I pass the apothecary lane. A physician or a Jew, Jane said might know the word in the tapestry. Would an apothecary have enough learning? I remember how the apothecaries fled from me after my throat was cut. I hawk a good bit of spittle into the dirt of their lane, hoping I’m watched.

I stand again before the Domus Conversorum. There’s no music coming from within this evening, just cool darkness. The last time I was here I stirred up fear. Now I need the musicians’ help. I listen for any sign of them, but there’s nothing. Mayhap I dreamed them up.

Just then I hear the deep music of the chest rumbler, the stringed instrument as big as a man. It moves through me again, making me feel wistful, but I don’t know for what. Music’s like a spell that way, you feel things you don’t mean to. Even though I’m a curse, I say a little prayer for protection.

The stairs are as dark as before, and at the landing there’s just one flicker of light, this time coming from a door at the other end of the passage. I knock gentle, then push it open.

My mouth widens in delight. It’s a workshop as fine as any I’ve seen. All along the walls stand curved, wooden bodies of lutes and viols. The dark-haired, wiry man who played the chest rumbler sits with it between his legs fixing a string. Next to him is a worktable with joinery tools and other bits of wood that look to be pieces of instruments. On the table and floor are curls of wood like thick ribbons. It’s the workshop of an instrument maker.

The Instrument Maker lays the chest rumbler down as gentle as a babe, then rises back up to face me, a pincher tool clenched in his fist.

I hold out my hands to say I mean no harm, but the Instrument Maker only tightens his grip on the pincher.

‘Is mine place,’ he says. It’s like what Hairy Ears said before. ‘What you want?’

I wave his gaze away. He closes his eyes halfway like he’s laughing. Mayhap he’s poor-sighted. I pick up a tallow candle from the worktable to light my S collar. He cries out and ducks behind his bench. He remembers the hurled candles from my last visit.

I wait. When he’s sure I’m not throwing things, he stands back up. I show him the S again.

‘Sin eater, yes,’ he says. ‘I see it. What you want?’

My guts drop. What creature looks into the eye of a curse outside the protection of a Recitation? Mayhap the musicians truly are spirits.