The boy turned his back to me and leaned over the wall of the bridge. I approached cautiously, trying to be clear I intended him no harm, but he was now occupied with whatever was in the river. I had the feeling it was something he had put there himself.

I joined him in staring at the darkly churning waters. He held a line of string, as if fishing. His shirt and breeches were both near-black, as was his short, straight hair. It was little wonder I’d failed to see him, so clandestinely dressed.

‘What are—’

‘Sshh!’ the boy said. His concentration was absolute. ‘There!’

A flash of red shot under the bridge. My first thought was that the boy had thrown the corpse of some poor animal into the river and now revelled in the speed with which it passed below. But then he thrust an expensive-looking pocket watch at me and said, ‘Do you make it twenty-two minutes past one?’

Bewildered, I could do nothing more than confirm that I did.

‘You are sure?’ he said.

‘Twenty-two minutes past.’

‘I was right!’ He leapt into the air and then shook me by the hand. ‘Julia won’t be able to deny me this time, not with you as witness. No chores for a week!’ He started to wind the string around his hand.

‘Just what have I witnessed?’ I said.

‘Why, an experiment of course.’ He shook his head at my ignorance, at the ignorance of all those over the age of eleven. The flash of red turned out to be a large handkerchief attached to the string, now both dirty and sopping wet from its journey under the bridge. With practised care the boy cleaned off the worst of the muck and wrung it out. ‘Are you lost?’ he said.

‘No.’

‘Most people who come here are lost. Are you a soldier?’

‘No,’ I said. I was unused to being questioned by a child.

‘Then just what are you?’

‘A man ready for his bed.’

‘Inn’s that way,’ he said, waving vaguely towards the village. ‘If you see my sister, Julia, tell her the time. Of the experiment.’

‘And what does she look like?’ I said.

‘She looks like me.’

I gave the little scientist my word, as a man ready for his bed, that I would do as he asked. I led the ever-patient Tabitha onwards across the bridge and down into the village.

Before I made it beyond the first set of houses a girl came hurtling towards me. I hailed her by name, which made her skid to an abrupt halt. The sleeves of her dress were rolled up beyond her elbow and some kind of grease stained her cheek.

‘What?’ she demanded of me, a stranger.

‘Your brother,’ I said, quite taken aback. I had expected southern bluntness from the men and women of Drekenford. I had not anticipated it in its children.

‘Yes?’

‘Twenty-two minutes past the hour,’ I said.

‘Blast!’ And off she ran once again.