‘Do not mock me,’ she says. ‘Take heed of me, rather; the town will crack open and bear something newish, or, as is more usual, perhaps, something malformed and stillborn; it may also die in this other thing’s birth; but it must not be interfered with during this time. By all means, Monsieur Hacquelebacq, sell your commerce of hanging ropes – new mayors and fresh sheriffs need them more than any – and buy what victuals you will for your sustenance; but take nothing that is not yours to enjoy. There are things even a bandit does not steal; holy things enriching unholy places, they must not be disturbed. The boundary is marked; cross over if you will, and see if that lively town welcomes you and your hanging ropes. So, go on your way to Nobber, and leave me to my duty. Tell Glynis I was asking after him.’

She turns to the tree and swings at it, grunting. He can see the erratic dark hairs, spiky and wiry under her armpits. He grimaces.

‘Your wispy brain is as deformed as your face,’ he says.

She swings again, and behind this noise he hears the fluttering once again. It is the tumbled goose, concealed in long grass.

He had thought, mid-flight, the goose’s heart had overcome it, burst in two, but he sees one of its wings is broken. Sometimes bodies just break, and there is no reason. It is docile enough, though, as he slips the noose over its neck. It waddles away on its flat feet, still sprightly, as though happy at its newfound circumstances. Hacquelebacq glances one last time at the sun-dappled form of Segnat, the dead branches throwing crucifixes of shade on her back.

He is delighted to leave her behind him. Women, he feels, especially peasant women, are always poised on the precipice of corruption; a little push sufficing to topple them. They are abysses, messy and unclean, and they disturb him. He will not allow them onto his little ark once the flood begins.

When he screams, Segnat hears it come over the trees. His voice is small in the distance. She lowers her axe and runs her raw palm over the scarred wood. Her blisters burst as quickly as they rose; she wipes their serum in streaks over the tree. It is smooth, cool to the touch.

She reaches her hands into the hollow.

Coming up through …

Coming up through Nobber’s only street, the retinue sees the abandoned monastery beyond the village, dead and quiet, dotted with bluebirds and overgrown with furze and a century’s overgrowing.

‘I’ll get no indulgences from that hovel of a place,’ Harold says, but no one responds.

They lead the horses to water them at the still fountain that has not flowed for a long time and is choked with pennywort. A bloomed white waterlily sits upon a frond.