The idea of three of us leaving the castle at night and travelling through a ready-made escape tunnel? Of course it was never going to be that simple. Now, we would somehow have to take the wild man with us. Who was tall, starving, constantly guarded and chained to the wall. ‘And Prisoners One and Two,’ I said to Karim. ‘What are their names again?’ ‘Sammy and Parissa.’ He nodded and looked, for a moment, desperate. They were ‘enemies of the state’ and we could hardly leave them behind. But how could we bring them too? Karim meditated for ages, working through all the options, trying to hit on the least suicidal scheme. ‘It is good,’ he said eventually. ‘Marco is the most stupid guard and will be on duty again tomorrow. After midnight, one guard works alone. I will go up behind him and hit him with something. Then—’ ‘No! You can’t!’ ‘I can,’ he said grimly. ‘I mean, what if it goes wrong? Dad says . . . my dad used to say that you shouldn’t try fighting people who’ve had better training.
