I dig under the shawl to feel my wound, but my fingers find metal, hard and cold. It takes a moment to remember it’s the brass sin eater collar. My thumb catches on something along it. A nick or a notch, not far from where Black Fingers’s knife dug in. My collar stopped his knife. Or hindered it. A laugh starts, but what comes out is a sort of gasp and choke.

‘Oh, look now. She’s cut, Paul. Badly at the neck,’ says the woman.

‘Shall we wait for her to die?’

‘Never such a soul as you,’ scolds the woman. She must not have seen the collar yet, covered as it is by the bloodied shawl. She comes closer. I try to pull back, but my body won’t obey. ‘Now, now,’ the woman shushes. ‘Would you rather I do as Paul suggests and play at bone dice until you pass?’ She has a smell about her. It takes a moment to name what it is. Rotting meat.

She tugs at the shawl, but it’s my flesh that’s pulled up as if cloth and skin are stuck. ‘Not so big, but deep. A stitch or three might do.’ Her fingers don’t find the collar. ‘Have you a home, dearie? Paul’s a knack with a needle if you’ve a hearth fire for two honest beggars.’

Honest beggars. One thing you can’t trust about beggars and vagabonds is that they’re honest. They’ve no kin and no home. No folk can speak for them. They could be thieves, murderers, heretics . . . but what choice do I have?

Once they know I’m a sin eater I figure they’ll surely desert me, so I’ll get what I can before they do. It’s not lying, just not telling. My arm is heavy as stone as I raise it up. But raise it I do, and point the way to Dungsbrook.

The man, Paul, carries me. He’s younger than his rags suggest, and strong. There’s something about his face I can’t quite figure in the dark. Like clotted cheese stuck in his beard. They both go about silently, and we stop once in a doorway as a warm lamp and its constable sway past.

I point the way at each turn till I can tell by the smell we’ve reached Dungsbrook. As we get close, I’m a girl again in Da’s arms, letting my full weight rest against his warmth, feeling the bounce of his step. I want to fall fast asleep here in this moment, safe in these arms.