‘Then the stranger would be our ruler,’ Lisa went on, ‘and none of us would like that. There’s Rollo – ’

‘Not for always there isn’t. He can’t be as much as three years younger than Sir Hugh.’ They were both silent, contemplating the dangerous future.

‘Rollo’s strict, but he’s mostly fair,’ Marion admitted. ‘It would be terrible to have some ignorant wastrel at the Hall, ordering things, just because he was Magda’s husband.’

In the silence both women thought of the authority of the Hall, that refuge in disaster, that harbour in trouble, that ruler of their lives, that spindle which spun together all their diverse activities. Neither could imagine a life without the framework of authority manifested in the Hall. Grumble as they did, and as all the villagers had always grumbled, at the compulsory gifts of hens, of goats, of geese, of calves, of days and days of work when they most needed to work their own land, yet no one really ever wished the Hall and its family to vanish. Unorganized freedom had too many unknown terrors in it.

Lisa turned back to the fire and Marion looked up at her with pleasure and admiration. She was really prettier than her mother had ever been, and she also had that air of wellbeing, of physical content, of repose and strength that her mother had. ‘Light of heart, light of foot,’ Marion repeated to herself an old village saying.

Lisa bent down to give Alice a hug, saying as she stood up, ‘Pooh – Alice, you do stink.’

‘It’s probably her clothes,’ said Marion complacently. ‘She’s mostly dry all night now, but she always wants to feed herself and she drops bits down her clothes and slops milk too – awful waste. I suppose when the weather’s warmer I’d better wash her, and her clothes.’

After Lisa had departed the day dragged on. The fire had improved and most of the thin scones had been eaten at noon. Marion sharpened her knife on the side of the quern and put it back, upside down by the hearth and then gutted the two ducks. She threw the heads and feet and the guts out on to the rough grass and pushed Tibtab, who disliked going out in the wet, after them. She then hung the ducks up again outside under the eaves and plucked them, carefully stuffing the feathers into the pocket of her dress. Glancing at Tibtab, who sat beside her with his head on one side as he deliberately cracked one green-feathered skull, she could not quite bear to waste all those green feathers, and picked up the second skull and carefully pulled out two or three whose emerald glint most took her eye. It will help to show up a needle, she thought. Not as eye-catching as a jay’s blue feather, but bright enough.

She put her iron pot, wiped out with dried grass since the rancid bacon had been cooked in it, on the fire, half filled it with water and dropped in the two ducks, adding some beans and an orange onion or two. Peterkin, watching her, asked, ‘Can we have the ducks to eat tonight?’ but Marion told him they would have to cook all night and most of tomorrow, and that all they could have for supper that evening were the ducks’ two livers, sliced and spiked with sharp sticks and toasted over the red logs. Peterkin was momentarily satisfied when Marion showed him the two large livers protected from Tibtab under the half-broken jar.