Edith knew her silence to be her only protection, an impenetrable shield against him. She listened as he went against the grain of all he believed with the promise of a wedding dress. Did he think that was enough to buy him her consent? A way to appease his conscience? What role, Edith wondered, had he played in Demetrius’ disappearance? She didn’t doubt that he had something to do with it.

Her silence rattled the butcher. He was used to noise, the squeals of dying animals, his daughters bickering, his granddaughter arguing. But in this thick silence he could hear his own unanswered questions.

‘Should have shaved better,’ he said as he ran his hand over his chin. There was not another sound to disturb the peace. The butcher cleared his throat. He told himself Edith would come round to the idea of being married. He was doing a good thing. It was simple: her father was a drunkard; she needed a husband and, although he was old enough to be her father, he was also the most powerful man in the village.

‘Good,’ he said standing, hitting his hat on his legs. ‘That’s agreed. I’ll ask the seamstress to visit you.’

The cabinet maker was waiting on the verandah.

‘Everything all right?’ he asked.

The butcher was startled to hear someone speak.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Give me a silent woman any day.’

Her father told Edith she should be grateful that an upstanding man was prepared to marry her.

‘There was gossip after you were born. People said your mother must have brought you back from the goblin market. Quiet!’ he shouted at the silence between them. ‘I need some peace.’

And taking his pipe he went to his room to drink his brandy.

Edith held to the memory of her shepherd. Their future was gone and only a dark forest stood waiting. Her loss of speech and the loss of her lover were as one; her grief a leaden sadness. A month, just a month, and she would be married to the butcher whose hands smelled of blood.

Chapter Nine

A Pretty Penny

Every spring, just after the snow had melted, the seamstress would say farewell to her brother the blacksmith, leave the village and make the long journey into the nearest town. There she would stay in rooms rented from the Schmidts. She would wear her own gowns and make dresses for wealthy ladies who pored over French fashion plates and wanted nothing to do with the traditional costumes of the region. In the winter, before the heavy snow set in and made the roads impassable, she would return to the village, content to abide by its customs, its strict rules regarding clothes, and never talk about what she did for a living.