‘You could be right about him. The world’s full of strange things. Stuff that doesn’t make sense until you really think about it. Happenings like the ones in the old tales.’ I fetch out two clean cups. She drops the herbs in, tops them up with hot water. Fine smell. I’m guessing chamomile, lavender, pinch of something I can’t put a name to. ‘Take Bardán. There we are, building this house for Master Tóla, and Bardán keeps singing bits of old songs, muttering bits of old rhymes. No sense to it. Only, deep down, I’m thinking it all links up. Meaning something bigger than what’s in the words. Only I can’t understand it. Can’t work out how the pieces go together. Makes me wish I was a clever man.’

Blackthorn gives me a look I’ve seen before, often enough. ‘You have a great talent for putting the pieces together, Grim. I’ve seen you demonstrate it over and over. Now tell me, does this rain mean you’ll be home for a while?’

‘If it keeps on like this, yes. Not much I can do up there in a downpour. Only . . .’

‘Only what?’

‘Bit worried about Bardán. They’re not kind to the fellow. If I’m there I can keep an eye on him.’

‘Like me with Cully.’

‘Don’t think there’s anything fey about Bardán.’

‘There would be,’ Blackthorn says, ‘if that tale was his father’s. About being switched at birth, and then being led out of the Otherworld by a girl who was half-fey and half-human. That girl would be Bardán’s mother, if she and his father stayed together. So he’d have fey blood. That could be what gives him his unusual knack as a builder. That and his father’s teaching. Does he look fey? Part-fey?’

I’m ready to say no, but I stop to think. ‘Can’t tell. Bardán’s wild looking. Tangle of hair and beard and leaves and dirt. Doesn’t wash, doesn’t shave, doesn’t change his clothes. Not that I’ve seen. And doesn’t want to.’

‘Doesn’t want to? Why not?’

‘Offered to cut his hair for him once or twice and he said no. Asked Gormán why they don’t let the man wash and shave, and Gormán said it’s Bardán’s own choice not to. Odd. If he’d clean himself up, maybe they’d give him somewhere better to sleep.’

‘That’s like an old tale,’ Blackthorn murmurs. ‘A sort of curse. Don’t wash or cut your hair or nails for seven years, and you can have your sweetheart back. Or, if you would win the treasure, let not so much as one drop of water touch your skin from Imbolc to Lughnasad.’