Fresh terror grips her now, and she rises to her feet. There is a cracking sound to her left. Ulf barks twice. Then another crack, and he is silent. Lisbet listens, and calls for the dog. He makes no reply. It has happened, she thinks. He has been taken.

She snatches up the stick he fetched, the bark flaking but the central column weighty, and creeps in the direction Ulf ran. There is just enough sound to follow: rustling, a path being taken through the brittle trees. She stops often to listen, holding her breath, closing her eyes the better to hear. It is like the game she would play with her brothers, a stinking piece of sacking tied about her eyes and them spreading through the wide gullies of the fields, clapping her closer as she nosed towards them in the self-made dark.

She follows the noise to a break in the trees she knows well enough. It is the path leading to the dance tree, and she swallows drily, the faint tang of the river hitting the back of her throat. Perhaps the desperates have found it at last, have made it into a camp. She imagines all her babies’ ribbons torn down, the platform filled end to end with bodies. She longs to go for help, but there is no one she can turn to. She is alone utterly. But she cannot abandon Ulf to his fate. If it is not already too late, she will go and bargain with them. They can have all the bread from her table, all the honey she sluiced from the wax.

She takes the path, whistles as high as she can and as often as she dares in the hope Ulf will hear and return to her. Her damp feet scrape inside her shoes, and all the refreshment of the river is forgotten, replaced by the hot flush of her fear. Now she hears a voice, low, and Ulf barks once more.

Lisbet moves faster, careless now of noise, pulling her skirts up high. She smells a fire, smoke not yet visible, but sending its tendrils up her nose, the clean scent of very dry wood. She grips the stick tighter, and a shard splinters, sticks deep into her skin. The bloom of pain sends courage through her blood, and she grits her teeth as she reaches the clearing, presses into the shadows of a young linden, and peers ahead.

A fire burns, recently tended, pale grey smoke rising and a rusty kettle crouched like a toad in the embers, a log dragged beside as a seat. There is no sign of Ulf, nor his abductors.

It is reckless to enter the clearing without knowing their location, but this is what she does. As she breaks her cover, the low voice comes again, and Ulf barks twice.

They are in the tree. Weight shifts above her, the boards straining, and she moves closer to the trunk, seeking out a snicket of emptiness that will allow her to see through the gaps in the slats. There is movement now, and she can hear the clumsy slap and skitter of Ulf’s paws as he runs about the platform.