The man wore black boots and a black travelling coat. He was half-stooping, half-kneeling on the snowy ground beside Vinculus. For a brief moment Childermass thought it was Strange – but this man was not quite so tall and was somewhat slighter in figure. His dark clothes were clearly expensive and looked fashionable. Yet his straight, dark hair was longer than any fashionable gentleman would have worn it; it gave him something of the look of a Methodist preacher or a Romantic poet. “I know him,” thought Childermass. “He is a magician. I know him well. Why can I not think what his name is?”

Out loud he said, “The body is mine, sir! Leave it be!”

The man looked up. “Yours, John Childermass?” he said with a mildly ironic air, “I thought it was mine.”

It was a curious thing but despite his clothes and his air of cool authority, his speech sounded uncouth – even to Childermass’s ears. His accent was northern – of that there was no doubt – but Childermass did not recognize it. It might have been Northumbrian, but it was tinged with something else – the speech of the cold countries that lie over the North Sea and – which seemed more extraordinary still – there was more than a hint of French in his pronunciation.

“Well, you are mistaken.” Childermass raised his pistols. “I will fire upon you, if I have to, sir. But I would much rather not. Leave the body to me and go on your way.”

The man said nothing. He regarded Childermass a moment longer and then, as if he had become bored with him, turned back to his examination of the body.

Childermass looked round for a horse or a carriage – some indication of how the man had got here. There was nothing. In all the wide moor there were only the two men, the horse, the corpse and the hawthorn tree.

“Yet there must be a carriage somewhere,” he thought. “There is not so much as a spot of mud on his coat and none on his boots. He looks as if he has just come fresh from his valet. Where are his servants?”

This was a discomfiting thought. Childermass doubted he would have much difficulty in overpowering this pale, thin, poetical-looking person, but a coachman and two or three stout footmen would be another matter entirely.

“Does the land hereabouts belong to you, sir?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And where is your horse? Where is your carriage? Where are your servants?”

“I have no horse, John Childermass. I have no carriage. And only one of my servants is here.”

“Where?”

Without troubling to look up, the man raised his arm and pointed a thin, pale finger.

Childermass looked behind him in confusion. There was no one there. Just the wind blowing across the snowy tussocks. What did he mean? Was it the wind or the snow? He had heard of mediaeval magicians who claimed these and other natural forces as servants. Then comprehension dawned on him. “What? No, sir, you are mistaken! I am not your servant!”