Rolf’s pink eyelids crack open and she shushes him, rocking him side to side as she has seen Ida do. His cheeks huff and he blows out a sweet mouthful of air, before his lids close again. Her breasts ache. She feels his body relax, and her own tenses in response.

‘No,’ she says. ‘We can go to the gaol. They must be overrun with false dancers, with pickpockets and others. They will be glad to be rid of her. They do not know she is—’

She doesn’t have the words for what Ida is. She does not want to use Plater’s, flung at her in the clearing. A mother, Nethe’s lover, the best friend Lisbet could ever know.

‘Why she is really there,’ she finishes. ‘We can pay them. You can pay them. We must get her home.’

She looks down at Rolf, asleep and heavy in her arms. She will not see him unmothered.

‘You think you can free her?’ says Sophey, her voice equal parts sneer and sob. ‘They will not listen to you, not over Plater. He testifies against his own wife. What do you think your voice can count for?’

‘Then we sit here and cry, do we?’ snarls Lisbet, startling Rolf. He begins to cry immediately. ‘We let him visit his punishment on them, like last time?’

‘You know?’ says Sophey.

‘No thanks to you,’ says Lisbet.

‘Then you know they are sinners,’ she says. Mathias moans, his head still cradled in his arms. ‘We must let the courts decide—’

‘The courts are men like Plater,’ says Lisbet, over the din of Rolf. Ilse comes shyly to the door. Her face is exactly Ida’s, and it makes Lisbet’s teeth ache. She holds the baby out to her, and the girl takes her brother in plump, practised arms.

‘There’s milk,’ points Lisbet. ‘And honey. Go through there to feed him.’

Ilse hurries away, her copper head bent obediently, Rolf nearly as long as her body.

‘He will do it,’ she says. ‘He will leave his own children motherless, because she disobeyed him. Not God. Him. Plater acts as if he and God were one and the same.’

‘Blasphemy,’ snaps Sophey, crossing herself.

‘Blasphemy yes!’ shouts Lisbet. ‘But he is no servant of God. He serves only himself.’

‘All the more reason our going will do nothing.’

‘Then try, at least. If you will not, I’ll go alone.’

Lisbet turns her back, and pushes out past Ulf. The dog rises to follow her and she tells him no. The boys don’t break their playing to watch her. They are in their own world, Fluh racing among them. She ignores the sight of children at last making dust in their yard.

Mathias’ cart and horse is tied next to the pressing shed. It is sleeker than theirs, better kept, and in the bed are sacks upon sacks of flour fresh-milled. A plan is forming in Lisbet’s mind. She will go to the gaol, offer up all of Mathias’ flour, all of their wax. She will offer anything, if they will only give her back Ida.