You wonder how to explain. “Some of your cats end up in extraordinary places,” you say – and that’s not the half of it. You hooked your grappling claw onto a frayed rope attached to an abandoned building, somersaulted onto a rotting roof, shimmied up another rope to climb a tower, and there, at the top, was a cat. Of course.

“Do they?” she says. The same cat is here now, purring at her feet. The last time you saw it, you were a good two days’ horseback ride from here.

“I don’t suppose I can convince you that there’s something unusual about them,” you find yourself saying.

“I don’t suppose you can, noble warrior.”