He says it lightly enough, but Lisbet knows his meaning.

‘He is a brute,’ says Lisbet. ‘Disregard all he says.’

‘But he sent us to you?’ asks Eren, lifting the lid from the clay pot. It comes unwillingly, stuck fast with dough sealing the rim.

‘Baeckeoffe?’ she says wonderingly, leaning forward as far as her belly will allow to breathe it in. ‘Did Sophey give you scraps?’

‘This is from Mathias Metz,’ says Eren, pushing the pot close to her. It is thick and brown as mud, and she can see white bones slipped clean from their flesh. ‘He seems to care for you all.’

‘He is my best friend’s father,’ says Lisbet, dunking her crust inside. ‘She is married to Plater.’

The stew is still warm from the baker’s oven, and she feels sweat spring up anew on her lip, shields her mouth to wipe it away. She pushes the clay pot back to him.

‘You must have some.’

‘It is not for me,’ he says.

‘Join me,’ says Lisbet. ‘I cannot eat alone.’

He ducks his head, and dips the corner of the bread into the stew. He is a careful eater. She had noticed this before, but now it is clearer with such a messy meal before them. There are no crumbs on his beard, and no stew drips to stain his shirt. He reaches forward and dips the bread again, and she mirrors him, marvelling at how easy their silence is. His wrist is roped with veins.

He sees her looking, and places his hand into his lap. ‘Apologies, I am not a skilled sewer.’

She frowns. ‘I do not . . .’

He holds up his arm, showing the small rip extending from the edge of the cuff and upwards an inch or so. It is closed by straggly twine, too thick for the weave of the fabric, tearing larger holes. ‘The strings sometimes catch,’ he says. ‘When I play.’

‘What is it?’ She indicates the stringed instrument.

‘A lute. My father’s, once. It is a little broad for my handspan, hence the torn sleeve. But if I do not leave them down, it is my skin that catches.’

He pushes his cuff up higher, and she sees scars there, pale as the stitches are dark on his shirt, an echo in opposite colours. Black hairs stripe his forearm. Her heartbeat becomes apparent in her ears, and she forces a laugh.

‘I must fix that for you, or else the thread will rip.’

‘I would not think to ask you—’

‘Please,’ she says. ‘It is no trouble.’

‘Now?’ he asks, and though she had not thought now at all, she nods.

He rises to change his shirt, and she listens to the sleeping house, the forest mute with another windless night, and brushes crumbs from her skirts. The smell of the stew is rich, and she wants to lift the earthenware pot to her lips and lap it up like a cat.

‘Here.’ He stands in a darker shirt, more worn even than the one he holds out, thin as skin. She takes it – it is still warm from his body – and crosses to the shelf where the box of thread and yarn and needles and patches is kept. She selects the palest thread, which she herself had drawn from a spindle for Henne’s wedding shirt, and a bone needle fine as a hair.