IT WAS IN MY GRANDMOTHER’S jewel box. I found it after she died. Perhaps jewel box is too fine a name to give to the plain wooden cask that held so little. There was a silver ring with the stone long prised from the setting, sold to pay family debts no doubt. I wondered why she had not sold it whole. There were two necklaces, one of garnets and another of polished jasper. At the bottom, wrapped in layer upon layer of linen, was the pendant.

It was a lovely carving of a woman’s face. She looked aristocratic, yet merry, and I recognized in her features some of my own. I wondered which of my female ancestors she was, and why someone had taken such care to make so delicate a carving from such an ugly piece of wood. It was grey and checked with age, and weighed unnaturally heavy in my hand as I examined it. The chain it was fixed to was fine silver, however. I thought it might be worn alone if the pendant could be removed. I heard a footstep in the hall outside her bedroom, and hastily slipped the chain about my neck. The cameo hung heavy between my breasts, concealed by my blouse.

My cousin Tetlia stood suddenly in the doorway. ‘What do you have there?’ she demanded.

‘Nothing,’ I told her, and hastily set the box back on Grandmother’s chest.

She swept into the room and snatched it up, opened it and dumped the necklaces into her hand. ‘Nice,’ she said, holding up the jasper one. My heart sank, for I had liked it best of the three. ‘I’m eldest of the grand-daughters,’ she pointed out smugly, and slipped it over her head. She weighed the garnets in her hand. ‘And my sister Coreth comes next. This is for her.’ Her lips twisted in a smile as she tossed me the despoiled ring. ‘For you, Cerise. Not much of an inheritance, but she did feed and clothe you for the last two years, and kept you in a house that long ago should have come to my father. That is more than she ever did for my sister and me.’