As Father drank ale at the table, Daniel made an excuse and stole into his room. Stepping lightly, straining to listen for footsteps. His mother’s nightshift lying on the bed, worn thin in patches where Father had rubbed it between finger and thumb, held it to his nose and wept into it, like a child with a blanket. She had been gone twenty-two years. There could be no trace of her left in it, yet he would not relinquish her shift, nor her place to another.

Daniel took the key, as he had once before, turned it and winced at the creak of old leather as he lifted the lid. The ring, he knew, was tied by a ribbon threaded through the lace of her wedding gloves. He felt no guilt. It was to come to him, Father had told him so on his sixteenth birthday. Soaked with ale and tears, he had opened the trunk and shown Daniel the ring, promised that were he to find a girl worthy, one that he could love as Father had loved, he was free to offer it to her.

Daniel knew that he had.

All day he had carried a soft-spun happiness, for what he had spent each waking and dreaming moment imagining had come, and they were together, and always would be. He had been woken by the chill of fine rain but cared not, for he was with Sarah, and there could be no sweeter start to the day.

She had sat forward, hand clutched to her side, back turned to him as she reached for her clothes.

He placed his hand on hers. ‘Show me.’

Her fingers had loosened just enough for him to lift them. The mark she hid was dark red, as big as his thumbnail, flat against her white skin.

‘Is that it?’ he’d asked. ‘It – it’s just a birthmark, it’s nothing.’

‘The mark doesn’t trouble me,’ she said. Tears standing in her eyes. He had not seen her like this. ‘But what it means.’

He took her hands, pulled her to him, kissed her. ‘There is no meaning to it. I’ve seen the like on calves and pups and piglets. Just a mark on your skin.’

She had given a smile he wished he could believe. ‘Aye, you’re right. I’m sure you’re right.’

When they parted, he had felt the strip of his skin where they touched was peeled off and taken with her.

In the yard Gabriel had grabbed him by the tunic and hauled him to the shelter of the orchard.

‘You took her away,’ he said, flicking a chunk of damp hair from his eyes. ‘Didn’t you? The dairymaid, and you knew I’d my eye on her, I was just warming her up and you took her away.’

‘She – you walked away, you were done.’