Mr Segundus was there, as hesitant and unassuming as ever. “May I ask you something? What is the magic that surrounds you and her ladyship?” He put up his hand as if he intended to brush Stephen’s face with his fingertips. “There is a red-and-white rose at your mouth. And another at hers. What does that mean?”

Stephen put his hand up to his mouth. There was nothing there. But for a moment he had some wild notion of telling Mr Segundus everything – all about his enchantment and the enchantment of the two women. He pictured Mr Segundus somehow understanding him; Mr Segundus proving to be an extraordinary magician – much greater than Strange or Norrell – who would find a way to thwart the gentleman with the thistle-down hair. But these were very fleeting fancies. A moment later Stephen’s native distrust of Englishmen – and of English magicians in particular – reasserted itself.

“I do not understand you,” he said quickly. He mounted his horse and rode away without another word.

The winter roads that day were some of the worst he had ever seen. The mud had been frozen into ruts and ridges as hard as iron. Fields and roads were thickly covered with white frost and an icy mist added to the general gloom.

His horse was one of the gentleman’s innumerable gifts. She was a milk-white mare without so much as a single black hair anywhere. She was, besides, swift and strong, and as affectionately disposed towards Stephen as a horse can be to a man. He had named her Firenze and he doubted that the Prince Regent himself or the Duke of Wellington had a better horse. It was one of the peculiarities of his strange, enchanted life that it did not matter where he went, no one remarked upon the incongruity of a negro servant possessing the finest horse in the kingdom.

About twenty miles south of Starecross Hall he came to a small village. There was a sharp corner as the road passed between a large, elegant house and garden upon the right and a row of tumbledown stables upon the left. Just as Stephen was passing the entrance to the house, a carriage came suddenly out of the sweep and very nearly collided with him. The coachman looked round to see what had caused his horses to shy and forced him to rein them in. Seeing nothing but a black man, he lashed out at him with his whip. The blow missed Stephen but struck Firenze just above the right eye. Pained and startled, she reared up and lost her footing on the icy road.