‘I sell hanging ropes, my fine lady,’ he says. ‘I was coming to this good town of Nobber to see if there are any tradesmen who would like a calf, or some rope. My name is Monsieur Hacquelebacq, and it is a great honour to meet such a comely sparrow, and so unexpectedly.’

‘My name is Emota,’ the young woman says, pointing at her own chest, ‘and I slew the beast. You are free.’

‘I am free, Emota, you say?’

The light behind her is an outlined halo, defining her shape, and then her face becomes nervous.

‘They say it was me knocking Monster Hack Back,’ she says, ‘but it was not. I am not sick, though they say I am. It’s just sometimes I remember who I am.’

One of the calves, the bawling orphan who is lonely for its mother, lows behind Hacquelebacq, and the noise is so close that he rubs his ear. He looks up at the structure behind the young woman, feeling slightly embarrassed that he was ever afraid of it. It is but a slanted wooden cruciform. A few crows are tied to it with sprigs and shorn ivy; many are nailed on, their wings at unnatural, contorted angles they have been pressed so closely together. They are mostly dead. Clearly, a warning of sorts. He imagines it belongs to a Gael or a peasant; or possibly a child has done it, it is so crude.

‘Did you make this?’ Hacquelebacq says, pointing at the thing of crows, which, vaguely, resembles a man.

She looks behind herself. ‘No, I did not make her,’ she says.

The girl, Hacquelebacq thinks, is completely mad.

‘Emota,’ he says softly, ‘you sound very put upon, and I would like to be of service to you.’

‘You could take care of me,’ the young woman says. ‘My man is dead, and I cannot remain married to a corpse. He was a blot on the landscape; a dark, sick thing. He used me terribly, but he took care of me and I miss him. His name was Big Cat, but I tried to forget it was sometimes.’

‘So you are alone.’

Hacquelebacq secures the animals under a nearby rock, plucks a dock leaf from the ground and approaches her slowly, his hands raised in front of him.

‘Your face, Emota,’ he says, ‘is slightly besmirched, and it is obscuring the expressivity of your features, which I perceive as beautiful, though clouded behind blood. Mayhaps you will allow me to remove it? Present your chin to me.’

She does not reply, but goes on her knees before him. He spits on the dock leaf, gently rubs it off her cheek. Docile, her head moves gently with the suggestion of his fingers. When half of her face is cleaned, he too drops to his knees, taking great care to let his free hand brush across her breasts.

‘Whose blood is this?’ he asks.

‘The dark horse’s,’ she says.