She put Alice, damp as she was, in the cradle and covered her with the sheepskin. She could hear Peterkin rustling the straw as he settled himself in his corner. She pulled down her skirt, still stiff and crunchy with ice and hung it on a nail in a beam over the fireplace. There was still a faint red glow there.

Peter pulled off his boots and scrambled into the straw, and Marion, in her loose woollen shift, her legs shaking with the cold, spread her cloak over the quilt and joined him. It always amazed her how warm he could be, even on a night like this, as she rolled close to him. He put his rough warm hand on her unusually naked leg and then slid it up under her shift.

Ah no, not now, she thought. It’s too cold and we’re too tired – but his hand stroked inquisitively. She recalled the village women’s saying, ‘If you refuse him too often, he’ll go to the next best thing – and that could well be your daughter.’ Ah well, she thought, there’s no grown daughter here, not now – but she knew the wisdom of the saying.

‘Marry,’ he said in her ear, and his hand slid down again to part her legs and a shiver of unwelcome desire ran over her buttocks.

This was how darling Nolly was made, she thought, realizing that she had not thought of Nolly all day, and for Nolly’s sake she pulled Peter towards her.

When he had finished, his last grunt was quickly followed by a trembling snore. He lay very heavy. She desired more but would not wake him. Her feet, touching Peterkin’s sleeping back were aching with the cold. A sudden intense sweetness pervaded her mouth. She licked her lips and realized a sticky blob of honey on Peter’s beard was against her mouth.

If only my feet could get warm, she thought, rubbing them together slowly. It was long before she slept.

JANUARY

The shepherd too in great coat wrapt

With straw bands round his stockings lapt

Wi plodding dog that sheltering steals

To shun the wind behind his heels

Takes rough and smooth the winter weather

And paces thro the snow together

It was well into January, all nature in abeyance. There was nothing to do but to endure. That was how January had always seemed to Marion.

The mid-winter feasts were over, there were no festivities to look forward to until the pre-Lent shriving. Survive, how to survive, was in everyone’s mind: eat frugally and remember next week; keep a little fire going and remember next month; nurture your animals and remember next year; wrap your cloak around you and endure, endure, endure. January was always a very hard, hopeless month, and it seemed to go on and on and on.