‘All the dried plums in town.’ Brida smiles. Plums are for fornicating with those you should not, like in incest. I wonder if they are sister and brother. He sounded like a Northerner, after all.

Paul tugs the thread through my flesh, and I feel warm, new blood. Still, he’s clever with the needle. I never feel his skin against mine. Brida presses a soft cloth to my neck. It’s blood moss for between your legs when you’ve got your monthly courses. Paul must have found it up the ladder in the loft. Another prick and tug, and another. I seem to be in a river wherry again from the way the floor tilts and turns. And then somehow I’m back in my truckle bed, the one I had as a small child. The sound of my parents’ breath soothes me to sleep.

When I wake, there are three stripes of daylight on the far wall. Brida appears above me. Through her gaping nose hole I see the white of bone.

She leaves the old black pot from above the hearth at my side. It’s been cleared of cobwebs and warmed. I lift it and pour weak broth into my mouth. It tastes of sharp onion and mould.

Brida sits on the stool. Paul’s sleeping hump rises and falls beyond. I finger the cloth at my neck. It’s dry. Then sleep swallows me back.

When I wake again, the light says it’s afternoon. Paul’s peering out of a crack in the shutters. ‘A whole group,’ he says.

‘For us? Have they come for us?’ There’s fear in Brida’s voice. ‘It’s the witch who made that poppet they want.’

‘One of the Queen’s own ladies died just after that poppet was found. They’ll sweep up any they can easily lay the blame on,’ Paul tells her. ‘And if you don’t look like Eve’s own handmaiden, who does?’

‘I thought she might be a victim of the witch.’ Brida points towards me. ‘Terrible thing.’ As if they hadn’t been ready to rob my dead body.

‘There’s no constable with them,’ Paul assays through the shutters. ‘It looks to be merely a pack of dirty boys, Maker help us. I hope they don’t want food.’

Messengers. I rise, my neck burning, and swoon back onto the rug.

‘Oh, now, it’s too soon for her to be up and about,’ says Brida to the room.

My head conjures an image of the Sin Eater beneath the castle in some hell.

I could still tell the Queen of the deer heart, I think. But, no, I vowed to the Maker I would not speak if he spared me, except to do my duty as a sin eater.