Megan raised her brows at me as she began to clear away bottles and bowls and cloths. “Perhaps you should ask Lord Hugh when he comes back,” she said. “I wouldn’t be in Richard of Northwoods’s shoes tonight, for anything.”

When we returned to the parlor, things had changed. The best wine and wheaten bread had been provided, with cold roast meats, and Lady Anne herself was cutting wedges of cheese. I looked quickly around the room, but there was no sign of Red, or of Ben. My brothers looked slightly more respectable, though their long tangled hair and fierce eyes sat oddly with the neat plain clothes they now wore. Father Dominic had gathered them around him, by the window, and he spoke with them quietly. Finbar stood at the back of the group, silent. With Conor’s translation and a range of gestures, the others seemed to be managing quite well. I saw knives in my brothers’ belts. It had been risky, I thought, allowing them weapons. Whose idea could that have been? Perhaps nobody had dared to refuse.

Leaning on the hearth, there was another man; the tall, golden-haired man who could not be Simon, and yet, incredibly, must be Simon, for at his feet Alys stood quivering with joy, her tail wagging so hard it seemed the two halves of her body moved in opposite directions. A dog does not make mistakes, not when she has waited so long for her master’s return.

How do you read a person’s face, when his past has been wiped away? Simon was older; in the three years since I had last seen him, he had grown from a boy to a man. He had the same straight nose and strong jaw as his brother, but the mouth was more generous, the eyes less guarded. There were no scars on neck, or ear, or well-muscled arm where the shirt was rolled above the elbow. And yet, how could that be? Did he remember nothing? I glanced over at my brothers. Intent on the priest’s words, they showed not a flicker of recognition. That was just as well. Simon’s bright eyes were as innocent and merry as a child’s; his expression quite without guile.

“Simon,” said Lady Anne, “this is Sorcha, of whom I spoke to you. Sorcha is—is—”

“Red’s wife,” said Simon, looking past his mother, and straight into my eyes. I saw his face change. He too had worn a mask, and for the instant that he let it slip, I knew that whatever he had forgotten, he had not forgotten me.

“Sorcha. That name suits you well,” he said quietly. “I had not thought my brother would wed a woman of Erin.”

“It was not…he did not…” My heart was thumping. He knew me, I was certain of it. And if he remembered me, he remembered my brothers, and…but then how could he stand there, smiling, with them so close? Where was the frantic, damaged boy I had struggled to nurse back to some semblance of sanity? The boy without hope, who clung to my tales for survival through the nightmare of pain and shame? And why did this man bear no scars?