When uncertain or shaken he turned to his work. He wrote letters – one of which was to the King. Another to a librarian. Christophor made requests, apologies, excuses, and promises. He was comfortable with none of them.

That night he barely left his room. The busybody, the woman downstairs, pushed food on him from the corridor. She craned her neck to see just what he was doing. If she had seen she wouldn’t have understood. Very few could.

He was dissecting the pinned heart. Cursing the south, his scant resources, his clumsy day-brother, he cut into the scarred and dried tissue. What he found there, I couldn’t say, but he was not happy. That wasn’t unusual.

But I’d rarely known him so scared.

26th October 1721

When I opened my room door I was met by Mr Hennig.

‘Ah, glad I caught you,’ he said. He had clearly been waiting for me in the corridor – his lie obvious in his over-selling.

‘Caught me at what?’

‘I, I—’ he stuttered. The conversation was not going as he’d planned, as he’d practised.

‘I’m not to play today?’ I said.

Mr Hennig grimaced. ‘There’s a back entrance, you see, with its own stairs and such.’

‘Really, that is too much, Mr Hennig. I pay for my room, my food, my wine, just as your other patrons.’

‘I let you through that common room there won’t be other patrons.’ He angled himself to give me little other option. I met his gaze. He had the decency to look me in the eye, at least.

‘And what of my night-brother, does he—’

‘What happens at night ain’t none of my business. None of my business. Sometimes we day-lighters are more superstitious, more jittery, that’s all.’

‘The daylight isn’t to blame for this town’s shortcomings, Mr Hennig.’

‘There’s no one to blame, is there?’ he said. ‘People are just the way they are. Wherever they are.’

I opened my mouth, but decided against debating the ethics of superstition with the innkeeper. He was only looking after his livelihood. I would have to look after my own.

I straightened my light autumn coat, wishing I’d taken the time to make myself more presentable that morning. Some mischievous part of me came close to knocking on the doors of the other rooms and causing a ruckus. Instead, I hummed a sad tune for Mr Hennig, he who had no time for sadness in his common room; a sad tune of a man left friendless and penniless and destitute by his no-good night-brother. It was a favourite of inns in the north.

The stairs were tight and uncarpeted – a servants’ staircase if I’d ever seen one. So it came as no surprise when I almost bumped into a young girl of abnormally large teeth coming the other way. She carried a mop and bucket and a good few pounds, none of which helped as we shuffled and squeezed our way past each other. I apologised, she blushed, and we left it at that.