She tells Mathias of her plan, and he is unhappy. The encounter with his son-in-law has shaken the very meat of him, and he sees any breach of the farm’s boundary as asking for trouble.

‘Plater never bothers with the almshouses,’ says Lisbet. ‘You know this as well as me.’

‘You will not go to the city?’

Lisbet crosses her fingers behind her back. ‘No.’

She feels bad lying to Mathias, but the worry would be more harmful than the lie. She knows she will not be able to resist going to the cathedral, trying to learn news of the shrine, the dancers, the effigy that their bees gave all for.

Mathias sighs. ‘I’ll stoke the fire.’

They spend the day baking: coarse wide loaves that will fill hungry bellies, sweetened with honey. Ilse has her mother’s touch with dough, the muscles in her tiny forearms already strong. Away from their father’s influence, the boys have softened even as their sister becomes bolder. They cry for their mother and hang on Lisbet’s skirts, and take turns feeding Rolf. It is a lovely balance, to watch them all in these new roles, and Lisbet hopes Ida will soon return to see it.

The morning of the Feast of St Magdalene, Lisbet rises before the sun. She harnesses the long-suffering mule to the cart, and sets out for the slums, bringing Ulf – the dog has become her constant comfort and companion.

The road is quieter than last time she took it, and the trickle of people is all one way, all towards the cathedral for Mass. Lisbet stops at the outskirts and distributes the loaves to lacklustre thanks. There is no sign of the Lehmanns, their hovel boarded up. She remembers what Daniel said, about Hilde. She wonders if the effigy has yet left the city.

‘What do you think, Ulf?’

She eyes the spires. Dust hovers over them, the sunlight licking them to poisonous yellow. Why should she be afraid to approach? She has as much right to be there as any. Plater is only one man in several thousand, and likely kept busy on such an important day.

She places her hand on her stomach. Lately she has been talking to him, her boy, asking him for answers like others pray. And isn’t he just as much a miracle as God? The skin between her boy and her fingers feels like the divide between the living and the dead: so fragile, so charged with desire and fear. She should turn the cart around, go back to their farm, continue to wait, for him, for his father, for his aunt and grandmother and Ida.

Restiveness tickles her calves. Before she can think better of it, she flicks the reins, and follows the growing crowds in the direction of the market. The bells are ringing for Mass, running up and down their scales, offering their music in the musicians’ absence. She follows them like a master’s whistle until the increasing crowds block the cart’s way. Tying the mule at a trough, she and Ulf walk the rest of the way to the cathedral.