‘She . . . she . . .’ Can’t put the words together. I can still see it, Slammer, the bucket, her lying there. ‘Lady . . . Blackthorn . . . she was . . .’ I lurch to my feet, stagger to the door, in the dark, blunder through Gormán and Conn’s sleeping quarters. Make it outside, just. Everything comes up, gushes out of me in a foul-smelling flood. I go on retching and dribbling long after my gut’s just a big empty ache.

Lamplight behind me in the quarters. Sound of voices, talking quiet. Ripple’s come out. Sniffing around what I’ve spewed up. I tell her to leave it and she backs off.

‘Making a brew.’ Bardán’s in the doorway behind me. ‘You all done?’

Kettle’s on the fire. Gormán and Conn are awake, no surprise. Bardán sits me down. Conn finds a spare blanket, puts it around my shoulders. Ripple pads back inside and lies across my feet. Gormán makes the brew. One thing I know. I’m not going back in there to lie on my bed in the dark.

‘Nightmare,’ I say. ‘Get them sometimes. Sorry I woke you.’ Can’t stop thinking of Blackthorn. Why did I dream that? Is she in trouble?

‘Not much of a sleeper, are you?’ That’s Gormán, giving me a funny look. What he means is, I’ve kept them awake other nights too. Only they haven’t said anything.

‘Be going home soon,’ I say. ‘Out of your hair.’

‘Not so very soon, surely,’ says Gormán. ‘With the thatching still to do.’

‘A couple of the fellows will help me.’ I feel like telling him the truth. That I can’t wait to get out of this place. But I don’t. Might need to ask if I can go down and see Blackthorn, though. Set my mind at rest. But that’s not for Gormán to say yes or no to. ‘Shouldn’t take too long. I hope.’

I catch Bardán smiling when I say that. One of his odd smiles, like he knows something nobody else knows. Have to ask him why. Hoping there isn’t something odd about the thatching, something he hasn’t told me. But now’s not the time. Conn’s yawning, Gormán’s finishing his brew, it’s the middle of the night. I don’t want to ask for a lantern. Don’t want to look weak.

‘We need a light through there,’ Bardán says to Gormán. ‘The lantern, the one with a cover.’

‘With all that straw around? What do you want to do, burn us to a crisp?’