It was late in the afternoon and already growing dark when she rode into the courtyard, calling out her usual greeting. Pilgrim watched from a window, his heart bursting with impatience, as she talked to Grace Wren Saltmire, and he was standing in the doorway when at last she came up the steep winding stair.

The Invisible College had come to a decision, she said, having taken much less time than she had expected. ‘Ordinarily, they would not want nor need your collaboration, or that of any other man. But these are strange times.’

‘Does that mean that they have agreed to help me?’ Pilgrim said. He felt a mixture of excitement and the yawning trepidation that had gripped him when he had stood before his mother and the rest of the aunties, waiting to be judged and sentenced.

‘It seems that they want you to help them,’ Teal said.

23.

Teal didn’t know why her colleagues in the Invisible College had decided to meet Pilgrim, or what they expected from him. Following the protocol she and Pilgrim had devised to foil the scrutiny of the chandler, who owned and operated the only tapcode machine in the town, the message had been brief, disguised as a communication from one of the amber dealers Teal regularly contacted to discuss terms of sale of her latest finds. All she could say was that representatives would arrive in Stonehaven in a little under half a moonspan.

‘Is that when the coastal trader is due?’ Pilgrim said.

Teal shook her head. ‘They have arranged their own transport.’

‘And they’ll take me with them. Me and Gentle.’

Pilgrim, Gentle and Teal were sitting close together in the kitchen of the short tower, like the conspirators they were.

‘If they aren’t planning to, I’ll do my best to persuade them to change their minds.’

Gentle said, ‘Can’t you send ’em another message, asking for more details?’

‘We’ll find out soon enough who the representatives are and what they want,’ Teal said. ‘And besides, I don’t want to catch the constable’s attention. I’ve been living here two years, but as far as he and the rest of the townspeople are concerned I’m still a stranger. Not to be trusted.’

‘Especially when we’ve spent so much time together,’ Pilgrim said, understanding her prudence. ‘You’ve put yourself at risk by helping us. I won’t forget the debt we owe.’

‘I shall miss our conversations,’ Teal said.

‘You aren’t coming?’ Gentle said.

‘I am not interested in adventuring,’ Teal said. ‘And my work here is far from finished.’

Later, after she had gone, Gentle said to Pilgrim, ‘What will you do, if these women aren’t the allies you’re hoping for?’

‘If they aren’t, we’ll have to find our own way.’