Have to think quick, get my head away from the build and back to what we were talking about before. From the look on Bardán’s face, I’m guessing that while I’ve been pacing around and measuring, he’s been remembering something he thought he’d forgotten. That sad face of his, mostly hidden behind the beard and the thatch of hair, has got a different look on it now. Surprise. Almost wonder.

‘Your dad, hmm?’ I keep it light. ‘He a builder too?’

A quick smile. He’s got a few teeth missing in the front. ‘Dad,’ he says, sad and happy both. ‘A builder, yes.’

‘He taught you well.’ Bardán’s a wreck of a man, down on his luck and angry too, something simmering away inside him. But he knows his job. He knows it inside out. Makes my heart bleed for him. ‘Not just the building work,’ I say. ‘The . . .’ Can’t find the words for what I mean. ‘The knowing of it,’ I say. ‘The right doing of it.’ Want to ask where his father learned to build a heartwood house, but I don’t. He doesn’t owe me his story.

Time passes. Spring moves on. Stone work’s all finished, frame standing nice and strong. Weather stays dry, only a light fall of rain here and there, easy enough to work in. Truth is, I’d like a few days off. Be good to stay home with Blackthorn for a bit. Maybe catch up with a few of the fellows from the settlement. But it’s warm and fine, flowers popping up everywhere, birds busy in the woods, new green on the trees. And the way I’ve agreed to things with Master Tóla, I’ll only get time off if it’s too wet for work.

Lambing starts, meaning the farm lads will be too busy to give us a hand for a while. Gormán and Conn are busy too, doing their own work out in the forest. Which means most days it’s just Bardán and me. Blackthorn’s made up a salve for him. When I show him he doesn’t seem impressed, but he lets me rub it into his hands anyway.

‘She says it’ll ease the pain,’ I tell him. ‘But you have to remember. First thing in the morning and last thing at night. She says be patient.’

Bardán just sits there staring at his hands. Got no faith in it, that’s plain.

‘Blackthorn knows what she’s talking about,’ I say. ‘Good at what she does. Doesn’t tell folk they’ll get better if she knows it can’t happen.’

‘Different,’ Bardán says. He holds up his hands, a sorry sight. ‘They wouldn’t help. How can she?’

Feels like I’m holding my breath. ‘They?’

‘Them. In that place. Where I was. Where they kept me.’