I’m thirsty by the time I reach the tavern row in Northside, so I pull open the door to the worst-looking alehouse on the lane. It’s barely lit, with dark corners where nasty things can happen. The kind of place I imagine my Daffrey uncles might go.

The alewife eyes me through the murk. When she sees me proper, she stands up straight. ‘Sissy?! Sissy?! It’s the sin eater come!’

There’s the clatter of a pot in the kitchen, and a woman’s voice calls out, urgent, ‘What does she want? Give her what she wants!’

‘You do it!’ calls the alewife.

‘I surely will not!’ answers the kitchen voice.

The alewife lifts a whole cask of ale from a low shelf and places it on the floor in front of me. ‘There we are,’ she says like I’m an unbroken horse she means to calm.

‘Has she gone?’ calls the kitchen voice.

‘Not yet!’ shrills the alewife.

I just wanted a cupful, but a cask will do. I lift its weight and push open the door with my bum. There’s a hiss from one of the black corners of the alehouse. I hiss back.

Paul and Frederick are asleep wrapped in their cloaks when I arrive home. Brida’s tucked into my rug in front of the hearth. In the corner is a stranger woman atop my mattress brought down from the loft.

‘Jane’s with child,’ Brida says aloud in explanation.

Again, I see. Beside the stranger is one sleeping babe. On her back is another, this one watching me with dark moon eyes. The firelight catches the stranger’s features. Hair smooth like a still pool. Skin light-coloured like bread taken from the oven too soon. Her babes look less like strangers, but still with some strange in them. Most likely a whore, this one. No doubt come to town for the Queen’s upcoming revels.

I place the ale cask down by the ewer.

‘Jane’s from the other side of the world,’ Brida says with laboured brightness, mayhap to cover the awkwardness of having taken my mattress.

‘Rest yourself, Brida,’ says Jane, the sound of her words are as plain as if we grew up neighbours. The care in the words is also plain, though I see Jane keeps her distance.

I go to Paul’s sleeping body and finger about his pockets. He starts up, waking Frederick too, but I’ve already pulled a thin blade from its leather sheath. Paul cries out and holds his hands to his face, but I’m back at the cask knocking out its keystone with the knife’s handle. Once tapped, I pour the ewer full of ale.

Paul, Brida, Frederick, and Jane watch out of the sides of their eyes to see what I’ll do next. Jane’s children watch Jane. What I do is drink.

What would my mother do in a moment like this? I ask myself.