“Or longer. They have no idea.”

“Course they don’t,” Alinor whispered. “I remember coming here with my mother to see you when I was just a little girl.”

“And your grandmother. She brought you when I broke my leg falling from the apple tree. Three generations of wisewomen in your family, and faerie blood, no doubt. Does your daughter have the sight?”

“We don’t speak of it now, in these days.”

A grimace showed what the old lady thought of the mealy-mouthed generation. “Faerie crafts are a great thing to have in the family. But these days—well, nothing’s allowed, is it?”

“The minister must guide us,” Alinor said tactfully.

The old lady shrugged irritably. “What does he know?” she asked. “It’s not as if he’s a proper priest. He doesn’t even read the Mass.”

“Hush, Grandmother.” Alinor gave her the courtesy title for an old woman. “You know, he’s the minister appointed to guide us. And the rest of it is against the law now.”

“I think I can say what I like with my last breath.”

“Does your breath hurt you?” Alinor asked.

“I’ve had something pressing on my belly for years,” the old woman said. “It’s been squeezing the life out of me.”

“Why didn’t you send for me before?”

“What could you have done, my dear?”

Alinor nodded. If the woman had a growth in her belly then nothing could be done. A physician might dare to cut a brave man or woman for a gallstone, a barber surgeon might cut a tongue tie, or slice the gum to pull out a rotting tooth. Alinor herself had once cut a live baby from the belly of a dead woman; but a growth deep in the belly of a living patient was untouchable.

“I could’ve given you something for the pain.”

“I take a little brandy,” the old lady said with simple dignity. “And then sometimes I take a little of the Scots usquebaugh. And sometimes—on bad days—I take them both together.”

Alinor smiled at her. “Would you like some herbs to ease the pain now?”

“I’ll take a little brandy,” she agreed. “In hot water. With your herbs. And you can ask the girl—what’s her name?—if the minister comes out these days, and if there are prayers for the dying, for I think I’m ready.”

“I’ll ask Mrs. Hebden, your daughter-in-law,” Alinor reminded her.

“Yes, that’s her.” The old lady nodded. “Ask her what the minister does for the dying, if he does anything these days? Or if that’s all changed as well?”

Alinor rose to her feet and found that William Hebden was hovering at the scullery door. “She wants some brandy in hot water,” she said.

“We’ve got a little keg of brandy,” he said. “It was a gift. Not bought.”

Alinor understood at once that it was contraband: smuggled brandy. “No matter to me,” she reassured him. “And she wants to know if the minister will come to say the prayers for the dying?”