John swings a fist round from behind his back, puffing up as though he has a chest of gold. Mam gasps.

From his hand dangles the body of a lamb. Blood drips on to the floor, a steady pat, pat, pat.

Mam staggers over and gathers him into her arms, lamb and all. The back of his tunic is stained red. ‘Oh, John. You’re quite the man. We’re saved.’

She is right. Without this we have nothing but scraps from shore and hedgerow to eat. The steady drip is mesmerising, beat of it against the floor, spreading puddle at his feet. A trail up the hill, and through the abandoned shell of a hamlet surrounding us, that will lead straight to our house.

John flushes and shakes her off. ‘It’s only a little ’un.’

She takes it from him, turning and examining its limp body, holding a bowl to catch the precious blood. ‘Makes the meat all the sweeter. Plenty here for us.’

‘And I know where there’s turnips.’

‘Then go, lad. We’ll have a feast. Annie wipe the table, Sarah fetch my knife.’

John runs out of the door and I bring the knife, but Annie stays where she is.

‘It’s so small,’ she says.

‘Big enough to feed us all,’ I reply.

‘It’s a babby.’

I stop and look at her. She is watching Mam split and strip the skin, the white wool now stained crimson. Tears stand in her eyes. She wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, lips wet.

I kneel in front of her, take her bony shoulders in my hands. ‘He killed it quickly. It didn’t feel a thing.’

She stares past me at the lamb, now no more than a lump of meat on our table.

‘Come with me, little cub,’ I say. ‘We’ll collect seaweed to have with it and wood to build the fire.’

I take her hand and walk her out of the door.

We eat long before the sun has reached its peak. A feast the like of which we can’t remember, one that should be saved for evening but we cannot wait. John fetches turnips, Annie and I find a little seaweed, and they are cooked in the pot together with the lamb. A meal richer than we are used to, meat full of flavour as it falls apart in the mouth.

Once the food is in front of him John digs in with his fingers, shoving turnips into his mouth so that pieces fall and stick to his chin, tearing into the meat with his teeth.

Mam, Annie and I are only a little more controlled, eating without pause. We neither speak nor look up from the bowls until they’re bare.

I lean back in my seat, sigh, clutch my tight belly. There is an unfamiliar pain there. The pain of greed. John looks around at us, a king who has fed his people.