It’s colder here. In that other place, where he was before, it was warm all the time. No need to burrow deep at night. No need for coverings like this rough sack of a blanket Gormán’s given him. He slept in a . . . It fades away, he can’t catch it in his thoughts. A green thing, like a pea pod . . . Was he smaller when he was there? Shrunk down by sorcery? That place was full of strange things, but he does not think the folk were giants. Did they give him the green bed? The little house in which it hung from the twisted withies of a roof thatched with living plants? Or was that little house only a feverish dream? How long was it, how long has he been away?

He tosses and turns under the inadequate covering. Thinks of the man, Grim, riding home on his big horse, sleeping sound under a cottage roof, by a warm fire. Thinks of Gormán and the young fellow in the foresters’ quarters, tucked up snug and safe. And Tóla, Master Tóla, in his big grand house, under his fine linen sheets. Tóla the liar. Tóla the thief. Tóla the cheat. Tóla the killer. That smooth-faced man is evil to the core. One thing Bardán knows: he has not returned solely to build the heartwood house. He has other business with Tóla. Something happened here, long ago. Something vile and unjust. Something so wrong it is like a silent scream; like a shadow lying over trees and birds and animals and humankind. That wrong, unresolved, unpunished, has drawn him here. But when he tries to remember, the story fades away.

‘Come back! Come back!’ He beats his hands against his wretched skull, his head full of ghosts that dance out of sight before he can quite see them. A woman smiling. A hearth fire glowing. His own hands, steady, capable, a craftsman’s hands, smoothing a piece of fine beech wood. A smell of good food cooking. Never much to spare, but enough. Enough to make them happy. Someone singing in a low voice. Oh, hush-a-bye baby, and hush-a-bye lamb . . .

Dagda’s bollocks, it’s cold! The dream vanishes, broken to smithereens by his shivering body. Ask the master for another blanket, you fool, says one of the voices in his head. In the morning, ask him. You can’t build the heartwood house if you’re dead of cold. But the other voice says, I asked that man for a favour once. Never again.

Chapter Nine: Grim

9

~Grim~