Jemima soon found herself at home at Aigrefoin Farm—helping Madame in the house, sweet-talking Monsieur, flirting with their son Hugo and friendly to me: an asset. There was just one area where she flatly refused to cooperate: she wouldn’t have anything to do with pigs; “a total overdose” was the way she put it. But the only pigs there were wild ones shot by Monsieur, so this didn’t cause any awkwardness.

Since The Virus, all the land around was reverting to its climax vegetation of dense forest, like what had happened around Chernobyl nearly a century ago, according to Monsieur. He told me that, in Roman times, the forest was unbroken east of the River Rhine, running deep and broad from Switzerland to the North Sea and forming the border between Gaul to the west and Germany to the east. The southern border of the forest was the mighty River Danube, rising in Germany just north of Switzerland and running eastward and slightly southward to join the Black Sea some three thousand kilometres away. The Romans had sent patrols and found that the forest could be traversed on foot from south to north in nine days, but patrols sent from west to east could find no end of it after sixty days and turned back. They called it the Hercynian Forest (Hercynia Silva) and left it alone after a bitter defeat there in AD 9 when an alliance of Germanic tribes ambushed and decisively destroyed three Roman legions and their auxiliaries. The Vikings living in Scandinavia across the Baltic Sea north of Germany called it Mirkwood (Myrkviðr), barring their route to the south. Now Mirkwood was growing thick again, with just a few patches of civilisation like Deva and Britiniacum and others dotted about.

Mirkwood was now teeming with all kinds of deer, wild pigs, wild cattle, elk and bison; there were clear signs of the presence of wolves and bears and even talk of big cats. It wasn’t a place for the unwary to wander. Every autumn, the forest floor was littered with acorns and chestnuts, and mushrooms growing everywhere to the delight of the wild pigs. Madame especially appreciated the cèpes and was waiting for them to come back into season. Meanwhile, the cellar was filled with dried ones. There was a richness and fullness of life here and a hint of danger, so unlike Deva.

A few days later, after coming back from a hike early in the afternoon, we found a different pair of muddy boots at the door and Meg in the sitting room with a mug of beer. This time she wasn’t wearing her onesie but a black-and-yellow check fluffy woollen coat and thick red tights with a hole in the left heel. She gave me a friendly smile, and I was glad to see her.
‘Come and have a beer, James.’
‘Sure.’
‘You’ve been here for a week now. Edward says you’re shaping up well. It’s time to talk.’
A
nd so, on that spring day, began a conversation that I would long remember: the sunlight streaming through the windows, the flickering fire in the great fireplace, the quietness, the wholesome taste of the cloudy home made beer.
‘We have a common problem, James,’ she said in a weary voice. ‘It’s Buonaventura.’ She gave me a hard stare, took a swig of beer and sharply added, ‘We need to stop him. Now.’ She paused for a moment and continued, ‘You don’t have the money to get a new body for Anna, right?’
I nodded.
‘We have a plan to get you the money you need.’
I nodded again.
‘Then listen carefully. There is a crazy old man named Jean Montafian, who lives in the ruins of Paris. He has been carefully collecting all the gold that he can find there, in the old banks and such, but there is not much that he can do with it. He needs to monetise it and replace dodgy Cryptocoins with a stable gold-backed currency. He does not know how to do it and he is willing to pay you to help him.. I take it, James, that you know all about Cryptocoins and escrow systems of payment?’
‘Yeah.’ Well I could find out.
‘So get on over to Paris, find Montafian and sort things out.’

She took another swig of beer, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and added, ‘You go in the next few days and the brain stays here. When you get back, settle Buonaventura’s account, then come and get the brain back. Okay?’

I tried to take in all the information.
‘Edward can fill you in with all the details.’
Meg certainly knew how to be direct. I said, ‘Yeah,’ again, and as we seemed to have run out of conversation, we both stared glumly into the fire.
After a while, I asked, ‘How should I settle Mr B’s account then?’
‘Permanently,’ she replied.

She heaved herself up, knocked her pipe out on the end of a log burning in the hearth, came back and slumped in her chair again. Then she started telling me about the evil things Mr. B had been doing that, I supposed, amply justified his removal. While she was going into a detailed account of his selective breeding attempts, trying to produce pretty-boy drones by artificial insemination of the females with genetic material from south-east Asia, I stopped listening and began musing about how to deal with the bastard.
A while later, her chair scraped, and I came back to reality with a jolt. She was saying ‘…and don’t forget, Edward has all the details.’

So it was all saying goodbye and good luck, and her fumbling with getting her boots on, her red tights in artless display. Finally the door was closed and I heaved a sigh of relief.

Meg seemed to be assuming that I hated Buonaventura and wanted Anna back so much that I was ready to get rid of him permanently. But what did that mean? It had to mean killing him because otherwise, with his contacts and general clever nastiness, he would certainly try to get his own back if I just challenged him.

Then I thought of Anna again and began to bristle with anger. Maybe I was ready and willing to eliminate him, but I decided I would cross that bridge when I came to it, and for now I would concentrate on the Montafian job.

I finished my beer, put the mug down on the table and went off to find Edward and tell him I was ready.