The steps were shallow, worn away at the centre, and I held her hand even tighter to prevent her from slipping. In the hall above, I could hear women screaming and men shouting instructions and children crying. The sound of wood splintering and the clatter of metal on metal. Then the door thudded shut at our backs and we were plunged into silence.

I hurtled forward, but was forced to slow down. I couldn’t get the dimensions of the tunnel fixed in my mind. The air was dry at least, not damp, with a smell that reminded me of cathedrals and catacombs, of all those hidden places lying forgotten across the long and dusty years. A cobweb draped itself across my face, my mouth and eyes. I spat the filigree threads away, though the sensation lingered.

‘Shall I go ahead of you?’ Her voice was soft in the dark. ‘I have been this way before.’

I squeezed her hand to let her know I was fine with things as they were, and felt her return the pressure. I smiled.

‘Where does the tunnel come out?’

‘On the hillside to the west of the village. It is not far.’

We stumbled along in the dark. After our initial descent, the tunnel quickly flattened out for a while, before beginning slowly to climb again. My breath came in ragged bursts and sweat gathered on my temples and cheeks, making my cut sting.

I concentrated on keeping my footing. I could see nothing at all. The roof of the tunnel seemed sometimes to skim my head, and the walls were close enough to touch, but I had no sense of where we were. Fabrissa, though, seemed unchanged. She appeared to be neither tired nor breathless in our claustrophobic surroundings.

So we pressed on, on through the subterranean world, until the atmosphere began to alter. The path grew steeper still, and I felt a whisper of fresh air on my face.

The ground suddenly veered precipitously upwards. The perspective ahead of us slipped from black to grey. Pinpricks of moonlight gleamed around what looked like a door blocking the end of the tunnel.

I sighed with relief.

‘There is a brass ring,’ said Fabrissa. ‘It opens inwards.’

I ran my fingers over the surface of the wood, like a blind man, until I found it. The handle was cold and stiff. I grasped it with both hands and pulled. It didn’t shift. I braced my feet apart, and tried again. This time, I felt the door straining at the hinges, though it still didn’t budge.

‘Could it be barred from the outside?’

‘I do not think so. It is probably because this particular escape route has not been used for a very long time.’

There wasn’t time to wonder what she meant. I just kept at it, pulling steadily, then following it up with a series of sharp jerks, until finally there was a dull crack and the wood around the hinges splintered.

‘Nearly,’ I said, pushing my fingers in the gap between the door and the frame.

Fabrissa put her hands below mine and together we tugged and wrenched until, suddenly, we were outside in the chill night air. Behind us, the door hung loose on its hinges, reminding me of the entrance to an old copper mine George and I had discovered one wet August holiday in Cornwall. He, of course, had wanted to go in, but I’d been too scared.

Different times, different places.

I turned to Fabrissa, standing so still in the flat, white moonlight.

‘We did it,’ I panted, trying to catch my breath.

‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘Yes, we did.’

We were standing out on a bare patch of ground about halfway up the hillside, to the east of the village. The opposite side of the valley, I realised, from the direction in which I had approached Nulle the previous afternoon. I felt light-headed, intoxicated by the night air, by what we had achieved, by her company.

Then I felt a stab of guilt I could not ignore.

‘I must go back. I have to do something. Help. People could be seriously hurt.’

She sighed. ‘It is over now.’

‘We can’t be certain of that.’

‘All is quiet,’ she said. ‘Listen. Look.’ She pointed down at the village. ‘All is calm.’

I followed the line of her finger and picked out the church spire, the patchwork of houses and buildings and alleyways that made up Nulle. The Ostal itself, white in the moonlight, was directly below us. Nothing was stirring. No one was about. No lights were burning. I could hear nothing but the enduring silence of the mountains.

‘It was all part of the fête?’ I said. ‘The soldiers, the fighting?’

But much as I wanted to be persuaded there was no need for me to intervene, it had seemed too brutal to be mere play-acting.

‘Come,’ she said quietly. ‘There is little time left.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘To a place we may sit and talk a while longer.’

Fabrissa set off down the hillside without another word, giving me no choice but to follow. She walked fast, her long blue dress swishing about her legs. Beneath the swing and sway of her hair, I caught glimpses of the yellow cross. Without thinking about what I was intending to do, I hurried to catch up with her.

‘Wait,’ I said. With a sharp tug, I pulled the tattered piece of fabric from her back. ‘There. That’s more like it.’

She smiled. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘I don’t rightly know. It looked wrong. Like it shouldn’t be there.’ I hesitated. ‘Do you mind?’

I felt her grey eyes sweep across my face, as if committing every part of it to memory. She shook her head.

‘No. It was brave.’

‘Brave?’

‘Honourable.’

While I was still pondering her choice of words, Fabrissa had set off again. I pushed the cross of fabric into my pocket and followed.

‘So, what do the crosses signify? I saw several of the other guests wearing them, too.’

She did not answer and she did not slow down. The night air seemed to shift as she passed, and there was something about the translucent moon-shine that gave me the impression she was made of air or water, rather than blood and bone. I did not press her further. I did not want to disturb the delicate balance between us, and that seemed more important than any questions I might want answered.

The path wound down through the frosted grass. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the mouth of the tunnel diminishing behind us. We were close to the village now, but rather than continuing down into Nulle, Fabrissa led me to a small dewpond halfway down the hillside and indicated we should rest. I sat down on the mossy trunk of a fallen tree, grateful for the chance to take the weight off my feet. The soft-soled boots had begun to pinch.

The sky was beginning to turn from black to inky blue. When I looked back up at the track, I could just make out the silver imprint of my footprints on the grass in the early-morning dew. Dawn was not far away.

I thought for a moment of the strangeness of dew in December, then how queer it was that I was not cold, despite having abandoned my coat and hat in the Ostal. I felt curiously weightless, as though, having spent the night in Fabrissa’s company, I had taken on some of her qualities of delicacy and lightness.

I looked down into the still surface of the water. My cheeks were hollow with lack of sleep and my eyes, rimmed with exhaustion, stared back at me in the uncertain daybreak. Fabrissa’s reflection was less clear. I turned, scared that she might have slipped away. But she was still there.

‘I feared you had-’

‘Not yet,’ she said, reading my mind.

‘We don’t have to go back.’

‘There is still a little time left.’ She smiled. ‘I should like to tell you something of myself, should you have the heart to listen.’

My heart leapt. ‘Anything you want to tell me, I would be honoured to hear.’