He wondered if soon he might become like Jack. How long did it take? One year, two? How long before all life and love were squeezed out of him? How long before he became a husk?

Sometimes Jack would stop and simply stare into the distance. Tom wondered what he was looking at. Was he reaching into his own mind? Was he pushing out beyond, into the world of the Samdhya? Or even into some other, deeper place?

Tom ate lunch on his own in the kitchen, placing roughly hewn slices of cheese in between some stale bread. He did not know where Jack went, and did not want to ask. He wondered now if he would be allowed to take the cart down to the shops for food; if, like Kit, a glamour would be placed on his tongue so that he could not speak to anybody, or tell them what was happening.

As Tom was washing up, Jack reappeared. Tom could not help but be impressed by his presence. The white hair, the gaunt features, the strange beauty.

But also the eyes, the blackness in them, the heartlessness.

‘You’ll be doing Zita’s work now. I expect you’ll do it better’n she.’

He opened a wooden chest which stood under the window, and showed him the rows of carefully labelled herbs in pots and the vials of dark liquids. There was a small, handwritten book, in which Zita, in gentle, schoolgirlish handwriting, had written down the ingredients for her draughts.

Tom watched Jack as, with the care of a surgeon, he measured and crushed and poured, showing him how to mix healing draughts as Zita had done. The scents from the herbs were delicate and sweet, like freshly cut mint or grass on a summer’s day.

‘This one heals anything the Samdhya hit us with. This is for flesh wounds.’

Tom did not mind the work, mixing, weighing and sorting the herbs, flowers and mosses, boiling them up and pouring them off carefully into vials. There were some odd ingredients: a pheasant’s feather, which Jack used to stir something, and then burned carefully. Jack was brusque, to the point, but remarkably patient if he made a mistake. Tom understood that this was because they had to be made in the right way. Care was all. The smells, rich and earthy, reminded him of Zita, and his hands trembled as he worked.

At about six o’clock, he realised with a stab of hunger that they had been working for several hours without a break. Jack was possessed of a curious energy, which shone in his eyes and kept him moving like an automaton.

‘Do you think they will be able to beat us? To break through into the farm?’