Panic engulfed her. What if he’d had an accident? How would anyone know? The village elders must send a search party to find him. She dreaded asking them but she had no choice.

The head of the elders was the butcher and she was relieved he was standing behind his colleagues while she begged them to find Demetrius.

‘No,’ was their firm answer. ‘He is not from this village, not from this mountain. He knows little about our ways; he is not one of us.’

‘I am betrothed to him.’

‘Who says so?’ they asked.

‘My father gave his consent.’

‘He didn’t ask our permission. Were rings exchanged? Was there a betrothal supper?’

‘No, but none of that matters. We are engaged.’

It was as if a wall was falling on her brick by brick, all hope being buried. Why wouldn’t they help? The answer was simple. She could see it in the butcher’s hand.

He showed the elders the piece of paper Edith had signed.

‘No,’ they said again. ‘We will not search for the shepherd.’

Shaking with rage, Edith let out a howl of pain. It came from deep inside her, it rose to fill the room, loud enough to wake the mountain giant.

‘Silence,’ said the elders. ‘Such a noise is unseemly. Perhaps we should set a date for the wedding.’

‘No!’ cried Edith.

‘Not another word, woman.’

‘I can wait until the snow comes,’ said the butcher magnanimously. ‘After all, that was the promise.’

‘There will be no wedding,’ said Edith.

There was nothing more she could do. Only too aware of her powerlessness, she walked home with the elders’ word ringing in her ears, through her whole body. Silence. And she felt that the root of her tongue had begun to wither.

‘It’s what women do: bear sorrow quietly,’ she said to herself. ‘All our grief we keep hidden in empty wombs.’

She would go down to the stream in the evenings and look up at the mountain, hoping, praying that Demetrius would appear.

‘You know what happens to maidens who stay out after dark,’ her father would shout. ‘The bloodless come for them.’

Each day that autumn, she felt her words fall away. The cabinet maker, taking no notice, became more indebted to the butcher. She had tried to argue with her father but it was hopeless.

‘The butcher will destroy us if we don’t pay him back.’

She noticed as she said it that the words weighed heavy on her tongue. It had become difficult to speak.

‘But I will pay him back.’ A lie, another lie. Her father’s words corrupted by deceit. ‘The debts are cancelled the minute you marry him,’ said her father.

He was pleased to see the yard filled with logs and his cellar filled with wine, hams hanging in the kitchen and apples stored for the winter. And, better still, no sign of the shepherd.