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dog, we skittered away from Troilus, flapping, chattering, fluttering with the thrill of the chase.
    â€˜Twenty-seven – twenty-eight – twenty-nine …’
    Feet clattering against the cobblestones, hearts pounding against our ribs.
    â€˜Fifty-two – fifty-three – fifty-four …’
    Down a flight of stairs. Past a garden surrounded by a high wall, the ripe fig trees bursting with fruit, a grape vine climbing the wall. Pluck a grape, feel the juice on your chin, run on. Round a corner, across a courtyard. Avoid the old man selling fish and the group of women carrying water on their heads in large clay pots.
    â€˜Cassandra – come on …’ I laughed and took her hand – after all, she was not as fast a runner as I, and she did not know where I wanted to hide. I felt her fingers close around mine, and we kept running, whispering and breathless, as excited as if we were children once more and not almost women grown.
    â€˜Krisayis …’ Cassandra panted. ‘Krisayis, where are we going?’
    I took a turn to the right into a long, narrow street, its name scratched into the cornerstone of one of the houses. A large stone slab was planted in the paving-stones beneath, roughly hewn from Mount Ida where the gods lived, its very crevices numinous with the presence of the divine. These slabs were scattered throughout the city, one for every sanctuary, and several for the gates in the walls and King Priam’s palaces: markers, if you knew where they led, as well as guardians – the eyes of the gods upon our city.
    Cassandra’s eyebrows creased in sudden recognition. ‘We’re going to the temple of Apulunas!’ she exclaimed. ‘But you
know
your father forbade you to set foot in the precinct until—’
    â€˜Hush,’ I said, my voice thrilling with excitement. ‘We’re almost there. It must be near here … somewhere here …’
    I skirted around the edge of a small shrine with a bronze brazier set before it, streaming cloying incense into the air, and nodded to the two slave girls who were cleaning the steps. I had never been to Apulunas’ temple before, but had I not seen it a thousand times from the tower in the walls? It was the largest in Troy, for Apulunas was the protector of our city and the greatest of the prophecy-giving gods. It was certain to be close by. I grasped Cassandra’s hand and took a turn to the left.
    And there it was. At the end of the alley, blocked off on either side by two tall mud-brick houses, the sloping wall of the precinct of Apulunas: five layers of enormous limestone blocks, each block almost half the height of a man, and laid on top of each other in uneven rows to the height of two grown men. Unlike the city walls, where the blocks of polished limestone fitted seamlessly together, the gaps here at their rough-hewn corners were so large that I could see between them into the sanctuary itself and make out the columns of the temple set against the sky behind.
    â€˜We
are
going to the temple!’ Cassandra exclaimed, as I started towards it. The street was empty, the windows of the houses covered with woven rugs to keep out the heat of the day, a stray cat curled up here and there on a front step. ‘Your father, Krisayis – we shall be in so much trouble …’
    But I had already reached the wall, and was testing the gaps between the stones. They were large enough to fit my hands and feet with ease. I pulled myself up, fingers gripping the rough-chipped surface of the stone between the blocks as easily as if I were climbing the rungs of a ladder.
    â€˜You can’t mean to
climb
it!’
    I shrugged my shoulders. ‘It’s the only way. We wouldn’t be able to get past the guards at the main gate, would we? Come on, Cassandra – it’s not that bad, and Troilus will never find us. We might even win the game this time! Look …’
    I stepped