‘I can see, for instance, that you are most likely a pure,’ she told Pilgrim, and smiled when he started. ‘Your slight build and long and slender fingers, the sharpness of your cheekbones and your narrow jaw – they are characteristics often associated with the condition.’

‘Your studies do not appear to have taught you much in the way of discretion,’ Pilgrim said, aware that Gentle was watching them over the rim of his bowl.

‘You aren’t the first to remark on that,’ Teal said. ‘And while I’m being frank, I admit that I was avoiding you because of gossip about the reason for your exile. But after your fainting fit, and the sympathy you expressed for the bear in your note, it seemed to me that you were an unlikely cut-throat.’

‘But no less guilty of violating the great harmony,’ Pilgrim said.

‘In the course of being robbed, it seems.’

‘I make no excuse for what I did.’

‘I’ve told him that he’s too hard on himself,’ Gentle said. ‘But he’s too stubborn to accept it.’

‘Even so, I am glad that I decided to take the risk of meeting you,’ Teal said. ‘Especially as it seems that we have something in common.’

‘You invited me into your home because you wanted to talk about the visitors,’ Pilgrim said. ‘Are you also making a study of them?’

Teal shook her head. ‘Shortly before you arrived in Stonehaven I received a letter from several of my colleagues, explaining their interest in the visitors and asking for my opinion. I hadn’t given that any thought since then, but now I discover that you and your late master have been pursuing the same line of work. And here we are.’

‘Would one of these colleagues be Master Mindwell?’

‘Is he a rival of Master Able’s?’

‘A rival of mine, perhaps.’

‘I don’t know him,’ Teal said. ‘As for my colleagues, they are, like me, members of the Invisible College.’

It was an organisation of female hobbyists who shared an amateur interest in various practical applications of natural philosophy. Gardeners and herbalists, animal breeders, beekeepers and so on. Pilgrim told Teal that Master Able had been in correspondence with one such, an auntie in the Hearth of a wealthy tribe who was breeding exotic varieties of doves, and Teal told him that she and her friends belonged to what they called the college within the college, studying areas of natural philosophy that by custom were the preserve of male scholars.

‘Are there many of you?’ Pilgrim said.

‘More than you might think, scattered widely across the Union and the New Territories. We exchange letters and papers, and meet up where and when we can. My colleagues believe that the visitors may be some kind of contemporary folk tale. Which is why they requested my opinion, since I have some small expertise in such matters.’