Voices in the Dark by Catherine Banner

that, studying the glass on the floorboards. ‘Go to the graveyard and see who died on the twenty-ninth of July.’
    ‘Maybe,’ I said.
    ‘Or look in the government register of deaths, or …’ He shrugged.
    We fell into silence. The fact that he was leaving overtook the room again. Darkness was coming down outside. Nightfall had invaded the alleyways and was creeping further in. Starlings began to settle in the trees, circling downward in clouds that shifted endlessly. Michael got up and lit the lamp.
    ‘Michael, if you leave—’ I said.
    He shook his head and went on shaking it, like an old man. ‘I thought about staying and letting them go without me. I was almost sure I was going to. But if there really is an invasion …’
    ‘Do you think there will be?’
    ‘From the way my father is talking. The Imperial Order are maniacs, I swear. I couldn’t live in that world. There are things about me that government will never accept.’
    ‘Maybe if you just kept your head down—’ I began.
    ‘Is that what you are going to do, Anselm? Keep your head down all your life?’
    Mr Barone called from downstairs.
    ‘I had better go,’ I said. Michael nodded. But as I left, he reached out his hand to me, as though in apology. I took it. He had strong fingers, like an artist’s. I had always wondered if it came from the ten generations of Barones before him who had made their living as jewellers, or if it was just chance.
    ‘We will always be friends,’ he said. ‘Won’t we?’
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Of course we will.’
    ‘Because otherwise—’
    But Mr Barone’s voice cut off whatever else he hadbeen going to say. I turned and went down the stairs and into the street, closing the front door behind me. The stars were shining over the castle, crossed by the last birds flying home. I glanced up at Michael’s window, but he had put out the light.
    The next day, there were soldiers in the city, marching east. And Mr Barone was true to his word. Within a week, the Barones’ shop was sold.

D AWN ,
THE THIRTIETH
OF D ECEMBER
    A fter I got to that point, I ran out of words. The dawn was rising white beyond the windows of the inn, extinguishing the lamps and creeping over the bleak snow outside. Mr Hardy sighed and stretched out his legs. We were old friends now, after sitting awake and talking all through the blackest hours and drinking his cheap spirits. He had told me a good deal about himself. He had once been a rich man and a scholar and had lost everything after Lucien took power. Since then, he had been wandering from place to place. He told me this with no trace of self-pity. It was as though he was sure that no one was to blame for it. And he listened very intently to my story. Every few minutes, he would question some detail or nod and cough and pour out another glass of spirits. ‘What I don’t understand,’ he said at last, ‘is how you ended up here.’
    ‘Here?’ I said, glancing around at the dingy front room of the inn.
    ‘I mean travelling like this – on your own, with no belongings, like you’re running away from something.’ He said it without any accusation.
    ‘I have some belongings,’ I said. It had become an important point to me. I turned out the contents of my pockets. But they looked a dismal array like that.
    ‘What are those papers you are carrying with you?’ said Mr Hardy.
    ‘Just a story.’
    He poured out half an inch of spirits and sipped them thought-fully. ‘Talking of stories, did your father ever find out about Harlan Smith?’ he asked.
    ‘I was coming to that.’
    ‘Will you go on?’
    I shook my head. I could not. He seemed to understand, because he said,‘Perhaps we should talk of something else. Tell me about this other story instead.’
    ‘That’s part of it too,’ I said.
    ‘I see.’
    ‘Read it if you like,’ I said. ‘I don’t really understand it myself.’
    ‘What’s it about?’ said Mr Hardy, turning over the pages.
    ‘Another country.