After a while he said, “It’s getting hot. You should not be in the sun too long.”

I followed him up the beach, and we sat again, under the headland, where the shadows were starting to creep across the sand. Out by the water, the tide was lapping at the mermaid’s tail, coaxing her back into the sea.

“I must ask you a question,” said Red, turning a small shell over and over in his hands. “You need not answer, if it is forbidden to you. But answer if you can.”

I nodded. It sounded serious. But I thought, on such a day as this, surely there is little more that can surprise me.

“The thing he made for you, the carving,” said Red, and for a moment I could not think what he meant. “The carving with the arms of Harrowfield—I want to know, did my brother give this to you? Did he place it in your hands, did you know what he intended?”

I shook my head. No, he left it for me, though I had deserted him when he needed me most, and when I came by it he was long gone. I could not tell that part.

“Can you tell me,” he said, and now he looked me straight in the eye, “that my brother still lived, at the time I first met you?”

The question had been carefully worded. I shook my head. I believe his bones lie scattered in my forest. But I have not seen them. I would not tell that part.

“Do you know, with certainty, that Simon is dead?” His eyes were very pale, under the summer sun. Pale as tidal pools at first light. Deep as memories not to be spoken.

I shook my head again.

“Then you are not sure,” he said, looking away. “You wonder, perhaps, why I have chosen this moment to ask you. I must tell you that—that there may be an end to your captivity. That the answer I seek may be found elsewhere. You have noted, I suppose, the return of my messengers? For I have informants spread wide, as does my uncle; but I do not tell of mine.”

By now he had my rapt attention, though I could not tell what was to come. I felt he was more at ease now, setting out a strategy, forming a plan; in safer territory.

“I thought all trace of Simon lost. The trail cold, the clues rubbed out by time. My uncle spoke of seeking him, and I dismissed it as idle words, thrown out to keep my mother happy. Nonetheless, I bade my messengers listen out for word of him. And at last, just now, word came.”

What? What word? How could there be word of Simon, now, so long after?

“My informant heard a tale,” said Red, “of a young man with golden hair and bright blue eyes, a man as foreign to your land as any might be; he was living in a community of holy brothers, on a small island off the west coast of Erin. It is a very long journey from here. This was a young man who seemed unhurt, who seemed to be in his right mind, and of good spirit. Only—only it was as if his memory had been wiped away, and he knew only the present. Innocent as a newborn babe; but, they said, eighteen or nineteen years of age.”