‘Help yourself, Mistress Blackthorn. I’ll let mine cool awhile. I must shape these bannocks and set them to rise again. The fellows will be hungry when they come in. Old injuries, you say? What sort of thing?’

It was a good opening. I told her about Bardán’s hands and how I had made a salve especially for him. ‘Not that I can cure a condition like his,’ I said. ‘He has hands like an old man’s, and I don’t imagine he’s so very old – around my own age, perhaps.’

‘He’d be three and thirty at most,’ Luíseach said. ‘They married young. Him and Dáire. Too young, her kinsfolk said. They’d have liked her to wait for a better husband, one who was more like the young men of the settlement. But Dáire was a strong-minded girl. Some would have said wilful.’

‘Did you think she was wilful?’

‘She was a fine girl, Mistress Blackthorn. Nothing wrong with knowing your own mind. She was full of hopes for the future, and whatever folk might think of the fellow she married, she was good for him. Brought him out of himself; made him smile. But she died birthing her daughter, as I’m sure you will have heard. A sad loss. Made even sadder by the way they all set to squabbling over the child, with the earth barely settled on her grave. But you don’t want to hear that sorrowful story.’ She covered her tray of perfectly uniform bannocks with a clean cloth and set it on a bench near the fire. ‘I’ll just go and wash my hands.’

There was a scullery area out the back. While she was splashing there and I was thinking hard, the young man came in.

‘Horse is enjoying a rest and a drink, Mistress,’ he said. ‘Fine mare, that.’

‘She’s one of Prince Oran’s. My purse doesn’t stretch to a creature of that quality.’

‘You’re Mistress Blackthorn, aren’t you? The healer?’

‘How did you know?’ The lad was young, sixteen at the most. And he had a familiar look about him. ‘Oh. You must be Mistress Luíseach’s son. Osgar’s cousin.’

‘I’m Fedach, yes. Pleased to make your acquaintance.’

‘Likewise.’ Someone had taught this young man excellent manners. If my son had lived, perhaps he would have been like this, forthright but courteous, full of goodwill. Healthy and strong. With an effort I forced Brennan back into the locked corner of my heart which was his keeping place. ‘Do you breed horses here?’

It seemed they did, and Fedach was keen to tell me about it. I nodded and smiled and tried to ask intelligent questions until Luíseach returned, wiping her hands on her apron.

‘What are you doing in here, Son?’ she asked. There was such love and pride in her tone that it did not seem like a criticism.