So Norrell did the magic, naming John Uskglass as the person they sought. He divided the surface of the water into quarters with lines of glittering light. He gave each quarter a name: Heaven, Hell, Earth and Faerie. Instantly a speck of bluish light shone in the quarter that represented Earth.

“There!” said Strange, leaping up triumphantly. “You see, sir! Things are not always as difficult as you suppose.”

Norrell tapped the surface of the quarter; the divisions disappeared. He redrew them, naming them afresh: “England, Scotland, Ireland, Elsewhere.” The speck of light appeared in England. He tapped the quarter, redrew the divisions and examined the result. And on and on, he went, refining the magic. The speck glowed steadily.

He made a soft sound of exclamation.

“What is it?” asked Strange.

In a tone of wonder, Norrell said, “I think we may have succeeded after all! It says he is here. In Yorkshire!”

67
The hawthorn tree

February 1817

Childermass was crossing a lonely moorland. In the middle of the moor a misshapen hawthorn tree stood all alone and from the tree a man was hanging. He had been stripped of his coat and shirt, revealing in death what he had doubtless kept hidden during his life: that his skin bore a strange deformation. His chest, back and arms were covered with intricate blue marks, marks so dense that he was more blue than white.

As he rode up to the tree, Childermass wondered if the murderer had written upon the body as a joke. When he had been a sailor he had heard tales of countries where criminals’s confessions were written on to their bodies by various horrible means before they were killed. From a distance the marks looked very like writing, but as he got closer he saw that they were beneath the skin.

He got down from his horse and swung the body round until it was facing him. The face was purple and swollen; the eyes were bulging and filled with blood. He studied it until he could discern in the distorted features a face he knew. “Vinculus,” he said.

Taking out his pocket-knife, he cut the body down. Then he pulled off Vinculus’s breeches and boots, and surveyed the body: the corpse of a forked animal on a barren, winter moor.

The strange marks covered every inch of skin – the only exceptions were his face, hands, private parts and the soles of his feet. He looked like a blue man wearing white gloves and a white mask. The more Childermass looked at him, the more he felt that the marks meant something. “This is the King’s Letters,” he said at last. “This is Robert Findhelm’s book.”

Just then it started to snow with a flurry of sharp, icy flakes. The wind blew harder.