‘Enough!’ Tóla was shouting. ‘Enough of this! Clear off my land, all of you! Get yourselves and your horses out of here and don’t come back. Mistress Blackthorn, if you set foot over my border again I won’t answer for the consequences. Grim, your services are no longer required. And don’t expect any further payment. I don’t take kindly to folk who stick their noses where they’re not wanted. The two of you have caused ruin here, utter ruin. You have destroyed my daughter’s life and mine –’

‘Stop!’ Cara said, hardly recognising herself. ‘That’s enough. These are good people. They’ve helped me at great cost to themselves. They helped me uncover the truth, and isn’t truth always better than lies? I’m going away now, with my father. Somewhere, I don’t know where, but I can’t stay here, and I can’t be your daughter. You have given me some good things. Safety. A home. An education. An inheritance. But none of that counts when it’s built on lies. I need to learn who I am all over again. That’s what I’m going to do.’ She moved over to Bardán – to her father – and slipped her hand through his arm. He did smell bad up close. When they got to wherever they were going, she’d need to persuade him to take a bath.

‘He has nothing to offer you.’ Tóla’s voice was stone cold now. ‘Nothing but poverty, grief and madness.’

There was a little silence. Then Bardán said, ‘Daughter, I offer love. I offer craft – my hands are not good for it now, but I will teach you all I know. I offer wisdom, born from sorrow. I offer tales. I offer truth.’

Cara felt tears spilling down her cheeks. Her father was crying too. ‘I accept your fine gifts, Father,’ she said.

Tóla was about to speak, but Aunt Della forestalled him. ‘Brother, you are not yourself. Go back to the house. Go now. I will deal with this. You two, accompany him.’ She gestured to a pair of serving men. ‘Stay with him until I return.’

Tóla drew a ragged breath. Took a step one way, the other way, as if he hardly knew what he was doing. ‘You can’t do this, Cara,’ he said in a whisper. ‘You’re only fifteen. Any lawman would say –’

‘I’m sure Prince Oran will have an opinion,’ Blackthorn said. ‘Of course, he will hear the whole story before the open council. Including your personal account, Master Tóla. Perhaps Brígh’s as well. Shall we conclude this as Mistress Della so sensibly suggests?’