He is in a far sorrier state than she realised, his wrist bones poking out like robin’s eggs from his blueish skin, his swollen eye radiating heat. When she finishes his neck she pours some raw honey into her cup, and dissolves it in the water before pouring it over his eye. He licks his cheek where it runs down his face.

‘Thank you,’ he says, and then, through a mouthful of crumbs, ‘My sister is dancing now.’

‘In earnest?’

He nods.

‘I wish I had known,’ she replies, then stops herself. She had been about to say there was space enough in the cart. But she cannot trust Daniel with this information.

‘They will lead them all from the city soon, when St Vitus’ effigy is ready.’

‘What effigy?’

He smiles, smug with knowledge, and takes another bite of bread. ‘The Twenty-One have ordered an effigy built from wax. Now the musicians are gone, the plague must end. They will take the effigy to the shrine and burn it in his honour.’

So this is what they need their wax for. She looks over his head, at their skeps ranged so neat and peaceful, the bees’ hum. And she must plunder them for all they have.

‘Who is this?’ Mathias stands in the doorway, blinking in the light. He looks very old, every line on his face picked out in shadow, his sparse hair mussed by sleep. Ilse immediately stands and hurries to her grandfather, pulling him outside to give him her seat.

But Daniel, his meal eaten and sores salved, stands without greeting or thanks. He snatches the last of the honey, and takes off at a run.

‘No one,’ says Lisbet. Beside the feeling of unease, there is sadness. Daniel seems entirely taken in by Plater – if she had the means to remove the boy from his influence, she doubts there would be much left to save. ‘Mathias, I need your help.’

‘Anything,’ he says, his hand resting on Ilse’s head.

‘There is much work to be done.’

•

It is as though she has stepped through her own shadow, and exists suddenly on the other side of her life. There are children running among the skeps in small, makeshift wicker masks, children at her elbow, learning the bees. So many children, she must kill a chicken to feed them, and shows Ilse how to strip and stuff it with herbs.

This is what they eat, those two days. Mathias keeps the fire hot as he can, while Lisbet and sometimes Ilse work through at the hives, Lisbet doing the skilled work of melting and straining and re-forming the wax into thick cylinders, large as she and Mathias can lift. It is the work of many men, and she revels in it. It keeps her alert and strong, though she is so much on her feet her ankles have swelled thick as her knees, and her back aches perpetually.

Sophey will have reached St Vitus’ shrine by now. Lisbet imagines her washing Nethe and Ida’s bruised feet, wonders if they danced the whole way there. Soon the effigy will be built, Henne will return, the stages will be dismantled in the streets. She will forget Eren.