‘No,’ says Hilde, her mouth pressed so close to the door Lisbet can see her gapped mouth, smell her rancid breath. ‘There are more.’

‘Hundreds!’ says Gunne, knocking his sister aside and hooking his chin through the gap.

‘Not hundreds,’ laughs Ida, pressing her thumb sweetly to his chin.

‘Not far off,’ says Daniel. ‘Mutter and Pater have gone to look.’

‘Can we go?’ says Gunne. ‘Can you take us?’

Ida clucks her tongue. ‘There’s no sense in seeing that. Just some women dancing. What shall I do with the basket?’

When they have passed through the Lehmanns’ rations and turned their backs on the hovel, Ida looks at Lisbet slyly. ‘I suppose we could go.’

Lisbet snorts. ‘What happened to “just some women dancing”?’

‘We might want to join in.’

‘That’s not funny,’ says Lisbet. ‘You didn’t see her. If they’re like the first was—’

She swallows her sentence. She doesn’t have the words, doesn’t want to voice it, nor the familiarity she felt, the recognition bred from years by her mother’s bedside. ‘It’s hardly a dance. It’s ugly, Ida.’

‘But it’s something happening,’ says Ida, sounding petulant as a child. ‘Please, all I have at home is my father.’

‘And your boys, your girl.’

‘Joys, always,’ says Ida dryly. ‘We can have time together this way. And it’s my cart, so you have to come.’

It is impossible to dissuade her, and it is easier for Lisbet to sit in the cart than to stand her ground. Soon they are over the familiar bridge, and into the market square. It is full of the emptied congregation of Notre Dame, of street preachers and beggars. They distribute the last of the food within moments, but when they look about for the promised hundreds caught in mania, there is no sign.

‘See,’ says Lisbet, relieved. ‘Rumours. Can we go?’ It is hotter here with the press of people, Lisbet thinks she could stir the air like stew. But Ida pays a man to watch the cart, and asks him where the dancers are.

‘There.’ He points in the direction of the horse market. ‘There’s a stage, now. Another at the tanners’ guild.’

‘A stage?’ Ida’s voice is bright with excitement, and Lisbet feels her throat tighten. ‘They’ve closed the guilds?’

The man nods. ‘Nowhere else to put them. The physicians say the only thing is to leave them to it.’

Ida spins to Lisbet and takes hold of her hand. ‘For them to cease trading in the guilds – this is grave, Lisbet!’

Her voice however is not, and her grip is too tight. Lisbet tries to prise her fingers free, but Ida is pulling her towards the horse market, and Lisbet must be intent upon her feet, avoiding the worst of the muck.

She likes the horse market. It has a green scent, like the fields at her father’s farm, and the snickering horses have kind eyes and smell of hay and home. But as they reach the bounds, the smell is all human. Sweat and dank breath, and Lisbet hears jeering, and beneath it, drumming.