He looked at her, looked down at the sign, and one hand worked in a curious clawing motion as the other raised the bottle to his lips again. He seemed to come to a decision, setting the bottle down carefully and gripping the sign’s handle with both hands. She wondered idly where he found the wood for the placards he’d been waving these past years.

‘Watchmen didn’t like it,’ he said, not looking at her. ‘Said they’d smash it if I waved it about again.’

Helena felt a flash of irritation and made a mental note to get the names of whoever had been so heavy handed with the old man. A turning’s night-duties in the Slump would adjust their priorities as to what crimes required the threat of violence, and which should be handled with a little more finesse.

‘I won’t let anyone smash it, Enwin,’ she said. ‘But I would like to see. Please?’

Sucking in a short, sharp breath and blowing it wetly out through his gums, Posver rose and turned. Helena recoiled as she was confronted with a nightmare. The sign’s flat wooden boards had been daubed with a crude greenish-white paint and marked with splatters that she realised queasily were crushed spiders and other bugs. Yet it was the eyes that held her – huge, cruel, weirdly amused, staring out to transfix her just as they had in her dreams.

‘Oh,’ she gasped, taking a step back. Posver cringed at her reaction, dropping the sign with a clatter. Helena heard a scuffle of movement, turned to see Grange and the watchmen hastening her way, their expressions angry. She held up a hand to stop them, realising to her surprise that it had been curled around the hilt of her sword.

She turned back to see Old Posver cowering over his bottle, one hand rubbing at his scalp and tears leaking down the contoured map of his wrinkled face.

‘M’sorry,’ he said. ‘M’sorry, it’s coming, it’s what I’ve seen.’

‘It… it’s all right, Enwin,’ she said, recovering her composure. ‘It’s all right, you’re in no trouble. But I wouldn’t show anyone else that sign. It is rather alarming.’

‘It’s coming, it’s what I’ve seen,’ he repeated, though whether in agreement or rejection of her request she couldn’t tell. Helena looked out afresh at the square, at the people milling across it or tramping along on errands or business. How many faces looked tired, she thought, how many pale and drawn? No wonder Posver had been causing a stir. Just what was this?

‘Enwin,’ she said gently, placing a hand on his shoulder and feeling sorrow at the thin, birdlike bone structure she felt there. ‘What’s coming? What did you see? If you tell me, maybe I can help.’