They pulled at his clothes, stripping him of his good coat, his waterproof leather trousers, his boots. Even his mittens went. These were Northlander citizens, he thought, as he was. Maybe he knew them. They might have been customers. Friends. Even relatives. And what would come next, when they had divided up his clothes? The taking of human flesh for the lack of alternatives is actually a logical outcome of our situation. He’d said that himself, in some polite forum in the Wall, or his shop. Drinking nettle tea. Not me. Not me.

When they had stripped him to his grimy underwear they pulled away. The cold of the snow against his bare skin was intense. He rolled, tried to stand in the deep snow, fell forward. Hands grasped after him, but they were still squabbling over his clothes, and he got away. The snow was deep, and as he tried to run his legs sank into it. He lunged forward and fell into a deep drift, the snow bright around him. Still he thought he heard their voices. He burrowed, bare hands working at the snow – by the mothers it was cold – he dug his way into the snow as a mole would dig into the earth. On and on, the snow compacting around him, heavy and dark, until his strength was all gone.

He gave up and lay quietly, breathing raggedly, pain flaring, encased in the snow. He could see nothing. Hear nothing. He lay still. Even their voices were gone now. The snow, pressed up against his bare, wet skin and packed all around him, seemed to suck away his heat. It occurred to him he must be only a few paces from the front door of his own shop.

The shivering began. He pulled his limbs to him, arms against chest, legs up, a child in this womb of ice, his whole body shuddering. He hadn’t been able to see if Xree had got away. Even if she had got into the shop the others might have followed her. But Ayto would have stopped them. Ayto was strong, resourceful. She would be safe with him . . .

Perhaps he fainted, or slept.

The shivering had stopped. The pain in his chest and mouth was still there, but distant, somehow separate from himself. And his hands – he couldn’t feel his fingers, his toes. He tried to move them; there was no response.

The pain ebbed further. It wasn’t uncomfortable. He wished he was able to tell Doctor Ontin that; it would console his patients. It wasn’t painful if you just gave in to the cold. Ah, but Ontin had fled before the winter locked in, fled south to Carthage, where Rina had gone . . .

There was ice in his mouth. Actually inside it. And on his eyes, he thought, he could no longer close them.