What’s she come to pick up? Rai wondered. Gerald’s place was one of the prime savannah homesteads. Although the man himself was a complete self-righteous pain in the arse.

Horst Elwes stood at the base of the church’s wooden corner stanchion, holding the cloth bag full of nails, and still managing to feel completely useless. Leslie didn’t need anyone to hold the nails ready. But Horst could hardly let the Ivet work team assemble the church without being there, without at least the pretence of being involved.

The church was one of the last of Aberdale’s buildings to be put up. He didn’t mind that at all. These people had toiled hard to build their village and clear their fields. They couldn’t spare the time on a structure that would only be used once or twice a week (though he liked to think there would be more services eventually). Nor was it right they should do so. Horst could never forget how the cathedrals of medieval Europe had risen like stone palaces out of the mouldering, stinking wooden slums. How the Church demanded the people of that time give and give and give. How fear was rooted in every soul and carefully nurtured. And because we were so arrogant, as aloof as God Himself, we suffered a terrible price in later centuries. Which again was right. Such a crime deserved a penance that lasted for so long.

So he held his services in the hall, and never complained when only thirty or forty people turned up. The church must be a focal point for unity, a place where people could come together and share their faith, not a baron demanding tribute.

And now the fields had been rotovated, the first batch of crops planted, and the animals brought out of hibernation, Aberdale had a moment of time to spare. Three Ivets had been assigned to him for a fortnight. They had built a long raftlike floor supported half a metre off the ground by old tree stumps, then put up four-metre-high stanchions to hold up the sloping roof.

At the moment it looked like a skeleton of some boxy dinosaur. Leslie Atcliffe was busy hammering the trusses into place, while Daniel held them steady. Ann was busy cutting slates from the sheets of qualtook bark they had stripped off the felled trunks. The church itself would occupy a third of the structure, with a small infirmary at the rear, and Horst’s room sandwiched between the two.

It was all going very well, and would probably go better if Horst wasn’t there asking what he could do to help the whole time.

The church was going to be a fine building, second only to the Ivets’ own A-frame. And how that structure had shown up the hall and the other houses. Horst had joined Rai Molvi in urging the council to allow the Ivets some independence and dignity. Now Quinn was the one who had really worked miracles in Aberdale. Since the long barkslate covered A-frame had gone up the other residents had taken to quietly improving the structure of their own homes, adding corner braces, putting up shutters. And none of us will use an A-frame design, Horst thought. Oh, foolish pride! Everyone was captured by the quaint white-painted cottages we saw on the first days of the voyage upriver, we thought if we could emulate the look we would have the life that went with it. Now the most practical method of construction is a monopoly. Because using it would mean the Ivets knew best. And I can’t even build the church that way, the sensible way, because people would be offended. Not out loud, but they would see and in their hearts they would object. But at least I can use the bark slates rather than slats that will warp and let in the rain like the houses which were built first.

Leslie climbed down the ladder, a rangy twenty-two-year-old wearing shorts sewn together from an old jump suit. A specially made belt had loops to hold all his carpentry tools. To start with Powel Manani had issued the tools on a daily basis, and demanded their return at night; now the Ivets kept them permanently. Several of them had developed into highly skilled carpenters; Leslie was one of them.

“We’ll fetch the last two transverse frames now, Father,” Leslie said. “They’ll be up by lunch, then we can start with the lathing and the slates. You know, I think we will be finished by the end of the fortnight after all. It’s just those pew benches I’m worried about, cutting that many dovetail joints in time is going to be tricky, even with fission blades.”

“Don’t pay it a second thought,” Horst said. “I don’t get enough of a congregation to fill every pew. A roof over our heads is more than enough. The rest can wait. The Lord understands that the farms must come first.” He smiled, keenly aware of how shabby he was in his stained ochre shirt and oversize knee-length shorts. So much at variance from these uniformly trim young men.

“Yes, Father.”

Horst felt a pang of regret. The Ivets were so insular, yet they did more work than most. Aberdale’s success was in no small part due to their efforts. And Powel Manani still grumbled about the liberties they were shown. It didn’t happen in other settlements, he complained. But then other settlements didn’t have Quinn Dexter. It was a thought Horst couldn’t be quite as grateful for as he should be. Quinn was a very cold fish. Horst knew waster kids, their motivations, their shallow wishes. But what went on behind those chilling bright eyes was an utter mystery, one he was afraid to probe.

“I shall be holding a consecration service once the roof’s on,” he said to the two Ivets. “I hope you’ll all come to it.”

“We’ll think about it,” Leslie said with smooth politeness. “Thank you for asking, Father.”

“I notice that not many of you come to my services. Everybody is welcome. Even Mr Manani, although I don’t think he’s particularly impressed with me.” He tried to make it sound jovial, but their expressions never flickered.

“We’re not very religious,” Leslie said.

“I’d be happy to explain the broader ramifications of Christianity to anybody. Ignorance isn’t a crime, only a misfortune. If nothing else we could have a good argument about it, you needn’t worry about shocking me there. Why, I remember some debates from my novice years, we really gave the bishop a roasting.” Now he knew he’d lost them. Their earlier magnanimity had turned to stiff-backed formality, faces hard, sparks of resentment agleam in their eyes. And once more he was aware of how ominous these young men could appear.

“We have the Light Brother—” Daniel began. He broke off at a furious look from Leslie.

“Light Brother?” Horst asked mildly. He was sure he’d heard that phrase before.

“Was there anything else, Father?” Leslie said. “We’d like to collect the transverse frames now.”

Horst knew when to push, and this wasn’t the time. “Yes, of course. What would you like me to do? Help you fetch them?”

Leslie looked around the church impatiently. “We could do with the slates stacking round the floor ready for when we get the lathing up,” he said grudgingly. “Piles of twenty by each stanchion.”

“Jolly good, I’ll start doing that then.”

He walked over to where Ann was standing beside a workbench, slicing up the bark with a fission jigsaw. She was wearing a pair of hand-stitched shorts and a halter top, both made from grey jump suit fabric. There was a huge pile of the slates on the ground around her. Her long face was crunched up in an expression of furious concentration, dark auburn hair hanging in damp tassels.

“We don’t need the slates that urgently,” Horst said lightly. “And I’m certainly not going to complain to Mr Manani if you slacken off a bit.”

Ann’s hand moved with mechanical precision, guiding the slender blade in a rectangular pattern through the big sheet of glossy ginger-coloured qualtook bark. She never bothered to mark out the shape, but each one came out more or less identical.

“Stops me thinking,” she said.