I could not look at him. The voice was bad enough; distant, formal. It chilled my heart.

“Husband,” said Conor carefully. “Yes, we heard about that. A less than impressive job you’ve made of it, for all your last-minute heroics.”

Red was silent.

“Did you see her,” Conor went on, “when she was hungry and dirty and cold? Did you watch her as she stood silent before her accusers, as she heard the filth they spoke of her, the lies they told? Did you see her when she wept in the dark, when she waited and watched as your uncle built her funeral pyre? Did you? What kind of husband were you then?”

There was a short pause.

“Are you finished?” asked Red quietly.

“Ask him,” urged Liam in our own tongue, “ask him the nature of this marriage; if he has laid his filthy barbarian hands on our sister. Ask him!”

But Conor was not what he was for nothing. He had not, after all, misjudged his opponent.

“Just tell me,” he said, “whether my sister is free to go. Do you plan to hold her to any promise, any commitment she has made to you?”

“Do you hold a wild creature once it is healed, and ready to fly home?” asked Red. “Jenny makes her own choices. She knows that she is free to go. She knows she need only tell me, when it is time.”

Conor spoke to his brothers, quietly, in our own tongue.

“What about our safe conduct?” asked Liam, while Conor translated. “I want us to be away at dawn, or before. There is little time left.”

Red’s response was softer still. I had heard this tone before.

“First I will speak with my wife alone. Then we leave, with all you request. It won’t take long.”

Conor passed this onto the others.

“Out of the question!” snapped Diarmid.

“Alone? I think not,” said Liam grimly.

“Who does this man think he is?” demanded Cormack. “He has no claim on Sorcha, and he knows it. Tell him to bring horses, and we will make our own way. There are no bargains to be struck here.”

“We cannot allow this,” said Conor gravely. “You understand, after what has happened, our concern for our sister’s well-being. She will not leave our sight until we quit these shores. It has been three full years since we last had our human form. Three years of silence and suffering for her. Now she is returned to us, we will not part with her, or risk her safety, even for a moment.”

Red’s mouth tightened in an alarmingly familiar way, and I saw Ben’s hand hovering by the hilt of his dagger.

“This is my household,” said Red. “You want to leave in safety, do you not? With horses and a degree of protection? This I will provide; but first I will speak with Jenny alone.”

“Your arrogance astonishes me,” said Conor coldly. “It was your people who would have put my sister to death; your people who went about their business while she was shut away in the dark, while lice crawled in her hair and rats came out at night to feast on the filth of her cell, while she wept and toiled and waited for the end. How dare you demand anything of us?”