The chief torturer nodded at Unoure, who disappeared into the shadows for a while before bringing a bowl which the Doctor washed her hands in. She was wiping them clean on the kerchief which had been her blindfold when the man in the chair cage gave a terrible screech of agony, shook violently for a few moments, then stiffened suddenly and finally went limp. The Doctor stepped towards him and went to put her hand to his neck but she was knocked aside by Nolieti, who gave an angry, anguished shout of his own and reached through the iron hoops to place his finger on the pulse-point on the neck which the Doctor has taught me is the best place to test the beat of a man's vitality.

The chief torturer stood there, quivering, while his assistant gazed on with an expression of apprehension and terror. The Doctor's look was one of grimly contemptuous amusement. Then Nolieti spun round and stabbed a finger at her. "You!" he hissed at her. "You killed him. You didn't want him to live!"

The Doctor looked unconcerned, and continued drying her hands (though it seemed to me that they were both already dry, and shaking). "I am sworn to save life, chief torturer, not to take it," she said reasonably. "I leave that to others."

"What was in that stuff?" the chief torturer said, quickly squatting to wrench open the Doctor's bag. He pulled out the open vial she had taken the ointment from and brandished it in her face. "This. What is it?"

"A stimulant," she said, and dipped a finger into the vial, displaying a small fold of the soft brown gel on her finger tip so that it glinted in the light of the brazier. "Would you like to try it?" She moved the finger towards Nolieti's mouth.

The chief torturer grabbed her hand in one of his and forced the finger back, towards her own lips. "No. You do it. Do what you did to him."

The Doctor shook her hand free of Nolieti's and calmly put her finger to her mouth, spreading the brown paste along her top gum.