She lets him rest against her a moment longer, before crossing the yard and moving around the outhouse to the marked-off realm of the skeps. The bees are at work in the boiling air, legs fat with pollen the priests say they stole. But her bees are no thieves.

The bees. They are their own. It was the first lesson they taught her, even as she coaxed them to the skeps. They are not dumb beasts: they have their own mind even if it is the mind of the king bee. This is why they are spoken of so often in church, their obedience, their duty. Geiler himself preached that as the bee flies into the sky, they are the soul entering heaven. But Lisbet knows what only those who tend to them know. That wildness is the key to their success, that freedom sweetens their honey. That you cannot truly keep bees. You can only make them want to stay.

The pressing shed is windowless and hot, thick with honey scent. It has been added to over the years, expanded as the number of their skeps did. She fetches bowls specially made for the bees. They are shallow, flat-bottomed, hollowed unevenly to allow the water to sit in little pools. It was Lisbet who suggested this shape, to make it easier for the bees to land and drink without drowning. Henne never minded the losses, too few to make a difference to the hive, but Lisbet couldn’t stand the tiny bodies upturned, the minute hooks of their feet exposed and their little souls stilled.

She pours the remaining wastewater into the bowls, then takes the nectar on the shelf, bound up in wax cloth so it will not stick. She breaks two combs off from the discard, leaves the mask on its hook. She doesn’t bother with the gloves either, using her bare finger to stir the nectar into the water of one bowl, then the other. It is soft from the heat, and disperses easily in the water. The smell fixes to her nostrils.

She wipes her finger dry and, lifting the bowls, goes back outside to the gate that marks the skep yard boundary. A few bees straggle across her path, one landing on her wrist a moment before lifting away. The first bowl she places beside the gate, walks with the second to the other end. The skeps seem to shift and rustle, the hum inside barely a whisper.

She thinks of the baby inside her, its workings formed, small heart and lungs and a white, white soul, and as she places the second bowl, she feels a kick, deliberate and hard, against her spine. Tears start in her eyes and she gasps with the pain and relief of it. She straightens, her closed fist low on her back, and knocks gently in reply.

The yard is still empty, Agnethe vanished and Sophey inside, both dwelling on the dancer. Lisbet wants to scrub the sight clean from her eyes. She checks once more the door is closed, that Sophey does not watch her leave. Snapping her fingers for Ulf to stay behind, she enters the shadows.