“What of his fairy name?” said Strange.

“That is lost,” replied Norrell.

“Did we try the King of the North yet?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Strange thought for a moment and then said, “What was that curious appellation you mentioned before? Something you said he called himself? The nameless something?”

“The nameless slave?”

“Yes. Try that.”

Norrell looked very doubtful. But he cast the spell for the nameless slave. Instantly a speck of bluish light appeared. He proceeded and the nameless slave proved to be in Yorkshire – in very much the same place where John Uskglass had appeared before.

“There!” exclaimed Strange, triumphantly. “All our anxiety was quite needless. He is still here.”

“But I do not think that is the same person,” interrupted Norrell. “It looks different somehow.”

“Mr Norrell, do not be fanciful, I beg you! Who else could it be? How many nameless slaves can there possibly be in Yorkshire?”

This was so very reasonable a question that Mr Norrell offered no further objections.

“And now for the magic itself,” said Strange. He picked up the book and began to recite the spell. He addressed the trees of England; the hills of England; the sunlight, water, birds, earth and stones. He addressed them all, one after the other, and exhorted them to place themselves in the hands of the nameless slave.

Stephen and the gentleman came to the packhorse bridge that led into Starecross.

The village was quiet; there was hardly any one to be seen. In a doorway a girl in a print-gown and woollen shawl was tipping milk from wooden pails into cheese-vats. A man in gaiters and a broad-brimmed hat came down a lane at the side of the house; a dog trotted at his side. When the man and the dog rounded the corner, the girl and the man greeted each other smilingly and the dog barked his pleasure. It was the sort of simple, domestic scene that would ordinarily have delighted Stephen, but in his present mood he could only feel a chill; if the man had reached out and struck the girl – or strangled her – he would have felt no surprize.

The gentleman was already on the packhorse bridge. Stephen followed him and …

… and everything changed. The sun came out from behind a cloud; it shone through the winter trees; hundreds of small, bright patches of sunlight appeared. The world became a kind of puzzle or labyrinth. It was like the superstition which says that one must not walk upon lines between flag stones – or the strange magic called the Doncaster Squares which is performed upon a board like a chessboard. Suddenly everything had meaning. Stephen hardly dared take another step. If he did so – if, for example, he stepped into that shadow or that spot of light, then the world might be forever altered.

“Wait!” he thought, wildly. “I am not ready for this! I have not considered. I do not know what to do!”