‘Heidelberg has five churches and a university. I have found lodgings in the north beside the horse market, and each day I go to the cleric with my petition. I will be another week at least.

‘This is likely to be my only letter, but be assured I will come safe home before my boy is born. Henne.’

Lisbet looks up. ‘That is all?’

‘That is all.’ Eren lays the parchment down.

‘Excuse me, I must . . .’

She stands up and pushes out through the door to the yard, Ulf following at her heels. Behind her, Lisbet hears Eren call softly, but she ignores him. Something is hot and sharp in her chest and beneath her eyelids.

What had she been expecting? What was she hoping for? Safety for the bees, at most. Affection for her, at least. All she hears in her ears as she strides past the fluttering quiet of the chickens, and the ceaseless hum of the skeps, is my boy my boy my boy.

Has he always said this? My boy? No, not with any of the others. He could not hold love for them, only offers this child such an address because it has stayed longer than them. Lisbet though, she loved them all, they were all hers and are still. She alone prayed constantly for their survival, cried at their leavings, begged Henne for his seed until she felt like a common hure and not half as desired. My boy. No, it is her boy, just as the others were, her boys and her girls, her children. She has not bled and degraded herself so many times over for Henne to assert his ownership, not when his devotion has come so little, so late.

She goes into the forest, because Henne has forbidden it. The moonlight is bright as the sun and the shadows are cool. The relief of it is delicious as fresh water poured down her throat.

She takes a sharp turn, away from any familiar path. Ulf hesitates – he was a little ahead and now hears her veering – but of course he follows her, his tail lifting and hitting her skirts as he passes her. My boy my boy my boy. Branches snatch at her clothes, twigs slip themselves beneath her soles and trap inside the wood of her clogs, but she pushes on until her heart beats louder than the phrase and she is panting. She is running, she realises now, and she comes to a halt, feeling the baby settle inside her.

She wraps her arms over herself, and bends to whisper an apology. But in the sudden silence, she understands something is changed. Ulf is growling. And ahead, there are voices. A man and a man and two women. Now, in the bright moonlight, she can see them – four of them, their hair a thatch and standing so close together they could be one person.

She stumbles back, and the forest takes her quickly, slipping her from view neat as a coin into a pocket, but the sound she makes in her hurry causes them to turn.