‘Oh, but Katryna was kind to my father, let him bring me along when he worked. She was the one who warned him to burn his books when Maris came to the throne. A true believer in the new faith, he still is.’ Tilly holds herself still a moment, waiting for the pain to come and go.

‘Should get to it, shouldn’t I?’ Tilly gathers herself. ‘Goodness me. Here it is: I always liked a sweetie, I did. I fret my mother so, like as I was to pluck a plum from a pie before it was served,’ Tilly breaks again for the pain. But her story brings faint pink to her cheeks, and she seems to fare a little better than before. She goes through gluttony (her love of sweets), drunkenness (her love of wine), white lies from helping mothers in childbirth (‘the worst is past, now’s just pushing’). Like her father she had the knack for healing. She takes me through her life, sin by sin, pausing for pain.

My own mind wanders back to when I was young. When you’re little it’s like each moment is its own lifetime. I remember collecting leaves just past dawn one morning, brown, orange, yellow and soaked with rain so they stuck in great, flat cakes to the rake. Da and Mother came outside ready for the Makerhall, steam coming from their mouths like two pots on the fire. It was after the purgers came, but I still had the prayer beads Da had given me hanging from my apron.

‘Must throw them on the rubbish heap, May.’ Da’s eyes were full of brown leaves as he said it. I didn’t understand why a pretty gift from my da could matter to grown folk. ‘Do it now,’ he said while my mother stamped her foot to loosen a clod of mud from her shoe.

I threw my rake to the ground and refused. Mother had to hold me while Da took the beads. Later I understood folk were killed for such things. Wars were fought for such things, and might be again. Maris’s burnings, Queen Bethany’s purgers. Faith is a bloody business.