The relief of hearing it spoken is almost painful. ‘I understand.’

‘Then you must also understand, that while I am not your father, your brother, your husband, not anything but a friend, I am certain when I say this. You are not the cause of all you have described to me.’

Lisbet laughs hollowly. ‘You do not know me well enough—’

‘Please,’ he says. ‘Now may I speak?’

She catches her laughter, swallows it.

‘The Church believes in such things as cursed centuries. It believes manias can be cured by effigies, it prays to heal broken bones. It believes lost babies are punishment for sins. But there are other ways, other beliefs. I have encountered many from childhood, growing as I did with a foot in each world. In the land of my father, we have a different prophet. The medicine there relies on herbs and splints. We write our histories so they cannot be twisted and taken from us, cannot be misread.’

‘You are speaking blasphemy,’ says Lisbet.

‘Another word that is different according to whose mouth it comes from. I prefer to think of it as another way of living the same, good life. I believe you have been misread, Lisbet, since birth. A dozen women lose their lives, or their minds, every day. A hundred children were born the night of the comet. A thousand farmers lost their harvests in the same storms. The rebels fight because they too believe there are different ways to live. That maybe your priests have gone astray. Even your mother-in-law believes so. I have heard her praise Geiler.’

‘That is not the same,’ says Lisbet. Heat is growing at the base of her neck. ‘And there is no misreading Mutti’s calamities—’

‘My own mother had a fever of the brain that rendered her speechless for a month. My sister died of the same. My wife, my child – these are all calamities, Lisbet. And they are nothing to do with you.’

He might have struck her. She holds her fist to her chest, where she feels the blows of his words land. No one has ever offered her this scope before. No one, not the priests, nor her prayers, have offered her such a gift as to place a different pall over her entire life.

‘You think this true?’

‘With all my heart, I do. But can you?’ He leans into her. ‘Can you believe it too?’

She doesn’t try to argue. She does not cry blasphemy. She chooses, in this place she herself has appointed as sacred, to nod. ‘I do.’

With those words, she feels it, all of it, lift from her shoulders, and travel up through the branches of the dance tree, spinning away through the stifling air. Tears run from her eyes.

‘Do you understand me?’ he asks, gently. ‘You can loose it now, Lisbet. Leave it behind.’

She looks at him. She wipes her cheeks. Smiling, she nods. ‘I will.’

His shoulders slump, as though he shares her relief. ‘Good then. You must look to the future. What next? When the baby comes?’