Childermass watched him go.

All magicians lie and this one more than most, Vinculus had said.

47
“A black lad and a blue fella – that ought to mean summat.”

Late January 1816

Sir Walter Pole’s carriage was travelling along a lonely road in Yorkshire. Stephen Black rode on a white horse at its side.

On either hand empty moors the colour of a bruise stretched up to a dark sky that threatened snow. Grey, misshapen rocks were strewn about, making the landscape appear still more bleak and uncouth. Occasionally a low ray of sunlight would pierce the clouds, illuminating for a moment a white, foaming stream, or striking a pot-hole full of water that would suddenly become as dazzling as a fallen silver penny.

They came to a crossroads. The coachman halted the horses and stared gloomily at the place where, in his opinion, the fingerpost ought to have been.

“There are no milestones,” said Stephen, “nothing to say where any of these roads might lead to.”

“Always supposing they go anywhere at all,” said the coachman, “which I am beginning to doubt.” He took a snuff-box from his pocket and inhaled a large pinch of it.

The footman who sat on the box beside the coachman (and who was by far the coldest and most miserable of the three) comprehensively cursed Yorkshire, all Yorkshiremen and all Yorkshire roads.

“We ought to be travelling north or north-east, I think,” said Stephen. “But I have got a little turned around on this moor. Do you have any idea which way is north?”

The coachman, to whom this question was addressed, said that all the directions looked pretty northern to him.

The footman gave a short, uncheerful laugh.

Finding that his companions were of no help, Stephen did what he always did under such circumstances; he took the whole charge of the journey upon himself. He instructed the coachman to take one road, while he took another. “If I have success, I will come and find you, or send a messenger. If you have success, deliver your charge and do not worry about me.”

Stephen rode along, looking doubtfully at all the lanes and tracks he came to. Once he met with another lone rider and asked for directions, but the man proved to be a stranger to the moor like himself and had never heard of the place Stephen mentioned.

He came at last to a narrow lane that wound between two walls, built – as is the custom in that part of England – of dry stones without any mortar. He turned down the lane. On either hand a row of bare winter trees followed the line of the walls. As the first flakes of snow floated down he crossed a narrow packhorse bridge and entered a village of dour stone cottages and tumbledown walls. It was very quiet. There was scarcely more than a handful of buildings and he quickly found the one he sought. It was a long, low hall with a paved courtyard in front of it. He surveyed the low roofs, the old-fashioned casements and the moss-covered stones with an air of the deepest dissatisfaction. “Halloo!” he called. “Is there any one there?”