Who had told me that story first? Osgar? I thought he’d meant his aunt was wet-nurse to Cara. Ide had not contradicted me when I’d implied that. But I must have been wrong. The story, as folk knew it, was odd but possible. Bardán had been hired to build the heartwood house; part of his payment was good care for his motherless baby daughter, and that included the services of a wet-nurse. He stayed only three turnings of the moon, then he ran off with his daughter and abandoned her in the forest, where she died that same night. Bardán fell down a hole into the Otherworld, where he remained for fifteen years, returning with his wits scrambled and his memory gone. A strange story but possible. And Suanach, finding herself with child at around the time baby Brígh was in her household, left home and travelled to stay with her kinsfolk, where about two seasons later she gave birth to Cara. Whom she did not bring home until the child was at least nine turnings of the moon old. Even then Cara must have been an early walker. That part did not surprise me; she’d probably been climbing trees not long after. But why had Suanach waited so long to come home? Had she still been frail, unwell? She’d died quite soon after her return, when her child was less than a year old. Had she been afraid of her husband? Was Tóla an abuser of women? The master had loved his wife. He loved his daughter. But then, love could take curious paths.