‘Don’t know how long,’ he says. ‘How long I was away. These . . .’ He holds up his misshapen hands. ‘They’re old man’s hands.’

I go over and sit down near him. He’s on one big block of stone and I’m on another. Make sure I can still see that path. Last thing I want is to get the poor bastard in trouble for talking to me about the wrong thing.

‘Old man’s hands, yes,’ I tell him. ‘But you’ve got no white hairs.’ His hair and beard are a filthy, tangled mess. Give them a good wash, they’d come up oak-brown. That’s my guess. ‘And you can stand up straight. Old men get that hunch in the back, you know?’ I think about what he said. ‘Away. Away where, Bardán?’ Shouldn’t ask. Shouldn’t expect him to tell his tale when I don’t tell mine. ‘Forget that, it’s none of my business.’

He stares into nothing, face like a sad dog’s. ‘Far away,’ he says after a while. ‘Another place. Building, building.’

Things go quiet for a bit. I get back to work. He watches me. Ripple’s hunkered down in the shade, keeping an eye on both of us. I think about how it would feel if you couldn’t remember. I wouldn’t mind forgetting that place of Mathuin’s and the stuff that happened there. Be happy if I didn’t dream about it ever again. I bet there’s things Blackthorn would like to forget too. But then, if you forget what’s bad, cruel, unjust, you might not care anymore about setting things to rights. You might stop standing up against the folk who do evil deeds. And someone’s got to.

Then Bardán says, ‘A hundred years.’

‘What’s that?’ Must’ve heard wrong.

‘Gone. Away. A hundred years.’ Bardán’s not looking at me, he’s staring off into nothing. Maybe waiting for me to say, What? A hundred years? You’re crazy.