Pilgrim and Gentle were imprisoned in a net store at the far end of the harbour. There was no room for them in town, Noble Seatree told them, the lockup being occupied for the carnival’s duration by his wife’s relatives from up in the hills, and this would keep them safe from any drunken fools who might be minded to have a bit of fun with them. The carnival would soon be over, and then they would stand before the town’s council. Meanwhile, they should contemplate their sins and think about how they might offer to atone for them. If it was up to him, the constable said with malignant relish, they’d be improved by a couple of years, hard labour for the benefit of the community.

Pilgrim said that since the aunties of his tribe had sent him here it should be their responsibility to decide what, if any, punishment he deserved, adding that Gentle should be released at once, having done no more than follow his orders, but Noble Seatree laughed and told him that this was a local matter to be decided by locals, and their idea of justice was as good as anyone else’s, no matter what outsiders with an inflated sense of importance might think.

‘And while you’re waiting for justice to be served,’ he said, ‘I advise you to think again about helping me find your accomplice Teal Leadwood. Things might go easier for you if you do, and your silence won’t do her any good, because we’ll track her down soon enough anyway.’

Neither Pilgrim nor Gentle said anything. The constable knew or suspected that Teal had been helping them plan their escape from Stonehaven, but so far he had not mentioned the Invisible College. Pilgrim hoped that meant he didn’t know about its representatives, hoped that they and Teal had got away safely.

The net store was cold and dark, and smelled strongly of salt and stale fish. Its tarred timber walls leaned together high above; the ragged shrouds of old nets hung from cross beams. Gentle, battered and bruised after trying to resist arrest when the constable and his gang had surprised him on his way back to the Hearth, was chained by an ankle to a stake pounded deep in the dirt floor, like the bear in its pit. Pilgrim sat close to him, hunched and miserable, shivering from cold and exhaustion. The constable had taken his cane and amber pendant, the bag in which he had packed his clothes, the map in its tube and his notes and the annotated rough draft of Master Able’s monograph and all his other papers, and he doubted that he would ever see them again. The disaster was universal.