Ide nodded. ‘Gods help us. Would you . . .?’

Would I use the knife? Not while Fann lived, that was certain. ‘She can do it,’ I said. ‘Your daughter is a strong woman, Ide. Like her mother. Come, let’s help her.’

A healer does not lie. But sometimes she does hold back from complete honesty – when the truth would cause needless hurt; when it would make the innocent feel guilty; when it might stop a person from doing their best to save a life. I was glad that Fann did not prove my statements false. She was strong, all right. I came to realise, as she gave the last of her strength to the work in hand, that she would have got that baby out if it killed her. But, gods be thanked, in time the child was born, a tiny boy whose cries were like the call of some fledgling bird fallen from its nest, and Fann rested her head on the pillows with the look of a woman whose job is done, and done well. Everyone was weeping with relief. Yes, even me. Ide tied the cord and cut it. I gave Fann another draught to help her expel the afterbirth cleanly. The other women dealt with bloody cloths and the other debris of birth. The child, still making those little sounds, was wrapped in a very small blanket and placed in his mother’s arms. Over there, the men were still singing.

‘One of you go and tell them,’ I said, noting with interest that the chamber seemed to be moving around me and realising I was almost too tired to do what must still be done. ‘Ross can come to the door, and Osgar. But not a whole crowd of men, and they’re not coming inside.’ Fann might be calm and smiling, but her ordeal had come close to breaking her. What she really needed was a good long sleep. I hoped the boy would not be too weak to suckle.

I needed to sit down. Now, before I fainted. I needed to stop remembering my own son’s birth, and how Cass had come in and held my hand afterwards, and how he’d told me I was the best woman in the world, or at least in his world, and never more so than right then. How he’d whispered in his new son’s ear that he’d keep Brennan safe until the day he died. Which was exactly what Cass had done. For they had died together, on the same day, with Cass crouched over our son, trying to shield him from the flames. It was filling up my mind. The smells of that day, the terrible sounds, the rage and grief and hopelessness . . .

‘Mistress Blackthorn!’ Ide was motioning for me to sit down on a bench. ‘You’re white as a sheet. You’ve been on your feet too long, here . . . Eibhlín, some ale for Mistress Blackthorn, quickly.’