‘But, even if she didn't -' Apolline said,'- had a great deal to say for herself.'

‘Which answers nothing,' said Suzanna.

That's Capra for you,' said Cammell.

‘Go on, Lilia,' said Cal. Tell the rest of the story.'

She began again:

‘So there's you, Humankind, with all your laws and your perimeters and your bottomless envy; and there's us, the Families of the Seerkind. As different from you as day from night.'

‘Not so different,' said Jerichau. ‘We lived amongst them once, remember that.'

‘And we were treated like filth,' said Lilia, with some feeling.

True.' said Jerichau.

The skills we had.' she went on, ‘you Cuckoos called magic. Some of them wanted it for themselves. Some were afraid of it. But few loved us for it. Cities were small then, you must understand. It was difficult to hide in them. So we retreated. Into the forests and the hills, where we thought we'd be safe.'

There were many of us who'd never ventured amongst the Cuckoos in the first place.' said Freddy. ‘Especially the Aia. Nothing to sell, you see; no use suffering the Cuckoos if you had nothing to sell. Better be out in the great green.'

That's pretension.' said Jerichau. ‘You love cities as much as any of us.'

True.' said Freddy. ‘I like bricks and mortar. But I envy the shepherd -'

‘His solitude or his sheep?'

‘His pastoral pleasures, you cretin!' Freddy said. Then, to Suzanna: ‘Mistress, you must understand that I do not belong with these people. Truly I don't. He-' (here he stabbed a finger in Jerichau's direction) ‘- is a convicted thief. She -' (now Apolline) ‘- ran a bordello. And this one -' (Lilia now) ‘- she and her little brother there have so much grief on their hands -'

‘A child?' said Lilia, looking at the baby. ‘How could you accuse an innocent -'

‘Please spare us the histrionics.' said Freddy. ‘Your brother may look like a babe in arms, but we know better. Masquers, both of you. Or else why were you in the Border?'

‘I might ask you the same question.' Lilia retorted.

‘I was conspired against.' he protested. ‘My hands are clean.'

‘Never did trust a man with clean hands.' Apolline muttered.

‘Whore!' said Freddy.

‘Barber!' said the other, which brought the outburst to a halt.

Cal exchanged a disbelieving look with Suzanna. There was no love lost between these people, that much was apparent.

‘So ...' said Suzanna. ‘You were telling us about hiding in the hills.'

‘We weren't hiding.' said Jerichau. ‘We just weren't visible.'

There's a difference?' said Cal.

‘Oh certainly. There are places sacred to us which most Cuckoos could stand a yard from and not see -'

‘And we had raptures.' said Lilia, ‘to cover our tracks, if Humankind came too close.'

‘Which they did, on occasion.' Jerichau said. ‘Some got curious. Started to poke around in the forests, looking for trace of us.'

They knew what you were then?' said Suzanna.

‘No.' said Apolline. She'd thrown a pile of clothes off one of the chairs and was straddling it. ‘No, all they knew was rumour and hearsay. Called us all kinds of names. Shades and faeries. All manner of shite. Only a few got really close, though. And that was only because we let them.'

‘Besides, there weren't that many of us.' said Lilia. ‘We've never been very fertile. Never had much of a taste for copulation.'

‘Speak for yourself.' said Apolline, and winked at Cal.

The point is, we were mostly ignored, and - like Apolline said - when we did make contact it was for our own reasons. Perhaps one of your Kind had some skill we could profit by.

Horse-breeders, wine-merchants ... but the fact is as the centuries went by you became a lethal breed.'

True.' said Jerichau.

‘What little contact we had with you dwindled to almost nothing. We left you to your bloodbaths, and your envy —'

‘Why do you keep harking on envy?' said Cal.

‘It's what your Kind's notorious for.' said Freddy. ‘Always after what isn't yours, just for the having.'

‘You're a perfect bloody species, are you?' said Cal. He'd tired of the endless remarks about Cuckoos.

‘If we were perfect.' said Jerichau, ‘we'd be invisible, wouldn't we?' The response fazed Cal utterly. ‘No. We're flesh and blood like you.' he went on, ‘so of course we're imperfect. But we don't make such a song and dance about it. You people ... you have to feel there's some tragedy in your condition, or you think you're only half alive.'

‘So why trust my grandmother to look after the carpet?' said Suzanna. ‘She was a Cuckoo, wasn't she?'

‘Don't use that word.' said Cal. ‘She was human.'

‘She was of mixed blood.' Apolline corrected him. ‘Seerkind on her mother's side and Cuckoo on her father's. I talked with her on two or three occasions. We had something in common you see. Both had mixed marriages. Her first husband was Seerkind, and my husbands were all Cuckoos.

‘But she was only one of several Custodians. The only woman; the only one with any human blood too, if I remember rightly.

‘We had to have at least one Custodian who knew the Kingdom, who would seem perfectly unremarkable. That way we hoped we'd be ignored, and finally forgotten.'

‘All this ... just to hide from Humankind?' said Suzanna.

‘Oh no.' said Freddy. ‘We might have continued to live as we had, on the margins of the Kingdom ... but things changed.'

‘I can't remember the year it began -' said Apolline.

‘1896,' said Lilia. ‘It was 1896, the year of the first fatalities.'

‘What happened?' said Cal.

To this day nobody's certain. But something appeared out

of the blue, some creature with only one ambition. To wipe us out.'

‘What sort of creature?'

Lilia shrugged. ‘Nobody ever saw its face and survived.'

‘Human?' said Cal.

‘No. It wasn't blind, the way the Cuckoos are blind. It could sniff us out. Even our most vivid raptures couldn't deceive it for long. And when it had passed by it would be as if those it had looked on had never existed.'

‘We were trapped.' said Jerichau. ‘On one side. Humankind, growing more ambitious for territory by the day, ‘til we had scarcely a place left to hide; and on the other, the Scourge, as we called it, whose sole intention seemed to be genocide. We knew it could only be a matter of time before we were extinct.'

‘Which would have been a pity.' said Freddy, drily.

‘It wasn't all gloom and doom.' said Apolline. ‘Seems odd to say it but I had a fine time those last years. Desperation, you know; it's the best aphrodisiac.' she grinned. ‘And we found one or two places where we were safe awhile, where the Scourge never sniffed us out.'

‘I don't remember being happy.' said Lilia. ‘I just remember the nightmares.'

‘What about the hill?' said Apolline, ‘what was it called? The hill where we stayed, the last summer. I remember that as if it was yesterday ...'

‘Rayment's Hill.'

That's right. Rayment's Hill. I was happy there.'

‘But how long would it have lasted?' said Jerichau. ‘Sooner or later, the Scourge would have found us.'

‘Perhaps.' said Apolline.

‘We had no choice.' said Lilia. ‘We needed a hiding place. Somewhere the Scourge would never look for us. Where we could sleep awhile, until we'd been forgotten.'

The carpet.' said Cal.

‘Yes.' said Lilia. That was the refuge the Council chose.'

‘After endless debate.' said Freddy. ‘During which time hundreds more died. That final year, when the Loom was at work, there were fresh massacres every week. Terrible stories. Terrible.'

‘We were vulnerable of course,' said Lilia. ‘Because there were refugees coming from all over... some of them bringing fragments of their territories ... things that had survived the onslaught ... all converging on this country in the hope of finding a place in the carpet for their properties.'