We pass the tapestry of the goat-deer, its wefts made of rough wool. Then the one showing unicorns made of finer wool and so brightly dyed the trees behind the creatures look real. I pass more tapestries, each more valuable than the last, so I know we’re returning to the Queen’s own chambers. Behind the messenger, I trail my fingers across the hangings, feeling the weaves grow finer and finer without even needing to look.

I’m left in the Queen’s sitting room again. The Painted Pig who was at Corliss’s Recitation is atop a stool embroidering a red figure on a yellow field. Her ruff today is so large I don’t know how she sees over it to make her stitches. Above her on the wall is the naked-lady tapestry that looks like the Queen. Diana of the Wood, Mush Face had called it.

Mush Face herself is nearby, looking at drawings in a book. I can see shapes with horns and crosses.

The Painted Pig pauses to wave her embroidery at Mush Face’s book, ‘In plain sight? With the Queen’s physician even now interrogating suspected witches?!’

‘The ancient scholars were witches, were they?’ asks Mush Face, not looking up from the book.

‘That is no Greek scholarship, I know that much,’ mutters the Painted Pig.

Mush Face turns a page. My slippers are uncomfortable. I look down to find I’ve put them on the wrong feet, and the left foot, which is longer, pinches in the toe of the right.

‘Womanly arts like stitching are too good for you?’ the Painted Pig goes on, raising her stitching. I see now it’s a badge she’s making, most like her family heraldry.

‘You’re uneasy,’ says Mush Face to the Painted Pig, eyes still on her book. ‘I could fetch some wine to calm your nerves.’

‘I don’t need wine,’ snaps the Painted Pig. ‘There are queer happenings these days. Poppets, pomegranates, deer hearts . . . We are in danger. And you’ – the Painted Pig looks at Mush Face – ‘sitting there with your books thinking yourself so clever.’

‘Perhaps it is because I am.’ Mush Face finally looks up. She catches me from the side of her eye but doesn’t startle. ‘Shall I fetch that wine?’ Mush Face offers again.

At that moment a maid arrives. ‘Begging your pardons, great ladies,’ she curtsies. ‘The guards were meant to show the’ – she stops and clears her throat – ’the sin eater to the chamberers’ rooms.’

‘Who is it she’s called for?’ asks the Painted Pig.

‘Tilly Howe, milady. Old Doctor Howe’s daughter.’

Like a great tree yielding to a woodcutter, the Painted Pig shrieks once, then faints dead away off her stool.