Davidstand was taut and jangling with fear. All of that big square space between the L-shaped pool and the L-shaped fence was packed with people who’d come, like us, from poolside. They were crammed in under the trees between the shelters of the people who normally lived there, some of them with eyes screwed up, trying to sleep, some talking together in tense low voices, some hunched over fires as they cooked up slinkers and bats and ants and whatever other scraps they’d been able to find to eat. They eyed us warily as we came through. Who were we? Where did we come from? What had we seen? Why had we chosen to come here when each new arrival just made things harder for them?

The first place we tried to stop, a bunch of Davidstand men came over with big sticks in their hands and told us we couldn’t stay there, it was their ground. So much for the Davidfolk being one big Family. The exact same thing happened the second time round, just as Kate and Clare had finally managed to get a fire going. Tom and Davidson picked up their spears and began to growl that they’d been guards here for years, and deserved some respect, but Clare and Kate pulled them away from the Davidstand men. We abandoned our fire and found yet another patch of ground, right under the fence, to put down our babies and our loads, hand out small bits of dried meat to our kids to chew on, unpack our bucks, and start the business of firelighting all over again with those little pots of embers that had to be gently gently coaxed into glowing and smouldering again before they would make flames. All round us other small fires were crackling under the trees, and other low tense worried voices were asking the same questions that we asked ourselves: What were we going to eat? How far away were the Johnfolk? Where would we go when our meat ran out?

When my kids were as settled as they could be, I walked over to some people nearby. They told me they’d come from near David Water, a fishing cluster on poolside, some distance down alpway from Veeklehouse, where I’d been a couple of times with Mary. The Johnfolk had attacked there too, it seemed, as well as Veeklehouse. Twenty boats, they said, had grounded there. Last they’d seen of David Water was the smoke rising from their burning shelters.

‘And the worst part is that Strongheart doesn’t know about it!’ one of them said, a clawfoot woman about the same age as Clare.

‘He doesn’t know ?’

‘He doesn’t know about any of this at all. He’s not here.’