‘Then search in the costumes,’ says Black Fingers impatiently. Through the clothes I see a guard spear a pile of clothes in a trunk.

‘Don’t stand there like asses!’ Black Fingers calls. The actors’ feet begin to move too. One of them comes to the far end of the rack I’m behind.

‘It took the elder sin eater two hours to die under the press,’ comes Black Fingers’s voice. Maker mine, he knows it’s me. Fair Hair must have told him. ‘First her blood was pushed into her head and limbs. Her fingers and toes turned purple and swelled like potatoes.’ The air gets thick in my chest. I try the tent wall behind to see if I might slip under it, but it’s staked down tight. ‘Then the veins of her eyes popped and wept blood. That was in the first minutes.’ I feel the clothes swaying as the actor makes his way along the rack, looking between garments. I slide until I’m at the rack’s end, hiding behind the very last robe. Beyond is just open ground between me and the guard stabbing at clothes in trunks. ‘Mmm.’ Black Fingers goes on. ‘Her rib bones broke through her flesh, and all her juices dribbled out, like a goose on the spit.’ The actor’s fingers appear above me. I close my eyes tight as a sob rises in my throat. But no, I’ll face my end like my mother would. I open my eyes and from deep in my throat summon a mouthful of spittle. Before he rats me out, I’ll spit in his face. The actor pulls the robes apart.

It’s Paul.

The moment lasts a lifetime. Me taking him in. Him seeing it’s me. A faint sound as he catches his breath. Paul, who if not for Brida, would have left me to die in the apothecary lane. Who nearly stoned me. Who called me pollution and filth. Who has armed guards and the Queen’s secretary at his back ordering him to find me. I already know he’ll give me up. I should hawk my spittle smack in his eye now before he does it.

But I don’t. Suddenly I don’t want to face my end like my mother, tussling like a fox. I want to face it the way I imagine Ruth did, strong. I swallow the spit. I look him dead in the eye, not hard, not shaky, just steady.

Paul looks at me back. Not hard, not shaky. Soberly.

‘There’s no folk here,’ Paul calls to Black Fingers, letting the robe fall back around me.

I choke back a giggle, nearly giving myself away.

‘She came in here!’ Black Fingers hisses. I hear the slap of a hand hitting Paul’s face, and the thud as he lands hard on the ground.