‘You should not count on being given what you want,’ Willow said. ‘Most likely you will have to work for it, like everyone else.’

She made a fresh cruse of tea and asked Pilgrim what he planned to do after he had written his monograph.

‘I haven’t thought that far ahead. Go back to Highwater Reach, I suppose. Arrange publication of the monograph. Find a scholar who needs a secretary, take up bookrunning again …’

‘Or you could stay here. Supervise this fossil business. And I think you’d make a good teacher.’

‘Thorn made the same suggestion, after she told me that the aunties wouldn’t fund my work,’ Pilgrim said. ‘Said that I could do my research in my spare time. She also said that I should think of settling down, and suggested that I could be matched with an older woman. A widow for whom the Season has lost its spell. Who is more in need of company than sex.’

Willow poured tea with a steady hand. ‘She means well, even when she is somewhat careless of your feelings.’

‘It’s disappointing that she still can’t see me for what I am, rather than what she hoped I would be.’

‘You mentioned in your letters that some of your friends in Highwater Reach were handfasted. How are things with you? Is there anyone special I should know about?’

‘They handfasted for love, not to satisfy social custom and expectation. I haven’t found the right person yet,’ Pilgrim said. ‘Or perhaps there is no right person for me, or I have no need of one. It may be that I am destined to be bound to my work.’

‘A life without someone you love, someone who loves you in return, sounds more than a little sad,’ Willow said.

‘I love you. And Thorn, difficult though she sometimes makes it. And Amity, too, of course. And don’t you love your work?’

‘Work is one thing. Finding someone you can share your life with is something else.’

‘I have found a community of men and women like me, and made some good friends. Unlike Thorn, we accept each other for who we are, and celebrate our multitudinous variety.’

‘I remember you telling me, in your letters, how wonderful it was to have found others like you. And you do seem happier,’ Willow said. ‘Happier, and calmer.’

‘Happier, certainly,’ Pilgrim said, and changed the subject and told Willow that it was time he met Perseverance Blackwater, the husband he had been told so much about.

‘He’s working in one of his tribe’s sawmills, just two days’ ride away,’ Willow said. ‘I know he would make you welcome if you care to visit.’

‘Do you miss him?’