‘No wandering off,’ Gormán cautions. ‘Don’t think Grim not being here makes any difference to the rules. You’re either here, or you’re down by the barn, or you’re in between. Nowhere else, understand? I’m too busy to keep an eye on you all day.’ He’s off without waiting for an answer.

Where would he go? Everything depends on following the wretched rules. Everything depends on finishing the heartwood house.

But then, today he’s not building. Can’t, because with Grim gone he has no hands. So it makes no difference where he goes or what he does. And since Gormán can’t watch him all day, who’s to know if he goes walking in the rain when he’s finished this meagre breakfast? If he shuts the door of his hovel behind him, they’ll think he’s inside sleeping, or weeping, or going quietly madder than he is already. That’s if they bother thinking anything at all. A man’s allowed to visit his mother’s grave, isn’t he? And his father’s, right beside it. A loss almost beyond bearing, that was. If it hadn’t been for Dáire . . .

The memory hits him like a great wave. A groan comes up from deep in his belly, he can’t stop, doesn’t stop till his lungs are bursting and he has to suck in air. Dáire, oh gods, his best friend, his love, his wife . . . How could he have forgotten her? The sweet, funny slip of a thing who, of all the folk in Longwater, was the only one who’d stop and talk to him, the only one who’d smile and laugh with him, the only one who knew he was a man with a man’s hopes and needs and feelings. Dáire who had stood by him through the terrible grief of his father’s passing. When they’d wanted to wed, she had argued the case with her parents, pointing out that Bardán was a capable craftsman with his own house and plenty of work, and was well able to provide for her. What matter who his parents had been, as long as he was a good man and loved her? So they were wed, and tasted happiness for a while. Too short a while, before she, too, was gone.