‘Look,’ shouts Lisbet, gesturing. ‘Your husband.’

Nethe swears, fear making her eyes blank as Ida’s become bright and panicked. Nethe takes Lisbet’s wrist in one sweaty palm, and Ida’s in her other, and drags them both towards the back of the guild.

There are no steps at this edge, but Nethe gathers her skirts and leaps down into the crowd easy as a cat. The watchers press back from her as though she is diseased, jeering as she reaches up and takes Ida by the waist, as she had only moments before as they span, and lifts her like a girl. The two women look at each other, and unease roils in Lisbet’s stomach.

‘Lisbet!’ It is Eren, beside Nethe, reaching up for her, and without thinking she throws herself forwards, her belly brushing his chest as he catches and lowers her carefully to the ground. The four of them make a chain of hands, as though they had planned it, as though they were children playing and any moment will burst into song.

Eren’s hand in hers is calloused and dry, Nethe’s mannish and strong, both sliding through Lisbet’s sweating fingers so she must redouble her grip on them. Is it her imagining that Eren squeezes back?

As they break out of the guild, Lisbet turns to where Plater and his men and his boy and their hooks weave glinting as needles, darting through the dancers. Daniel spins and laughs as though the hook is a partner, and as he does his eyes seem to snag on Lisbet’s. She ducks her head and shudders, taking gasping breaths of the stolid night air as Eren drags them clear of the guild, away and away until the drumming of a dozen dozen feet is swallowed by the carnival of the streets.

Eleven

When they are finally on the main road, Eren looses Lisbet’s hand. She grasps after the empty air a moment before dropping Nethe’s, and rounding on the women.

‘What in the Devil’s name were you doing?’ she hisses. A stitch has risen in her side, and it darns in time with her breath. Nethe stands with her head bowed, like a chastised child, but Ida steps forward, red blooms in her cheeks.

‘Not here, Bet,’ she says. ‘My father is trading. We must go further off.’

‘Then you are all the more foolish—’

‘Not here,’ Ida repeats. ‘Please.’

‘Come,’ says Eren softly, and it is for him that Lisbet allows herself to be drawn further up the road, her whole body aching, until they are at last able to step into the shadows of the trees where an hour before they broke into the mayhem of the night hawkers. In mute agreement their strange assembly draws away, until the forest has swallowed them and the sounds of the road whole.

Lisbet collapses onto a felled trunk, split to its rotted pulp by a long-ago storm. It is rough and soft, and she scrapes her nail into the mushrooms growing along its length, their earthy scent growing into her nostrils, subsuming sweat and candles and sour breath.