Annette grinned wolfishly. “Come on, Soi, show a little levity. Get radical again. This place can be made to work. Once we eliminate the serjeants we’ll have a chance.” Her smile faded as she sensed the babble of confusion and surprise emanating from within the communal mind of the serjeants. Ever-present, it sat on the edge of her consciousness, a dawn refusing to rise. Now their cool thoughts were changing, coming as close to panic as she’d known. “What’s upset them?”

She and Soi walked over to the end of the tent, and looked over at the dark mass of serjeants clustering in the foothills of Catmos Vale’s lost walls.

“Well, they’re not charging at us,” Soi said. “That’s gratifying.”

“Something’s wrong.” She brought up her field binoculars, and searched the serjeants’ encampment, trying to spot any abnormality amid the large dark bodies. They were sitting calmly together as always. Then she realized every head was turned to face her. The binoculars came down, allowing her to frown back at them. “I don’t get this.”

“There, look.” Soi was pointing at a bright spark rushing over the town’s perimeter fortifications. The soldiers below it were shouting and gesticulating wildly as it soared imperviously overhead.

It hurtled towards the mound at the centre of town.

“Mine,” Annette said warmly. With her feet apart, she brought her hands together in a pistol grip. A squat black maser carbine materialized, blunt barrel lining up on the approaching crystal.

“I don’t think that’s a weapon,” Soi said. He started to back away from Annette. “It didn’t come from the serjeants, they’re as puzzled as us.”

“It doesn’t have permission to enter my town.”

Soi started to run. A slim flare of intense white fire spewed out of Annette’s gun, darting towards the approaching crystal. It veered effortlessly aside, arcing over Soi. He stumbled as the spires of light pirouetted around him.

Smoothly and methodically, Annette turned to follow the invader. She pulled back on the trigger again, flinging the most potent bolt of white fire she could muster. It had no effect. The crystal whipped round in a tight parabola above Soi and accelerated back the way it came.

The serjeants watched it return. This time it never even slowed down as it tore through the air above them. Once it was over the cliff it began to curve downwards. Delvan rushed up to the very edge and flung himself flat on the crusted mud, head just peeping over. The last he saw of it was a glimmer of light descending parallel to the crinkled cliff-face before disappearing underneath the antagonistic planes of fractured rock.

The traders hooted and clanked their way along Cricklade’s drive in seven big lorries. Steam hissed energetically out of the iron stacks behind their cabs, while gleaming brass pistons spun the front wheels. They growled to a halt in front of the manor’s broad steps, dripping oil on the gravel and wheezing steam from leaky couplings.

Luca came forward to greet them. As far as he could tell, the thoughts of the people riding in the cabs were amicable enough. He wasn’t expecting trouble; traders had visited Cricklade before, but never in a convoy this size. A group of ten estate workers were on close call, just in case.

The traders’ leader climbed down out of the lead lorry and introduced himself as Lionel. He was a short man with flowing blond hair tied back with a leather lace, wearing worn blue denim jeans and a round-neck sweater: working clothes which were almost an extension of his forthright attitude. After a couple of minutes’ conversation, sizing each other up, Luca invited him indoors.

Lionel settled appreciatively into the study’s leather armchair, sipping at the Norfolk Tears Luca offered him. If he was concerned about the restrained, moody atmosphere grumbling around the manor, it never showed. “Our main commodity this trip is fish,” he said. “Mostly smoked, but we have some on ice as well. Apart from that, we’re carrying vegetable and fruit seeds, fertilised chicken eggs, some fancy perfumes, a few power tools. We’re trying to build a reputation for reliability, so if there’s something you want which we haven’t got, we’ll try to get hold of it for our next visit.”

“What are you looking for?” Luca asked as he sat down behind the broad desk.

“Flour, meat, some new tractor bearings, a power socket to recharge the lorries.” He raised his glass. “A decent drink.” They grinned, and touched their glasses. Lionel’s gaze lingered on Luca’s hand for a moment. The contrast between their skin was subtle, but noticeable. Luca’s was darker, thicker, a true guide to Grant’s age; Lionel maintained an altogether more youthful sheen.

“What sort of exchange rate were you thinking of for the fish?” Luca asked.

“For flour, five to one, direct weight.”

“Don’t bugger about wasting my time.”

“I’m not. Fish is meat, valuable protein. There’s also carriage; Cricklade’s a long way inland.”

“That’s why we have sheep and cattle; we’re exporting meat. But I can pay your carriage costs in electricity, we have our own heat shaft.”

“Our power cells are seventy per cent charged.”

The haggling went on for a good forty minutes. When Susannah came in she found them on their third round of Norfolk Tears. She sat on the side of Luca’s chair, his arm around her waist. “How’s it going?” she asked.

“I hope you like fish,” Luca told her. “We’ve just bought three tons of it.”

“Oh bloody hell.” She plucked the glass of Tears from his hand, and sipped thoughtfully. “I suppose there’s room in the freezer room. I’ll have to have a word with Cook.”

“Lionel has some interesting news, as well.”

“Oh?” She gave the trader a pleasant, enquiring look.

Lionel smiled, covering a mild curiosity. Like Luca, Susannah was letting her host body’s age show. The first middle-aged people he’d seen since Norfolk came to this realm. “We got our fish from a ship in Holbeach, the Cranborne. They were docked there a week ago, trading their cargo for an engine repair. Should still be there.”

“Yes?” she asked.

“The Cranborne is a merchant multitramp,” Luca said. “She just sails between islands picking up cargo and passengers, whatever pays; she can fish, dredge, harvest mintweed, icebreak, you name it.”

“Her current crew have rigged her with nets,” Lionel said. “There’s not much charter work going at the moment, so trawling has become their livelihood. They’re also talking about trading between islands. Once things have settled down, they’ll have a better idea of who produces what and the kind of goods they can carry to exchange.”

“I’m happy for them,” Susannah said. “Why tell me?”

“It’s a way of getting to Norwich,” Luca said. “A start, anyway.”

Susannah looked hard into his face, now falling back into Grant’s familiar features. The relapse had been accelerating ever since he returned from his trip to Knossington with the news that the aeroambulance didn’t work, its electronics simply couldn’t operate in this realm. “A voyage that far would be expensive,” she said quietly.

“Cricklade could afford it.”

“Yes,” she said carefully. “It could. But it’s not ours any more. If we take that much food or Tears or horses the others will claim we stole it. We wouldn’t be able to come back, not to Kesteven.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. They’re our children, and this is our home.”

“One means nothing without the other.”

“I don’t know,” she said, deeply troubled. “What’s to make the Cranborne crew stick to the agreement once we cast off?”

“What’s to stop us stealing their whole ship?” Luca replied wearily. “We have a civilization again, darling. It’s not the best, I know that. But it’s here, and it works. At least we can see treachery and dishonesty coming a long way off.”

“All right. So do you want to go? It’s not as if we haven’t got enough troubles,” she said guiltily, flicking a glance at the diplomatically quiet Lionel.