‘That won’t suit anyone but yourself,’ said Cionnaola, who still stood in the doorway, blocking entry. ‘It appears you’ve incarcerated these two men on dubious grounds. That matter will be referred to Prince Oran, to be discussed at his next open council.’ When Tóla made to speak, the Island man went on, ‘I’m not finished. Your actions in that instance are for Prince Oran and his advisers to deal with. The other matter, the question of this young lady’s identity and the strange events surrounding her first year, might better be discussed in private, yes. But I don’t believe that will satisfy anyone present here. In particular, it will not satisfy Cara. And she deserves the truth. She’s waited fifteen years for it.’

‘We’re well beyond the point where any of this can be kept secret, Master Tóla,’ Mistress Blackthorn said.

‘What you suggested . . . It is partly true, Cara,’ Tóla said. A sigh went through the crowd. Cara held herself calm and still. She would do her best not to cry anymore. ‘But you are my daughter and my dear wife’s daughter in everything but blood,’ he went on. ‘That man, the man who fathered you . . . he’s out of his wits. He was unreliable from the first. He cared nothing for you. Couldn’t cope with you. Didn’t want you.’ A sound of outrage came from Bardán. Aunt Della hushed him, murmuring something about letting the story be told. ‘From the moment he passed you into our care, he showed no interest at all in you,’ Tóla said. ‘He was already known as a lone wolf, tainted by the fey blood of his mother. Such a man is not cut out to be a husband or father. He failed at both.’

Grim started to say something, and Blackthorn put her fingers against his lips to silence him.

‘As for what happened when you were an infant, it was more or less as folk know already. One night he took you from the cradle and ran off into the woods. He was seen leaving, but we could not track him down. We found you, almost too late, wrapped up and left between the roots of an oak tree. A tiny babe, cold, hungry, weak. But alive.’

‘Then you lied,’ said one of the Longwater men. ‘The story went out that the child was dead. You said she’d been attacked and mauled by wild beasts, the body so damaged it was best her kinsfolk did not see it.’