‘It is too hot here,’ he says to the little girl. ‘I have a headache. We should rest in the woods until she returns.’

He goes over to the animals and picks up the empty noose from which the badger escaped; brings it over to the girl and drops it over her neck.

‘Do not be afraid,’ he says. ‘This is just so you don’t get lost. I was lost in the woods earlier myself today, and it is a very scary thing. It is so dark in there.’

The child looks up at him, without curiosity even when he pulls the noose tight. A crow begins to caw, and he jumps at the sudden sound. One of the crows is moving its beak, but the rest of it is still. A long nail runs through its neck, and still it lives.

Monsieur Hacquelebacq shivers, and waves his hand at it. ‘Evil thing, no?’ he says. ‘I do not like it.’

He wraps the rope round his wrist, leads them all towards the woods. The rope is slack, there is no resistance. The animals and the child follow without protest. Hacquelebacq looks back to the girl. She is unblemished; her breasts have not yet blossomed. Though small, she is long of limb. I will grow very fond of her, he feels.

They are near enough the trees to be in their shade. The dead goose trails behind them, coming last in the procession, still dragged along by its twisted neck in the sixth noose, but Monsieur Hacquelebacq has forgotten all about it.

When Saint John …

When Saint John awakes it is early evening and a slight, spherical swarm of midges is hovering around him. William of Roscrea has gone hard and cold behind him, his face waxy and sunken, his chin and cheekbones grown even more prominent. The maple’s shadow is long, and a young rat is crawling across his legs. The birds are in cacophonic evening song above him. He feels hunger and rubs his eyes. A jingling comes out from beyond the depth of the trees.

Saint John brushes the rat off him and it scuttles into the undergrowth. He stands up, accidentally entering the swarm, and two midges get caught in his eyelashes. He blinks them away, and one gets mushed in his eye, its legs falling apart, disintegrating in his vision, and he blinks several times until he can no longer feel its tiny body on the white of his eyeball. His vision is slightly blurred and he looks to the lake.