The sun continued to go down earlier and earlier, but it was still some time before the shortest day. Conversation persisted, since in the main they talked about themselves, but was repetitive. Already Malise and Barco had taken to meditating with their eyes shut. Ellin wished she had brought her fancy-work. Ellin had joined the Dissidents because she was tired of being told she was always so serene. Titmuss continued to assure her of this, and now that she could no longer dispose of him in a satin-stitch rosebud she took to going for long walks and frightening any children she met by planting spiders on them. During one of these rambles she saw a family of mortals come out of a cottage, lock the door behind them, and walk up the valley. Their gait was resolute, as though overcoming unwillingness. Presently other families joined them, and were greeted with curt grunts of acknowledgment. They went forward with an air of being banded together to commit some crime they were not wholehearted about. If a dog or a child (their dogs and children accompanied them) dallied or strayed, it was shouted back. Such a gathering of mortals in a landscape where as a rule mortals were scanty was physically oppressive, but Ellin’s curiosity was stronger than her fastidiousness; she determined to follow them to their appointed crime. The small noise of a bell came on the air. She remembered the massacre of St Bartholomew (Maugre had cited it as an example of mortal trop de zèle), and guessed that something of the same sort was impending. The bell was perched on top of a lean stone building. The conspirators filed in and sat down in silence, the men holding their hats on their knees, the women their babies. Ellin was perplexed. Was it to be a massacre in reverse? If they were there to be slaughtered it would account for that air of unwillingness. Presently a man wearing a black gown came in, walked up the aisle without looking to right or left, and opened with prayer.

But still Dame Habonde did not appear, and still he was not summoned for his congé; and the Chancellor, breaking off from an account of the network of third cousins five times removed which connected his wife with Harold Blue Tooth to call for more logs and another bottle, remarked that winter was fairly upon them and that for the next three months the road to Uppsala would be impassable. ‘We were thinking of a bear hunt tomorrow,’ he continued. ‘Killed many bears?’