Eventually the road was met by a well-made side track, broad enough for carts and the like. It ran alongside a stream, now swollen by the rain to a small river. We must have crossed it on our journey to Bann last summer, when we’d continued west on the main track. My mind had been on other things, and I remembered little of that ride. Gods, it felt so long ago. At the junction there stood a way-marker: rough letters carved onto a slab of stone.

‘Longwater,’ read Grim without a moment’s hesitation. Which just went to show that with good teaching and the right attitude, a man can very quickly learn his letters. Even a man who has always believed himself stupid.

‘Is this the way up to the lake, Osgar?’ I asked. ‘Where they bring timber in and out?’

‘That’s right, Mistress Blackthorn. Quick way to Longwater settlement. The other way, by the master’s house, that’s far longer. Most folk keep clear of it.’

‘Oh?’ It seemed a good idea to keep him talking about anything other than his sister and the difficult task ahead. I knew already that the local people were wary of the forest track, though Grim never seemed to have any trouble with it.

‘Forest’s tricky,’ Osgar said. ‘Got those paths that keep changing, you know? All ups and downs, slipping and sliding, trees that move about and make you lose your way. Or so folk say.’

‘That does sound rather frightening.’

‘Something not right about the place.’ Osgar’s tone was quieter now. He glanced over his shoulder as if someone might be following, listening in. ‘Wolf Glen. Ill-luck place. That’s what folk say. I heard he’s building that house again. The house that’s meant to make things come right. For the future, that is. Can’t undo the past. His wife died, you know. The master’s wife. Suanach, her name was. Died before her child was a year old. Broke the master’s heart. He hasn’t been right since. That’s what I heard. Never go up there myself.’

Grim didn’t say a word. Of course, he was forbidden to speak about the heartwood house to outsiders. But I wasn’t. ‘What house? Is it something magic?’