Trude tells her Papa she loves him, out loud. She joins the dance.

Fourteen

Thick-tongued, Lisbet wakes. She reaches out, but of course Nethe is not beside her. The memory of the night before crashes over her, and it is all she can do not to let herself sink again. The baby kicks once, twice. She must drink, must feed them something.

The skin of her face feels stretched. She can hear two people speaking, a man and a woman. It is Sophey, but not Eren. Not Henne. And not, thanks be to God, Plater. She hears children laughing. Lisbet forces herself to the door, and opens it, her hands feeling like a thing apart, appendages tied to her at the wrists.

Sophey and Mathias sit at the table. Their knotted hands are bound around one another’s, and both their faces are shining with tears. Mathias has a bundle of cloth on his lap.

Sophey looks up at her. Her cheek is so swollen around her rotting tooth it looks full of wadding. Beyond them the door stands open. Ulf is collapsed at the threshold, and Lisbet sees children chasing Fluh. It is copper-haired Ilse, and her brothers. On Mathias’ lap, Ida’s youngest boy Rolf stirs. Outside the children laugh and clap as Fluh runs about in the brightness beyond, after a fly or a bee. She can only have slept a few hours. Good. She needs time on her side.

‘Lisbet,’ croaks Sophey. Her voice is muffled by the swelling of her bad tooth, thick as Lisbet’s tongue feels. ‘Can it really be true?’

Lisbet pours herself a small cup of beer. She must concentrate on the actions so as not to knock the cup over, not to grip it too hard or too loose. She drinks deeply, the tepid liquid unsticking her tongue from her gums.

‘Mathias says they have Ida in the gaol. Agnethe is a fugitive, hiding in the forest like a rebel.’ Sophey lets out a hollow laugh, and blood sprays out of her mouth, onto her spotlessly kept table. She doesn’t move to wipe it away, and Mathias’ eyes are so hollow and far-off Lisbet suspects he does not notice the blood flecking their joined hands. ‘The Turk says he found you walking as though enchanted in the woods.’

‘Eren?’ says Lisbet, and Sophey looks at her sharply.

‘The Turk, as I say.’

‘Where is he?’

‘He and the drummer both are in the city. He says he saw Ida arrested. Is any of this true?’

‘Yes,’ says Lisbet. ‘Plater took her.’

‘Did you see them together? Agnethe and Ida?’

Lisbet hesitates, her addled mind too slow to build upon the careful foundation Eren left her. Mathias lets go of Sophey’s hand and throws himself face down. The baby squalls and Lisbet hurries forward to rescue him, easing him out from between Mathias’ shuddering body and the hard edge of the table.

‘Mein Gott, mein Gott,’ cries Mathias. ‘They are doomed. They are damned.’