‘I do not like you,’ he says. ‘I do not like the way you speak, the hole in your face, and I do not like this place. I am a simple man. I have hurt no one.’

‘You do not like me,’ Segnat nods, taking her axe up with both hands again. ‘And I am glad you do not like me, but tell me; will you go to Nobber, even though I have told you it is infected?’

‘It is nothing to you, madame, where I go,’ he says.

Segnat clicks her tongue; the sound is sloppy, unclean.

‘There is a deeper infection in Nobber than the more general one; a more recent one, and it is proliferating its own symbols of madness; setting them about the town, and they are profuse and persuasive. I spoke of a usurping man come about the town; I believe him to be only the outgrowth of some deeper disturbance.’

‘A curse?’ Hacquelebacq tuts. ‘You said you did not grant belief to those sorts of things.’

‘It is more a process than a curse,’ she replies. ‘Whichever it be, this town now breathes with a second breath that does not flow from the lungs of the men who have inhabited it. It must be let run its course; even mischief must have its due respect; that is the only way any remnant of the people will survive.’

‘I will not be put off my course,’ he says, ‘by a teller who does not even believe the very prohibitions she herself tells.’

There is a sound of fluttering in the grass beyond, gentle as eyelashes against skin. Hacquelebacq glances into the long grass; sees nothing.

‘And, sir, I will not allow Nobber, in its current state, to be disturbed by parties who would interfere with it,’ she says. ‘The town must be contained within itself. Certain boundaries have been set that I cannot surpass; they have overpowered me, but I can maintain my influence outside the town, and remove any vestiges as would be made weapons and turned against it by whatever mischief is at play; weapons such as this tree.’

She taps at it with the hilt of her axe.

‘This is all nonsense,’ Hacquelebacq says. ‘The tree is nothing.’

‘I think, perhaps, you are right,’ she says. ‘I, too, think it is all lies, but, surely, this is too crucial a juncture to go against the received knowledges regarding these matters, so I will honour the customs of my vocation with an ardour befitting of the most bloody flagellant.’

‘And what might your vocation be?’ he says, turning up his lip in a grin.