  We reanalyse the topological susceptibility assuming the possibility of a
significant paramagnetic suppression of the three-flavour quark condensate and
a correlated enhancement of vacuum fluctuations of $s\bar{s}$ pairs. Using the
framework of resummed ChPT, we point out that simulations performed near the
physical point, with a significant mass hierarchy between u,d and s dynamical
quarks, are not able to disentangle the contributions from the quark condensate
and sea $s\bar{s}$-pair fluctuations, and that simulations with three light
quark masses of the same order are better suited for this purpose. We perform a
combined fit of recent RBC/UKQCD data on pseudoscalar masses and decay
constants as well as the topological susceptibility, and we reconsider the
determination of lattice spacings in our framework, working out the
consequences on the parameters of the chiral Lagrangian. We obtain Sigma(3;2
GeV)^1/3=243 \pm 12 MeV for the three-flavour quark condensate in the chiral
limit. We notice a significant suppression compared to the two-flavour quark
condensate Sigma(2;2 GeV)/Sigma(3;2 GeV)=1.51\pm 0.11 and we confirm previous
findings of a competition between leading order and next-to-leading order
contributions in three-flavour chiral series.
