‘Nethe,’ snaps Lisbet.

‘My apologies,’ says Nethe, standing and bowing like a man. Ida giggles and Lisbet looks at her, astonished. What is inside these women? They have gone daft in each other’s company. ‘Please, good Turk, play us some music.’

Lisbet looks in apology to Eren, but he only lifts his lute. This time he plays something brisk and bracing, a jaunt with none of the intricacy of earlier. But it has Nethe pulling Ida to her feet, and soon the two women are hooting and stamping, testing Lisbet’s confidence in her work as the platform judders and rocks. They have not paused to light the candles, and the women are all glinting eyes and teeth.

Feeling out of place, Lisbet pulls herself back to give them more room, leaning against the trunk. Nethe again takes on the attitude of a man, swinging Ida wildly about beneath the canopy. This has always been a quiet place to Lisbet, akin to the church Nethe first recognised it as. But the music has filled it to the rafters, catching in the branches and shimmering the leaves, and it makes utter sense to her now why the pagans chose to have their halls so.

Eren runs straight into another tune, and the women dance and dance, tucking up their skirts to let their bare feet and calves show, until Ida begs Eren for something slower. He begins to play a threshing song, its melody familiar and even, and Ida reaches out a hand to Lisbet, gasping.

‘Come, you are not so old.’

Lisbet rolls her eyes and takes it, but Nethe must offer hers too before they are able to haul her to her feet. The three women whirl in the dance tree, hand in hand, a ring outside which Eren sits, anticipating and orchestrating their pace. Lisbet closes her eyes and lets Ida and Nethe guide her, her head spinning until she knows she will fall, fall and hurt herself and the baby both, fall from the tree if she does not stop spinning, does not open her eyes. But still she lets herself be led, around and around, until the music stops.

The women don’t break apart, but look at each other until Ida pulls them to her. Lisbet feels arms go about her, her belly clamped between them, hard as a pit. Lisbet feels Ida’s soft cheek against her own as she in turn encases them both with her arms, all of them swaying together, their hearts pounding against each other’s. Lisbet feels she could stay forever here, breathing with these women, held in the moment where she understands nothing and everything that is between them.

But then Ida looses them, and Lisbet collapses sideways against Nethe, solid and strong as her brother, who laughs and helps lower her once more to the platform.

‘No need for drink with a move like that,’ says Nethe, as Ida drops to her knees, panting.

‘I need water,’ she says. ‘It is too hot.’