Demetrius caught it before it struck Edith. Her father tried to free himself but with one swift movement Demetrius had him seated in a chair.

The cabinet maker was so surprised that for a moment he was quiet.

‘I’ve come to mend the roof,’ said Demetrius.

‘Go away,’ shouted the cabinet maker. ‘I regret that I ever…’ he stopped.

Demetrius never took his light blue eyes off him.

He waited until all the anger was gone, then said, ‘You will help me.’

Edith watched, incredulous, as her father followed Demetrius like a lamb and went to work. By the time the rain had stopped that evening the roof leaked no more.

‘How did you do that?’ Edith asked Demetrius after the supper plates were cleared away and the cabinet maker had retired to the inn.

‘I don’t know, but it works with sheep. It’s a knack that will be useful when dealing with your father after we’re married.’

Demetrius decided not to tell her about the butcher’s visit. Not that evening for it was their last until he returned. He played the violin as he had many nights and willed his soul to never leave hers. He felt that he had lived in shadows and only now in her silent gaze of love was there light.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked Edith as he put his violin away.

What she had been thinking was that he was the first person, apart from her grandmother, who had ever valued her, ever seen her for herself. But she didn’t say that.

What she said was, ‘Why do you love me? I have no worth in this village, I have no dowry.’

‘I knew when I first saw you that all that I would be, and all that I could be, lay with you,’ he said.

‘I feel the same,’ said Edith. ‘You are the clearing in the forest, a place of safety.’

‘Why a clearing in a forest?’ he asked.

‘My grandmother used to say the forest is the darkest place we know. We imagine it to be full of wolves, bears and the bloodless. There we hope to find the storyteller’s cabin, a place of safety, and to pick the berries that are redder than a red rose. I think love lies in the same forest and is no less hard to find.’

‘Then we’re blessed,’ he said.

They talked into the night, his lips gentle on her cheek as he whispered words of love. Their fingers entwined, they leaned closer together until they could feel the warmth of the other’s body.

The cabinet maker staggered into the yard that night cursing moon and man. He didn’t see them as two people. He saw them as one and was thrown when from the one Demetrius stood up.

‘Go home,’ shouted the cabinet maker. ‘Go home.’