One day, after a storm had washed the sky clear and sunlight sparkled on the grey-green sea and spun rainbows in spray lofted by waves breaking on the offshore rocks, Pilgrim saw someone ride a mara down the back slope at the far end of the beach – a woman wrapped in a red coat, small and vivid as a flower fallen on the beach’s stony grey sweep.

Gentle said that she was Teal Leadwood, an exile who lived in a cabin outside the town, disowned by her tribe because she had wanted to become a scholar.

‘Seen her now and again at the chandler’s. She mostly keeps herself to herself, but sends and receives a fair number of letters and tapcode messages.’

‘What kind of scholar does she claim to be?’

‘Something to do with folk tales and suchlike,’ Gentle said. ‘Makes her living from selling amber, which is why she comes here.’

Pilgrim thought at once of his pendant. ‘There’s amber on this beach?’

‘Washes up along the coast from a forest the sea long ago drowned. She sells it to the chandler, he sells it to a merchant in Fortunate Valley. She does a bit of doctoring, too. Knows it from book learning rather than training, but some of the women prefer her to the town physic, him being a man.’

‘How do you know so much?’

‘Everyone talks about everyone else, there being nothing more interesting around here than other people’s business. Want to know what they say about you?’

‘Not really.’

On the few times he had ventured into Stonehaven Pilgrim had felt that his guilt burned like a balestar on his forehead. The indelible mark of original sin.

Off in the distance, the woman, Teal Leadwood, was ambling along the strandline where the storm had heaped mounds of kelp amongst broken tree trunks. Leading her mara by its reins, stooping now and then to examine something, showing no sign that she had noticed Pilgrim and Gentle.

‘Grace told me she let her into the library a few times,’ Gentle said. ‘You should ask if she took anything, or maybe find something she might be interested in.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘Might do you some good to speak with someone like-minded,’ Gentle said blandly. ‘And in the same situation as yourself.’

‘I think we have been exiled for very different reasons,’ Pilgrim said.