The Thief: Part 5

By MEGAN WHALEN TURNER, Illustrator DAVID WATT

Sometimes I moved as far as my chains would let me and looked through the bars of my cell door and across the deep gallery that shaded the prison cells at the sunlight falling into the courtyard.

The prison was two stories of cells stacked top of the other; I was in the upper level. Each cell opened on to the gallery, and the gallery was separated from the courtyard by stone pillars. There were no windows in the outside walls, which were three or four feet thick, built of massive stones that ten men together couldn't have shifted. Legends said that the old gods had stacked them together in a day.

The prison was visible from almost anywhere in the city because the city was built on a hill and the prison was at the summit. The only other building there was the king's home, his megaron. There had also been a temple to the old gods once, but it had been destroyed, and the basilica to the new gods was built farther down the hill. Once the king's home had been a true megaron, one room, with a throne and a hearth, and the prison had been the agora, where citizens met and merchants hawked their jumble. The individual cells had been stalls of clothes or wine or candles or jewellery imported from the islands. Prominent citizens used to stand on the stone blocks in the courtyard to make speeches.

Publisher: HarperCollins

Price: $14.95

Age group: 11 plus years