‘Ah, the poor soul,’ Ambrosio sighs. ‘He will recover.’

‘—But how?’ William blurts out, addressing the woman.

He has been flummoxed by the knotted heat in his gut, and he did not realise he spoke the words aloud until he heard them himself.

‘What?’ Alannah says.

‘How is your mouth so full of such teeth?’ he says clumsily, unable to think of anything else to say.

‘Are you feeling unwell, William?’ Harold asks, concerned. ‘You are coming at the world very strangely, I must remark.’

William, blushing at the stupidity of his own question, shuffles about on his feet. His head twists with dizziness and scintillas float around his vision. I am, he thinks, become a lusting boy again. Desire is controlling my thoughts, trapping me, and I have not known that particular passion for some years. The sickness, having grown so thick on the back of the last famine, confiscated all such yearnings.

‘I do not snack on bread,’ Alannah says. ‘It is a dirty tradition, and is so full of little stones from the mill that pulp the teeth. I do prefer thistles, robins, roses and the scattered fawns who have lost their mothers; those clean, uncooked things are my sustenance.’

Having heard the woman speak at such length, William recognises her thick accent.

‘You are a mountain Gael,’ he says, the words sticky in his mouth. ‘Have you come to this place by kidnap?’

Alannah stares at him; slightly suspicious, her lips rise over her teeth.

‘My men insist on giving offence,’ de Flunkl says, pulling at his cap in frustration. ‘I expect this foolishness from Tuite, but, William, have you lost your mind? How dare you engage someone else’s servant in conversation while they are engaged in receiving tasks?’

‘I apologise, milord,’ William says, blinking away fierce visions of Alannah’s breasts, pendulous over his face as she sits her little body on his chest. ‘It is the heat. My head is turning in on itself.’

Alannah goes over to where Mary is sitting. The young woman is still sobbing into her hands, her nose loosing strings of snot from each nostril. Alannah wipes the blood out of her eyes and then begins stroking the young woman’s hair, whispering into her ear.

‘Tell your husband that de Fonteroy is coming,’ Ambrosio says to Alannah, ‘and I will need help. This will happen very soon, so he must ready himself. Make sure you give him this news, promptly; and do not let him near my woman.’

She nods, and Ambrosio turns back to the retinue. ‘Come now,’ he says. ‘Let the women soothe each other with their soft words while we escape this wretched heat.’

‘I understand none of this,’ Harold Tuite says to Ambrosio. ‘It is easy to conclude that there is some mystery at play in this cursed town.’