The firelight glowed on their wet gleaming skin and the girls talked quietly together, revelling in the steaming hot water, and the flickering warmth of the fire. Isolde combed Ishraq’s thick dark hair with oils, and then pinned it on top of her head. ‘Will you wash mine?’ she asked, and turned so that Ishraq could soap her back and shoulders and wash her tangled golden hair.

‘I feel as if all the dirt of the road is in my skin,’ she said, as she took a handful of salt from the dish beside the bath, and rubbed it with oil in her hands and then spread it along her arms.

‘You certainly have a small forest in your hair,’ Ishraq said, pulling out little twigs and leaves.

‘Oh, take it out!’ Isolde exclaimed. ‘Comb it through, I want it completely clean. I was going to wear my hair down tonight.’

‘Curled on your shoulders?’ Ishraq asked, and pulled a ringlet.

‘I suppose I can wear my hair as I please,’ Isolde said, flicking her head. ‘I suppose it is nobody’s business but mine, how I wear my hair.’

‘Oh, for sure,’ Ishraq agreed with her. ‘And surely the inquirer has no interest in whether your hair is curled and clean and spread over your shoulders or pinned up under your veil.’

‘He is sworn to the Church, as am I,’ Isolde said.

‘Your oaths were forced at the time, and are as nothing now; and for all I know his oaths are the same,’ Ishraq said roundly.

Isolde turned and looked at her, soapsuds running down her naked back. ‘He is sworn to the Church,’ she repeated hesitantly.

‘He was put into the Church when he was a child, before he knew what was being promised. But now he is a man, and he looks at you as if he would be a free man.’

Isolde’s colour rose from the level of the water, slowly to her damp forehead. ‘He looks at me?’

‘You know he does.’

‘He looks at me . . .’

‘With desire.’

‘You can’t say that,’ she said, in instant denial.

‘I do say it . . .’ Ishraq insisted.

‘Well, don’t . . .’

In the yard outside, Luca had gone out to take one last look at the werewolf before dinner. Standing on the platform with his back to the inn, he suddenly realised he could see the girls in their bathtub as a reflection in the window opposite. At once he knew he should look away, more than that, he should go immediately into the inn without glancing upwards again. He knew that the image of the two beautiful girls, naked together in their bath, would burn into his mind like a brand, and that he would never be able to forget the sight of them: Ishraq twisting one of Isolde’s blonde ringlets in her brown fingers, stroking a salve into each curl and pinning it up then gently sponging soap onto her pearly back. Luca froze, quite unable to look away, knowing he was committing an unforgivable trespass in spying on them, knowing that he was committing a terrible insult to them and worse, a venal sin, and, finally, as he jumped down from the platform and blundered into the inn, knowing that he had fallen far beyond liking, respect and interest for Isolde – he was burning up with desire for her.