The second shadow takes a step back and says, eyes to the floor, ‘We thank ye for your hospitality.’

‘Fine,’ says Paul.

I turn back to the ash letters, tracing my finger over them a second time.

Frederick leans over to look. He points to the little N with the dot next to it. ‘This is the mark for a constable, no?’

‘Wouldn’t know,’ the first shadow says, puffing himself up. ‘Upright rogues never use beggar’s marks.’

‘You found the sanctuary sign on the door well enough,’ says Frederick, sharp-like.

The shadow’s silent.

Brida squints. ‘Constable mark has a dot under, not beside it.’

Beggar’s marks. Sanctuary sign on the door. My mind chases after their words. Is that what the messenger took for a witch’s mark? A picture language for beggars and vagabonds. It explains why all sorts of folk keep coming in.

Jane looks up from her oysters and wipes her brow with the back of her hand. ‘What she’s drawn in the ash isn’t marks, it’s reading.’ Her voice is flat and tired.

‘Your doxy’s spoken,’ says one of the shadows to Frederick.

Frederick takes a closer look at what I’ve drawn. He shakes his head. ‘I read Anglish, French, and some Latin’ – he looks to Jane – ‘and this is not a word.’

Paul looks more closely. ‘The old tongues have different letters.’

Jane dumps the oysters into the pot. ‘Must ask a physician or a Jew.’

I click my teeth. How the fug am I to do that? The only physician I’ve met is a pig-slaughtering witch, and all the Jews were converted or driven away by the old king. Then I recall the musicians in the Domus Conversorum. The ones I threw burning wax at to scare.

‘Not happy, this one,’ says the first shadow, waving his hand at me like I’m giving off a smell. ‘Not happy at all.’

I hiss and run at him like a goose. He steps back, nearly tripping over Brida’s stump of a foot, and grabs the second shadow’s arm. ‘Oh, fug! What’s she doing?!’

I keep at them. The first shadow grabs his angling staff. With his head turned to the side, he waves it blindly in my direction like a sword. ‘Stay back.’

I herd them towards the door until both shadows stumble out of my house. Then I pick up the ewer and a rag.

The bang of the door startles the shadows who are hurrying away down the lane. I look over the mark on my door, two eyes astride a woman shape. I squeeze the water from the rag and scrub. This house is my sanctuary. It will be home for who I choose only. A reeking leper, a peevish cripple, a gabby-goose actor, a pregnant whore, and her bastards. My folk.

22. BRANDY POSSET