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of any convincing arguments for that, either. All I could come up with was that moving there would enable her to keep a closer eye on Simon. Except they’re both happiest when they’re as far away from each other as possible. So instead, I asked Veronica to explain the Spanish situation to me and while I succeeded in getting her off the dangerous topic of Simon, I’m not sure I actually understood much of what she said. Maybe writing it down will make it clearer.
    Firstly, the things I already knew. I knew the King of Spain, Alfonso the Thirteenth, was forced into exile a few years ago. I remember having a discussion about it at the time with Daniel, our tutor, who said that the Spanish people blamed the King when they lost the Moroccan War. He also said the King had done some terrible things – executed people who didn’t agree with him, for example, and supported the military dictator who took over the country – and that when the Spanish people finally had the chance to vote in democratic elections in 1931, they voted for a Republic and King Alfonso was forced to leave and Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish. That’s what Daniel said (Daniel may have been a tiny bit Communist, now that I think back on it).
    What Daniel didn’t realise is that Veronica is related to King Alfonso through her mother (I think Alfonso and Isabella are second cousins or something). Poor Daniel was very embarrassed when he realised. But Veronica didn’t mind, partly because Daniel was so nice, but mostly because she despised anything to do with her mother, who had left a few years earlier and not bothered to send us so much as a postcard. Anyway, once King Alfonso was out of the way, the Spanish government made lots of liberal reforms, allowing divorce and letting women vote and that sort of thing, which made some people upset.
    That was the bit I already knew. What happened earlier this year is that there were more elections and the Popular Front won narrowly. The Popular Front, according to Veronica, is mostly Communists and Socialists, but there are also some Basque separatists from the north, who of course are not Spanish at all and have a language of their own (I know this because of the Basque captain, as well as all the Basque fishermen we see around here).
    This new Popular Front government made certain people – the military, the Fascist Party, people who supported the King – rather unhappy, so a couple of months ago, General Franco started his rebellion against the government. And this is where I started to get lost. Apparently, the Germans and the Italians are helping Franco and his Nationalists, because they are all Fascists and hate the Communists. The Russians and International Brigades are helping the Republican government, because they are all Communists and hate the Fascists. The Basques have set up their own separate government in the north. And Britain and most other countries don’t want anyone but the Spanish to be involved in the conflict, because it might lead to another Great War. And now I have an enormous headache from trying to make sense of all this. There is more, but I will have to write it down later. First I have to go and make some betony tea for my poor head.

3rd November, 1936
    I DIDN€'T HAVE TIME to finish all I wanted to say yesterday, but will try to do so now. It’s been a very unsettling morning, though. A keening wind blew up before dawn, rattling windows and slamming doors and startling me out of that dream (which had just started to turn nightmarish, so it was a relief to be awake, however early it was). Then Henry came in with the scraps bucket before breakfast and announced that the hens were behaving very strangely.
    ‘Running round in circles. And the speckled one is missing. Do you think the others attacked her?’
    ‘Full moon last night,’ said Rebecca lugubriously, before disappearing upstairs with another jug of hot water.
    Veronica snorted. ‘What does she think they are,