rubbed his arms, which felt bruised where the constables had gripped him, and looked about. His eyes lit up when he saw a narrow window set high into the wall. It was large enough for a man to put his head out, if he could have reached it. Luka gently touched his father’s sleeve, and jerked his thumb at it.
    â€˜Luka! Can you get out, do you think?’
    Luka shrugged, trying not to show his pride in his agility. ‘Think so.’
    â€˜Get Baba away safely! She’ll die if they lock her up in this foul place. You’ll need to get us help, if you can. Go in search of the Hearnes, they’ve gone to Epsom Downs for the races. They may be able to do something.’
    â€˜What?’ Ruben said sarcastically. ‘I doubt greasing the parson’s palm will work.’
    â€˜Nay, I doubt it too. But surely they can do something ! Maybe the magistrate will be more open to a bribe than the pastor. Or maybe they can try and break us out of here. How, I don’t know.’
    â€˜Luka! Don’t let them get Sweetheart,’ Ruben said urgently. ‘They’ll kill her, for sure. Please, get Sweetheart away to safety.’
    â€˜I’ll try,’ Luka said, rather dubiously, for he had no idea how to get himself away to safety, let alone a six hundred pound brown bear.
    He let Zizi out of his coat and she leapt about, gibbering loudly, much to the surprise and amusement of the other prisoners. In the other cell he could hear sobbing, and he pressed his face against the wall and whispered, ‘Mimi! Don’t cry! I’ll be out of here in a trice, and I’ll come back to get you when I can.’
    â€˜Luka, be careful, darling boy!’ Silvia cried.
    â€˜Keep Milly safe, Luka, please!’ Beatrice called, her voice breaking.
    â€˜I don’t like this place,’ Mimi wept. ‘Will you come and get us soon?’
    â€˜Aye, I will, I will,’ Luka promised, unable to do anything else. He passed his father his fiddle, and gave him a quick, hard hug. Jacob ruffled his hair.
    â€˜Be careful, my boy,’ he said thickly.
    Luka backed up against the bars, then broke into a swift run and flung his body over into a high backflip that took him up to the window, where he clung to the bars for dear life.
    The man with the quill looked up at him in surprise, then smiled. ‘Good luck to thee, friend!’ he said. ‘I wish that I too could leap free of this foul place.’
    Luka glanced back at him in surprise, then grinned. ‘Thanks,’ he said, reached down to take his fiddle from his father, who had to stand on tiptoe to pass it to him, then wriggled through the window and was gone.
    It was a sharp drop down to the street, so he clambered up the gutter and onto the steep thatched roof, his fiddle slung over his shoulder, Zizi leaping nimbly ahead of him. Keeping low, he climbed over the pitch and hid behind the chimneys so he could peer around. Below