When we’re on our own, just Bardán and me, I break those rules. Can’t help it. Man’s sad as sad. In pain, too, with those hands. Not going to pry for his story. Seems as if there’s something big there, but he can’t remember. I keep thinking of Mathuin’s lockup and how being in that place jumbled up people’s minds. Wasn’t just Blackthorn and me who got turned half-crazy, but every one of those poor bastards. Bardán could have been somewhere like that. Some place he couldn’t get out of. Until now. But why would he come here? Nobody’s kind to him here. Yes, he’s got a roof over his head and they’re feeding him. But the rules, the way they look at him as if he’s more monster than man, the way they don’t talk to him, that’s its own sort of prison. It’s like the stone walls are still there, and the buckets of slops, and the other things. You just can’t see them.

‘About your hands,’ I say one day when we’re taking a break. ‘My friend’s a healer. A wise woman, one of the best. Would Master Tóla let her come up here and take a look? Blackthorn might be able to help you. Not to fix them up all new. But she’d have a salve or something that would ease the pain.’

‘Wouldn’t want her at Wolf Glen,’ he says. ‘The master. Doesn’t want anyone.’

I know that, of course. But I like the idea of Blackthorn riding up here with me and Ripple one day, keeping me company on the way. ‘She could give me a salve to bring for you.’

Bardán doesn’t say yes or no. Just looks at his hands.

‘No harm in trying,’ I say. ‘What do you think?’

He shrugs.

‘Only,’ I go on, ‘it would help if I knew a bit about how they got that way. You’re young to have your hands stiffen up like that. If I could tell Blackthorn . . .’

Bardán turns those piercing eyes on me all of a sudden. ‘Breaking the rules, Grim,’ he says.

‘Doing the right thing,’ I say, lowering my voice, though I know there’s nobody within earshot. Gormán and Conn are out in the forest, and from where I’m standing I can see the track down to the house. ‘Nobody else needs to know.’

‘Old,’ Bardán says. ‘I think. Maybe . . . old.’

Can’t make sense of this. ‘You don’t know how old you are?’ Could have forgotten, locked up somewhere or forced to do some cruel master’s work. Could have forgotten a lot. Or chosen to bury the past, the way I did. Some of mine’s well hidden away, even now. But I do know how old I am.