Henne sits up with a groan. She can see him rubbing his eyes in the low, slatted light, his skin cream in the darkness.

‘Go back to sleep,’ she says, harsher than intended.

He throws off the tangle of the sheet from about his ankles, and stands, becoming more solid in the gloom. She has always liked his sturdiness, the square block of him firm from his work at the forest, the tracery of scars from the bees at his wrists, from before they knew and trusted him. She desires him still, though he does his duty after every failed birth with his eyes closed. Now, he sees her watching him and turns away to dress.

She opens the shutters, wafting the bee back towards free air. The trees cover everything, edging up to the boundary of their scraped-out farm, where roots must be hacked and cleared in an endless battle. Already there is light above them, purplish as the streaks on her belly. Dawn arrives right into their room, though there is never time to watch it come.

Heaviness lands on her shoulders: Henne’s arm, arranging a shawl. It is the most he has touched her in days, weeks perhaps. He withdraws just as fast. She shrugs it off, catching it and bundling it over a chair.

‘Too hot.’

He sighs. There was a time when he found even her complaints charming. He would chuckle, call her schatzi, sweet one. Hadn’t she been standing at this window, newly married and complaining of the cold, the first time he put a baby in her? If she stands here long enough perhaps he will remember, will hold her. She hears him pissing into the pot. The baby shifts.

She waits until he is done before turning, her belly knocking the window frame. ‘I’m going to walk.’

He holds the pisspot. ‘I’ll come.’

She shakes her head, already slipping on her thinnest dress, stinking from constant wear. She feels the familiar hum inside her, the desire to go to the bees and her tree, to be alone there with her babies before the day begins. ‘What if Agnethe arrives?’

His shoulders stiffen: she hears the hitch in his breath. He is worried about his sister’s return. In their earlier days perhaps she could have asked him why. Now there is such a chasm between them she dare only skirt the pit of it.

‘She will not be here for hours. It is treacherous to descend the mountain before light, and the abbey is a day’s ride.’

He has pulled on his clogs before she has forced hers over swollen toes. When she presses the puff of her ankle, the mark stays like her body is fresh clay recently pulled from the ground. He opens the door and they move silently through the dark house, and out into the yard.

Lisbet feels the air stick to her like dust, and she follows Henne with reluctance. He empties the pisspot, and has brought the last of the stale bread from the kitchen. He throws it to the chickens as they pass the coop.