The groaning cheese took priority for today. Kesten feared it was already too late for it to ripen sufficiently before the baby came. She took the pan of milk, left to sour overnight, and heated it on the oven, stirring in vinegar and a little clotted cream. With the resultant curds, she would make a wheel of cheese, bound by a circle of rind wide enough to pass a newborn through at christening.
So much depended on the cheese, and Kesten concentrated on making a good job of it, for the long life and prosperity of her son. She already knew the child would be a boy. She smiled as she worked, humming and dreaming, throwing a bit of hog fat to a black cat passing through the yard, for a black cat brings good fortune in Cornwall, as long as it’s above ground.
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Kesten bolted up from the
