My lip quivered, and I sank my teeth into it, wincing with pain. I will not cry. I have wept enough. I, too, can be strong. I reached up and slipped the cord over my neck.

“You’ll be wanting this back,” I said, blinking rather hard. The ring lay on my open palm, light and warm. It took all my will not to close my fingers around it. I saw Red’s hand clench into a white-knuckled fist.

“If it means so little to you,” he said after a moment, “put it in the fire, or throw it on the dungheap. I have no use for it.” Then he turned and made his way down the hall, and I was reminded of the night of the rockfall, when he had walked as if blind, although his eyes were open.

The little mare bore me as sweetly as on the day we had journeyed to the bay of the seals. My brothers were quiet, as if the wonder of seeing the daylight world through their own eyes, after so long, was almost too much to bear. Red rode at the head of the column, his hair bright as the sycamore leaves that drifted down around us, catching the autumn sunlight. Ben was watchful at the rear.

It was hard to keep back the memories of the last time we had come this way, along the hidden track, under the trees, over the hills and away from the valley. I had not expected that Simon would come with us, but it seemed he had argued his case and convinced his brother. He rode close by me, and I told him what Richard had said to me, about Eamonn of the Marshes, and about bargains and deals, and about what had happened that night, when Simon had disappeared from the camp. He listened, and nodded, and let me talk. I did not tell quite all. Some of it was too close to our own story, too close to the part of it Red had waited so long to hear, and then, in the end, had not wanted to hear.

“My uncle took a risk, in telling you this,” said Simon thoughtfully. “A great risk. Once this becomes known, he will forfeit any influence he had left, and be cut off from his family and from his allies; I cannot think what future he could contemplate. I am concerned for Elaine. He has placed her in a very vulnerable position by his actions. And he has no sons. There will be kinsmen aplenty jostling to take his place at Northwoods.”

Elaine had been a good friend to Red, I thought. Maybe now she would get what she deserved. Maybe now she could choose as her heart prompted her, and not as her father ordered. Simon was a fine young man, and I wished them joy in each other.

“Richard thought I was going to die,” I said. “He believed that I would never speak again. How could he lose? Such a man loves to gloat, and cannot resist sharing his triumph. Had Red…had your brother not returned in time, it would have been as he intended.”