Cold. Everything aching. Rope around his wrists, rope around his ankles, why? What crime has he committed? The master’s in charge here, in charge of every little thing. Except one. Except the heartwood house. He just needs to live long enough to get it done. He just needs to survive the cold and the damp and the blows. And the sadness. The cottage all crumbling away, the graves neglected, the lovely embroidered picture, the last one his mother ever made, worn away to rags and tatters. Gone, all gone. And . . . and . . . There is a sorrow harder than those. A sadness fit to wrench the very heart from a man’s body. A grief deeper than the deepest grave, darker than the most shadowy corner of the forest. A loss beyond all others.

Did Tóla say something about a missing girl? Bardán remembers the day he came back to Wolf Glen; the day he looked at the ruin of the heartwood house and saw in his mind how he would build it again. The day he saw a girl up in the big oak. A girl who looked like someone he once knew, long ago. But when he asked, Tóla said, ‘There’s no girl here.’

‘It was a lie,’ the wild man mutters to himself, struggling to move his aching limbs, wondering where Grim has gone, Grim with his kind face and his sharp knife that could cut these bonds in an instant. ‘There was a girl. A baby girl. Where did she go?’ Memory hits him, as cold as the winter sea, and on a sobbing breath he whispers, ‘Where is she? Where is my daughter?’ But he’s down deep again, in some dark cellar, and there’s nobody to hear.

Chapter Twenty-three: Grim

23

~Grim~

We have our bowl of soup in the kitchen of the big house. Then head over to the barn to sleep. They’re well set up there, Gormán and Conn: proper shelf beds, a good hearth, plenty of room. Enough beds for three more men, if they wanted to fit them in.

Conn’s been out searching with one of the other teams, so he comes in with us. Fire’s been banked up, just needs a stir and a log or two. Conn finds a water bowl for Ripple, who’s got a meaty bone in her jaws. Carried it all the way from the kitchen. Given to her by Mistress Della, no less. Gormán looks in a chest, gets out blankets for me. ‘You can have that bed,’ he says, pointing. ‘Conn, find that good mead, will you? A cup before we sleep wouldn’t go amiss.’

‘Where’s Bardán?’ I ask.