“Last one,” the man said. “You want me to come back for that box? It’s for the Old Ash, I take it?”

Is that where I’ll go after this? I thought. It hadn’t been a question, and now it was.

“Leave it for the moment,” I said.

The boy walked forwards, the man backwards, turning his head to the side now and then to check he wasn’t going to bump into anything. I followed them out of the Scriptorium and watched as they loaded the last of the pigeon-holes into the lorry. They closed the doors, got into the cab and drove out of the gates onto the Banbury Road.

“That’s it, then,” I said to Lizzie as I came back in.

“Not quite.” Still kneeling, Lizzie held the dustpan in one hand and a small pile of slips in the other. “They’re filthy, mind,” she said, handing them to me.

The slips were held together with a rusty pin and cobwebs. I took them outside and blew them clean, then returned to the sorting table. I spread the slips out. There were seven, each written in a different hand, with a quotation from a different book, a different time in history.

“Read them out,” Lizzie called from where she kneeled. “Let’s see if I’ve heard of them.”

“You’ve heard of them,” I said.

“Go on.”

“Bonde mayde.” Lizzie’s sweeping stopped. “Bound maiden, bondmaiden, bond servant, bond service, bond-maide, bondmaid.”

Their quotations were almost benign, but on three slips Da had written a possible definition: Slave girl, bonded servant, bound to serve till death.

Slave girl had been circled.

I remembered the top-slip finding me beneath the sorting table.

Lizzie sat beside me. “What’s upset you?”

“It’s these words.”

Lizzie moved the slips around, as if completing a jigsaw puzzle. “Will you be keeping them or giving them to Mr. Bradley?”

Bondmaid had come to me—twice now—and I was reluctant to restore it to the Dictionary. It’s a vulgar word, I thought. More offensive to me than cunt. Would that give me the right to leave it out if I was editor?

“It means slave girl, Lizzie. Has that never bothered you?”

She thought for a while. “I’m no slave, Essymay, but in my head, I can’t help thinking of myself as a bondmaid.”

Her hand went to her crucifix, and I knew she was thinking about the right way to say something.

When she finally let the crucifix rest, she was smiling. “You’ve always said that a word can change its meaning depending on who uses it. So maybe bondmaid can mean something more than what those slips say. I’ve been a bondmaid to you since you were small, Essymay, and I’ve been glad for every day of it.”