Intrepid Windrush, a plausible opportunist who claimed to be the foremost expert in the matter of the visitors, had published a series of pamphlets promoting a former bear trapper turned preacher, Foeless Landwalker, who claimed to have communicated with the visitors in dreams and visions. He had arrived at Master Able’s house uninvited and unannounced, expressing his sympathy for the great loss to what he called the community of the elect and offering to help Pilgrim make the best use of the invaluable material Able had accumulated.

‘I hope you told him exactly why you didn’t need his help,’ Swift said.

‘I didn’t say anything,’ Pilgrim said. ‘Just shut the door on him. Not quite fast enough – he managed to pitch a copy of his latest pamphlet through the gap.’

‘If you haven’t thrown it away, I wouldn’t mind adding it to my small collection,’ Ardent said.

‘If you read too many of those things their crazy ideas will poison your mind,’ Swift said.

‘Their pathology is interesting,’ Ardent said.

‘It’s banal,’ Pilgrim said. ‘Promises of empowerment and secret revelations peddled by pseudo-scholars who stitch stray facts into grand theories of everything. I added Intrepid’s offering to the papers the notary will pass to Able’s kin. Wrote on the cover that my master had been trying to make the world a better place by disproving this kind of foolishness.’

‘Here’s to him, and to you,’ Swift said.

The three of them drank to that. For the tenth or twelfth time, Pilgrim looked at the coloured glass jars of the water clock that stood at the centre of the cheap’s crossway.

Ardent said, ‘I still don’t understand this settlement business.’

‘Why Able left everything to his kin? It was a condition of his stipend,’ Pilgrim said. ‘Even though they took it away from him, the condition still applied.’

‘I mean the principle of it,’ Ardent said. ‘Why someone would gift their property and possessions to their immediate family, instead of allowing everyone in their tribe to benefit.’

‘Do you still feel that you belong to your tribe?’ Swift said.

‘Of course.’

‘Well I don’t. And plenty of people who move from hearth and home to the cities don’t either. Especially if they make their fortunes there.’

‘It’s a violation of the great harmony,’ Ardent said.

‘The rich believe they contribute to the great harmony by passing their wealth to their children, so that they can make even more,’ Swift said.

‘Able’s kin want to suppress his work because they believe it taints his reputation, and theirs. I’m going to do my best to prove them wrong,’ Pilgrim said, and drained his glass of small beer to the suds and banged it down on the table.

It was time to move on.

3.