Looking around the fire, Cwen sees equal quantities of terror and hope. It is not enough. She remembers sweating, skin on skin. She remembers the beat of another woman’s heart; blood on blood; wrist pulse against temple. She remembers blood trust and skin promise in the passing on of knowledge.

She tells them, whispering it at first. Then she screams it.

It is the two young ones who react. They turn their hands to the flame, and their cheeks to the fire, and although they say nothing, they smile, emboldened.

Then, to Cwen’s surprise, they begin to strip.

Then Albina said: ‘This land to which we have come, We do not know its name, Nor if it ever had a lord. Therefore, since I am the leader, We will name it after me. Albina is my name – From which it will be called Albion, And hence this country Will remember us always.’

Anon, On the Great Giants (Anglo-Norman), c.1250–1333

pope joan: ... in England, she was taken for a cleric by everyone and pursued the study of letters and of love ... Thus, endowed with admirable knowledge, she left England and went to Rome ... Since in addition to her scholarly knowledge she was very virtuous and saintly, everyone believed her to be a man ... A woman, then, was the Vicar of Christ on earth. God from on high was merciful to His people and did not allow a woman to hold so lofty a place ... And so she was thrown into a horrid dungeon by the cardinals, where this wretched woman died in the midst of her laments.

Giovanni Boccaccio, On Famous Women (Latin), 1359

8
Lucija

LUCIJA: I never told her quite how well I knew her book. We read it at school, you see, and then during the siege, I hid it so they wouldn’t use it as fuel. Also, I’m friends with Mevludin’s grandson.

Sister Lucija looks out at the reporters with their notebooks. Because she is a nun, she has been photographed more than most. She will never forget the foreign journalists in Sarajevo during the war, asking her questions, telling her things. They liked sound bites from schoolgirls. The terrible stories from the capital, to match the horrific stories from the east of the country.