He puts the flame to the wood and it begins to blaze and spark. A cry goes up from the villagers, the fiddlers play and there is some jostling around the food and ale. Boys jump through the fire’s cleansing smoke. I watch the children, garlanded with leaf and flower, dancing hand in hand, running and laughing, sitting in the grass with their shoes off, eating food by the handful.

One day this will be Annie. Next year, perhaps. I’ll dress her in ribbons and plait her hair and she shall play with her friends rather than the spirits lurking in the plague hamlet. So long as she remains unmarked, her unblemished skin is proof of her innocence. We’re done hiding her from the lascivious eye of the last magistrate, but must now protect her from a whole new cruelty.

Bett presses a small cup of wine into my hand. It is not my first. She wears buttercups around a straw hat and clasps the arm of a tall man.

‘Your food is fit after all, so you have earned a drink.’ She looks up to the man, who raises his eyebrows at me. ‘You should have seen the mess she made.’

He laughs. ‘I pity you, lass, for she’s a hard taskmaster. As I know to my cost.’

‘Oh, and there was I thinking I was your love,’ Bett says.

‘You are, heart-root.’ He dips his head to kiss her cheek.

Bett away from the farm is sweeter, softer. This I already know, but seeing her with her husband is like seeing a thistle transformed to a daisy.

She looks at me. ‘Sorry. A glass or two of cider and he thinks we’re still courting.’

The wine is sharp and slightly spiced in my mouth, warm in my stomach. ‘I’m so happy.’

‘All right, go steady with that, will you?’

Nathaniel tugs gently on Bett’s arm, leading her towards the circle of dancers. She pulls against him for a moment, clasps my hand and squeezes it.

‘Enjoy yourself, lassie. But remember not to bring attention on yourself, aye? Keep yourself quiet, stay at the edge of the crowd. Should anyone know you, they’ll accuse you of trickery and worse.’

I understand her words. Wine prevents me from feeling them.

The jig the fiddlers play is fast and though I’m sure I cannot dance my body sways and feet pat in time to the music. It brings delight but also something more – a memory of John’s sweet voice when he was a lad, a sudden yearning to see him here, carefree and dancing. Never have we been part of such a joyful gathering. I watch as all laugh and talk and dance. All except Phyllis Ross, who stands by the food, watching, keeping space between herself and all that come near her.