He’d told me the story now, some of it at least: how he’d once been a novice in a Christian monastery, and how he’d been happy there, and how the Norsemen had come, raiding. How he’d fought and fallen, and how, when he regained consciousness, everything he had loved was gone, including the old scholar who had been teaching him to read. My friend had carried that burden a long time in silence. And now I had picked up where his beloved Brother Galen had left off, which felt curiously like a privilege.

With Emer, things were more straightforward. If she was one day to become a wise woman in her own right, she’d need basic reading and writing to keep a book of her cures and discoveries. She’d need to be able to label her preparations and her raw materials accurately. I was not sure how Grim would use his new skill, once he’d mastered it. He did love tales. If we both worked hard, he could learn to read a simple book in Irish. I should ask Flidais if there was anything suitable in the library at Winterfalls. Both Prince Oran and his wife were scholars. If I’d had any spare time, I would have written something for Grim myself. But another project was consuming my hours of solitude; a perilous, secret project. Maybe the account I was writing would never see the light of day. But I knew, heart-deep, that I must set the words down.

‘I’ll ask Cara when we find her,’ Flidais said. ‘She may not give me an answer, of course. If she does come, I’ll send her with an escort; Oran has promised her father she won’t go beyond our walls on her own.’

Silverlake was a fair ride, and by the time I got back, dusk was falling. I returned my borrowed horse to Scannal the miller and walked home across the fields, guided by the warm light from our cottage windows, over on the edge of Dreamer’s Wood. Our home, Grim’s and mine, was far enough from Winterfalls village and the prince’s dwelling to afford us some privacy, but not so far that folk could not reach us if they needed our help. Conmael had chosen it well.