Each day the sun rose a little higher and its arc above the horizon was a little longer. At last, after a final flurry of snowstorms, a slow thaw began. Meltwater dripped from the tip of every icicle; snow slumped and slid from roofs. Ice which had sheeted the town’s harbour and most of the bay beyond broke up into jostling floes and long leads of black water, and fishing boats which had been icebound all winter ventured out to drop the first prawn pots and crab traps of the new year. One day, Gentle told Pilgrim that the tapcode line to the outside world had been repaired, and a few days later the coastal trading ship put in at the harbour.

On the evening of the ship’s arrival, Pilgrim found Gentle in the small kitchen of their quarters, unpacking dry goods and fresh vegetables he had purchased at the chandler’s. ‘This came for you,’ Gentle said casually, and handed over a letter.

Someone, either the chandler or the constable, had unsealed it, but Pilgrim was too delighted to comment or complain, unfolding the stiff paper and revealing unsteady columns of glyphs in Swift Singletree’s cramped untidy hand.

After the usual salutations and a few choice items of gossip about acquaintances in the pure community, Swift explained that he and Ardent had failed to find any figure resembling a visitor in the murals and panels displayed in the Library of All People’s Hall of Bears and Their Things, and nothing resembling Pilgrim’s map, either. Swift had shown the copy of the map to booksellers and antiquarians he trusted, but none of them knew of anything like it. It was possible that something pertinent was filed away in the special collections, Swift wrote, but he could not access them and Ardent would require a pass under the signature of his master, who would almost certainly interrogate him about his interest – if Pilgrim wanted to risk that he should let them know. As for the bear city beside the figure, its location was uncertain. No cities had been discovered on the east coast of the Neck which linked the Union with the New Territories, but given that most of it was mangrove swamp or jungle that was not surprising.

It was a mixture of good and bad news. Mostly bad, Pilgrim thought. It seemed that he had found something unique, which meant that he had the advantage over Master Mindwell, but that uniqueness, and lack of any records of its origin and history, meant that detractors could legitimately claim that it was either a fancy of long-dead scribes, or an outright forgery. And it would take a full-scale expedition to locate the bear city, and even if it could be found there might not be any trace of the visitors.