The storms were coming in by the time Alice arrived in the islands for what she hoped was her last visit of the year. Eva and she were supposed to be finalising the collection of epics. In the early autumn Alice had collated a whole load of texts from the medieval period which she knew Eva would like; but now that she was early-days pregnant, the baby inside her was almost all she could think about. She didn’t want to miscarry. On the plane, she looked again at the Chaucer she had added to their female epics edition, and then deleted at the last minute: ‘Is it for ye wolde have my queynte allone?’ ‘Trewely, as myne housbondes tolde me, I hadde the beste quoniam myghte be.’ ‘By God, if wommen hadde writen stories . . . They wolde han writen of men moore wikkednesse, Than al the mark of Adam may redresse.’ She shut her eyes as the plane came in to land – it was very windy and the aircraft shook like a tin can on a string – and thought of the Wife of Bath. ‘I knowe yow for a trewe wyf, dame Alys.’ She felt so sick; maybe she should suggest to Eva a kind of communal authorship, by all the women. They could choose a text each, or something. Like a cookbook. The thought of cookbooks made her want to retch.