The maid notices me behind her and knocks again. ‘Madam?’

‘You may not enter!’ urges the voice.

The maid holds out the ewer for me.

Inside is Goodwife Twarby and her daughter, a girl no older than me. But it’s not Goodwife Twarby who’s labouring, it’s the daughter. There’s a wooden spoon between the girl’s teeth. Her mother wipes her brow as the labour pains come.

Goodwife Twarby wears a loose gown of the sort women wear when they’re with child, but as she takes the ewer from me, the bulge under the gown squashes under her elbow like it’s made of blood moss or wool batting. The daughter whimpers through the spoon, and the mother takes up the moan loud enough to carry down the stairs.

I wonder if the housemaids have fallen for this ruse. The goodwife and her daughter are not the first to try. Even the rumour of lost virginity stains an unmarried girl for good. There’s girls cast out of their own homes for less.

The daughter’s Recitation is quick. Fornicating, it comes as no surprise. Not much besides, not even disobeying her parents. So many with such worse sins, yet this girl’s the one who’s stained.

Finally it’s time for Tilly Howe’s Eating. I look for more messengers as I make my way to the castle, just to be sure there aren’t any more Recitations to be done, but none find me. The Eating it must be. With luck, it will be too small an affair to draw the likes of Black Fingers.

A maid guides me through the servants’ quarters. Grooms carry parcels and guards pull at their stockings. We stop for a moment for porters bringing in ale barrels. There’s one shaft of sunlight coming in a window along the passage, so I take a peek while we wait.

The window looks out onto a garden where some courtiers play at bowling. The sky’s lightened some, at least enough for the bowlers to make a go of it. They strut and scratch like cocks on bony legs. Beyond the bowling on a stone bench, I see a man alone. There’s a tingling in my guts. The Country Mouse.

What is he doing on the bench alone? Mayhap he dislikes bowling. Then I remember he said the other highborn folk look down on him for being from the North. The porters behind me are still loading ale barrels, so I settle in for a gander. He’s looking at something in his hand. A coin? A pocket clock? His ring. Thinking of his friend from home. I wish I could keep him company.