The leader of the community council beckoned, and the two visitors were escorted across the snowy yard into the assembly. Firebuckets had been lit, and the solamps turned on. The hall was warm and brown: worn wood beams and seats, polished from years of use and care, floorboards gleaming from a history of footsteps. The nails and pegs that had been used in the building of the assembly were made of shipskin.

Amy stood as close to one of the sputtering firebuckets as she could, basking. She took off her mittens. They were looped inside the sleeves of her duffel coat on a piece of elastic.

The Doctor looked around. He gazed up at the beamed roof. He looked at the circular inlays of metal patterning the worn wooden floor, the metal seams in the beams and ceiling posts.

‘This is old,’ he said. ‘Beautifully made.’

Amy watched him. He crouched down beside one of the wooden guard rails that surrounded the open space they had been led into. He ran an appreciative fingertip along it, like an antiques expert.

‘Those nails,’ he murmured.

Amy raised her eyebrows. ‘The nails matter?

Really? Now? Do they really?’

The Doctor stood up. ‘They might,’ he said.

‘Rory’s out there. On his own. Looking for us,’ said Amy. ‘Can we get a move on, and persuade them to let us go?’

Jack Duggat’s men took up a guard position at the assembly doors. Some Morphans filed in and took their seats. Bill Groan and other plantnation council members sat in the semicircle of chairs at the head of the chamber.

‘Who are you?’ Bill Groan asked.

‘I’m the Doctor,’ said the Doctor.

‘You’re a doctor?’ asked Old Winnowner. ‘Of what?

Physic? Medicine?’

‘All sorts of things,’ said the Doctor.

There was a murmur. The council conferred.

‘This is Amy Pond,’ said the Doctor.

‘An honest Morphan name,’ noted Chaunce Plowrite.

‘Thank you,’ said Amy. ‘I think.’

‘Is she your wife?’ asked Old Winnowner.

‘Oh no!’ declared the Doctor.

‘No need to sound so outraged. I could be,’ Amy hissed at him. ‘I’m not, though,’ she said to the council.

‘We’re all kind of friends, really,’ said the Doctor.

‘It’s very informal. We don’t stand on ceremony, do we, Pond?’

‘Almost never,’ said Amy.

‘But this is a more formal occasion,’ the Doctor went on, pointing an expressive, flexible forefinger at Bill Groan. ‘And you’re in charge of this community, aren’t you?’

‘It’s been my honour to serve Beside as Nurse Elect of the council for eight years,’ said Bill Groan. ‘It’s not a burden I take lightly, as these people know.’

‘Of course not, of course not,’ said the Doctor.

‘And Nurse, such an interesting word. From the Latin, nutricius, person who nourishes. Nurse as in nursery, as in a place where plants and animals are fostered and bred.’

The council members started talking to each other animatedly.

‘What are you doing?’ Amy asked the Doctor, sidling up to him and whispering through the fixed grin she was aiming towards the council.

‘Just establishing some context,’ he replied. ‘Nurse Elect. It’s a high-status title. A leader. He’s the chap with the beard.’

‘They’ve all got beards, Doctor,’ said Amy.

‘Be fair. She hasn’t.’

‘Wait,’ said Amy. ‘That bloke’s job title derives from Latin? How?’

‘The usual way.’

‘But Rory was right. This isn’t Leadworth,’ she whispered. ‘This isn’t even Earth. So how can they have a Latin name for something?’

‘Wherever we are, it’s Earth -ish,’ said the Doctor.

‘Very Earth-ish, in fact. My guess is it’s getting more Earth-ish with every passing day. And these people are very much human.’

‘Why are we wasting time with this chit-chat?’ Bel Flurrish asked, her voice louder than any other in the hall. The place fell quiet. She stood up from her seat in the congregation, and glared at the council and the three visitors.

‘Come now, Arabel,’ said Bill Groan.

‘As Guide is my witness, Elect,’ said Bel, ‘you’re just chattering while time runs away. Why don’t you ask them a proper question?’

‘Oh, good idea!’ said the Doctor enthusiastically. ‘I like getting down to the nitty-gritty. Like what?’

Bel glowered at him, not at all warmed by his charm.

‘Like where do you actually come from? You’re not from Beside, so which plantnation are you from?’

Amy looked at the Doctor. ‘Plant nation?’ she mouthed.

The Doctor pulled a face and shrugged in a slightly convulsive way.

‘That’s… hard to answer, Bel,’ he said.

‘Really?’ asked Bel. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it was.

There are only three plantnations on Hereafter, so it’s not difficult to choose.’

‘Ah,’ said the Doctor. ‘Next?’

‘Very well,’ said Bel. ‘What have you done with my sister?’

Chapter

3

If Thou Knowst Thy Telling

‘I think we should try to smooth things out,’ said the Doctor, opening his hands in a gentle, calming gesture.

He turned slowly so that, one by one, he caught the eye of everyone in the assembly and shared a moment of his reassuring smile.

He fixed his gaze on Jack Duggat. Jack Duggat was a big man, tallest of all the Beside Morphans, and the hoe in his fists was big too. It looked substantial enough to skewer a humpback whale.

‘I’m going to reach into my pocket and take something out, all right?’ the Doctor told Jack.

Jack Duggat hesitated. The Doctor began to slide a hand into his tweed jacket.

‘Careful!’ Amy whispered.

‘Tell him that,’ replied the Doctor. He produced the travel pass wallet that contained his psychic paper, and showed it to Jack Duggat. ‘I think that clears things up,’

he said.

‘It says he’s from Seeside,’ Jack Duggat announced, studying the wallet. ‘It says he’s come to wish us well for the season, as is traditional, and extend the hand of friendship from Seeside Plantnation. It also says he is here to offer expertise and assistance.’

Bill Groan rose to his feet.

‘On behalf of the Beside Plantnation, I welcome you then as friends at this time of festival,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry we mistook you. These are troubled times.’

‘I can tell,’ said the Doctor.

‘Wait,’ said Jack Duggat. ‘There is one thing.’

‘What’s that, Jack?’ asked Bill Groan.

‘You know it yourself, Elect,’ said Jack. ‘I haven’t got my letters. I can’t read. So how come I’m reading this?’ He held the wallet out. No one seemed to want to touch it.

‘Obviously, I can explain that,’ the Doctor began.

Old Winnowner got up and came down to the front.

She took the wallet from Jack Duggat’s massive hand and looked at it.

‘It is a letter,’ she said. ‘Guide help me, just like Jack said. A letter from the Nurse Elect of Seeside. It looks… genuine.’

‘How could I read it?’ asked Jack, sounding distressed.

Old Winnowner looked at Bill Groan in horror.

‘Unguidely!’ she breathed.

‘I’m sure—’ Bill began.

‘It’s unguidely, Elect!’ Winnowner said. ‘It’s conjury!

You know what Guide teaches us about conjury!’

‘It’s a Cat A wrong,’ said Chaunce Plowrite.

‘I know it is,’ said Bill Groan heavily. ‘Jack, take them to the compter and lock them in while we work out what to do.’

‘It’s… it’s just paper,’ said the Doctor, looking rather wrong-footed. ‘It’s just an innocent trick—’ ‘Conjury tricks,’ said Old Winnowner. ‘See, he admits it.’

The men began to jostle Amy and the Doctor away.

Amy glared meaningfully at him.

‘I can’t take you anywhere,’ she said.

The compter was a cell under the assembly hall. Earth-cut steps led down into a cold, artificial cave lit by a couple of solamps. A firebucket had been stoked. The cell had a cage wall with a sliding door. The bars were made of dull, bluish metal. The interior of the cell was a sawdust floor furnished with a bench and a soil-pot.