“Well, for one thing we do not know what to call him. Spells of summoning require the magician to be most particular about names. None of the names by which we call John Uskglass were really his own. He was, as the histories tell, stolen away into Faerie, before he could be christened – and so he became the nameless child in the brugh. ‘The nameless slave’ was one of the ways in which he referred to himself. Of course the fairies gave him a name after their own fashion, but he cast that off when he returned to England. As for all his titles – the Raven King, the Black King, the King of the North – these are what other people called him, not what he called himself.”

“Yes, yes!” declared Strange, impatiently. “I know all that! But surely John Uskglass was his true name?”

“Oh! By no means. That was the name of a young Norman aristocrat who died, I believe, in the summer of 1097. The King – our John Uskglass – claimed that man as his father, but many people have disputed whether they were really related at all. I do not suppose that this muddle of names and titles is accidental. The King knew that he would always draw the eyes of other magicians to him and so he protected himself from the nuisance of their magic by deliberately confusing their spells.”

“So what ought I to do?” Strange snapped his fingers. “Advise me!”

Mr Norrell blinked his small eyes. He was unaccustomed to think so rapidly. “If we use an ordinary English spell of summoning – and I strongly advise that we do, as they cannot be bettered – then we can make the elements of the spell do the work of identification for us. We will need an envoy, a path and a handsel.1 If we chuse tools that already know the King, and know him well, then it will not matter that we cannot name him properly, they will find him, bring him and bind him, without our help! Do you see?”

In spite of all his terror, he was growing more animated at the prospect of magic – new magic! – to be performed with Mr Strange.

“No,” said Strange. “I do not see at all.”

“This house is built upon the King’s land, with stones from the King’s abbey. A river runs by it – not more than two hundred yards from this room; that river has often borne the King in his royal barge upon its waters. In my kitchen-garden are a pear-tree and an apple-tree – the direct descendants of some pips spat out by the King when he sat one summer’s evening in the Abbot’s garden. Let the old abbey stones be our envoy; let the river be our path; let next year’s apples and pears from those trees be our handsel. Then we may name him simply ‘The King’. These stones, this river, those trees know none other!”