Just then the two eminent physicians whom Mr Norrell had employed to attend Childermass entered the room. They were surprized to see Mr Norrell in the room – surprized and delighted. Their smiling countenances and bowing, bobbing forms said what a very pleasing instance of the great man’s condescension they thought it that he should pay this visit to his servant. They told him that they had rarely seen a household where the master was so careful of the health of his inferiors or where the servants were so attached to their master by ties, less of duty, than of respect and fond regard.

Mr Norrell was at least as susceptible to flattery as most men and he began to think that perhaps he was indeed doing something unusually virtuous. He extended his hand with the intention of patting Childermass’s hand in a friendly and condescending manner. However, upon meeting Childermass’s cold stare, he thought better of it, coughed and left the room.

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.