He speaks again. ‘I would welcome a kind word. Excepting my father, all the world knows my suit for the Queen is fruitless, and they haven’t minced words in telling me.’ He pulls at his ruff. ‘And these pleated collars you Southerners wear are uncomfortable, useless, and take an awful lot of starching.’

A laugh comes out of my mouth before I can help it.

‘And now you laugh,’ he says as if I’m mocking him, but then he starts to laugh a little too. ‘I’ve told you something about me, and now I’ve ferreted out something about you. You know about washing clothes. Look at that, we’re nearly old friends. Perhaps you can help me pass the time until the Queen declines my marriage suit and I can return home. How about it, old friend?’

A thought comes, Mayhap he won’t mind. Mayhap I could show him my S, and he would still want to know me.

I reach for my collar, but slapping footfalls in the passage turn his head. A young man appears wearing scarlet hose that make him look like a rooster. ‘Dallying with a maid? Not a means to ply your suit with the Queen. Your father would be’ – but he cuts off his words because my collar has come free of my shawl – ‘that’s a sin eater!’

I look to the Country Mouse. His colour drains away. The Rooster tugs on his sleeve. The Country Mouse drops his eyes and follows him away down the passage. I hear the old rhyme in my head:

Said the Country Mouse to Cousin Town Mouse, ‘Adieu,

Town life may do for you,

But I prefer bacon and beans secure from harm

To feeding on fine cakes in fear and alarum.’

The older Sin Eater’s not happy when I finally catch up to her in the courtyard. I think on the Country Mouse all the way back through town. How his cheek had little pins of dark hair that needed shaving. How his voice got happier when he learned I knew about washing. Imagine, a rich folk who cares that a girl knows about washing.

We make one more stop, at a merchant’s house. In the kitchen there’s a small box, a roll atop it. The cook and steward, the only folk to witness, stand with heads bowed. Such fragile things, babies. How can there be so many grown folk, when so many babies die?