‘It is so beautiful, isn’t it?’ the man whispers, trying not to disturb the butterfly.

The butterfly rises and falls with each gentle movement of his mouth.

‘When my daughter was a child she could spend a whole morning chasing a butterfly,’ he whispers. ‘I would see her running about the furze for hours, but when she got close to it, she would never touch it; she would only kneel down and look at it.’

Hacquelebacq throws dirt on the old man’s face, and the butterfly’s wings flicker once and it falls to the side, and with the next scoop of dirt it is completely covered. He must work quickly now because the sight of the old man’s breathing through the soil scares him. He can see the dirt rising and falling a little, crumbling away with every breath, and his outline is still clear. When the pile of earth next to the hole has gone down substantially, there is still a large depression in the ground, and the shape of the man remains, though it is less perceptible.

Hacquelebacq leans back on his knees, and rubs his eyes, getting dirt in them. He moans in pain at this, looks up at the foliage, feeling dizzy. Flies buzz around his head. Everything is a blur. Specks of dirt float across his vision, seeming huge to him, and he stays very still, blinking.

And then he notices the birdsong has gone silent, but he does not know when it stopped because of his own pain. The fox is focusing on some point behind him, its hackles raised, its tail bristled up. Faint voices are coming from the trees. Hacquelebacq cannot see anyone, but the voices are getting louder. He does not understand them; they are Gaelic words, and it seems like they are coming from above him. He lies down in the grave, peeking over its edge. This close to the earth the sound of insects crackles in his ears like fire. For a while, nothing appears, and then five people go by, going in and out of his vision as they pass beyond the trees; four of them are Gaels, their faces painted black, bows slung across their backs, carrying some few arrows in their hands. The deformed woman with the hole in her face is with them, still carrying her axe but fully clothed now; and she is shouting at them angrily in their own tongue. They answer back in a joking manner; the only word Hacquelebacq can understand is Nobber, and it is repeated several times amongst them.