‘Drop by on the way back and I’ll give you a bite to eat,’ she says. ‘Big man, big appetite, I bet. Branoc won’t feed you. Doesn’t care for visitors. All by himself in that old place and seems to like it that way. Mind you, he does bake fine cakes. Like something from the Otherworld, they are. A body could spend a lifetime trying to make cakes like them and not come anywhere close.’

I nod my head, not saying if I’ll drop in later or not, then I’m gone. Out of the settlement, along the lake shore, and up to a house that must be the baker’s, since this is the end of the track.

It’s an odd-looking place, sort of cobbled together, with a roof that needs re-thatching and a damp look to it. There’s a yard where I can turn the horses, and a barn with a big door. I’m guessing that’ll be where he wants the flour bags. Nobody about, so I back the cart up there and call Storm and Sturdy to stand fast. I hop down. Before I can make another move a man comes round the side of the barn with a pitchfork in his hand, all ready to run it through me. I don’t bother to tell him what a bad idea that would be. I make myself hold still.

‘Come from Scannal’s,’ I say. ‘Brought your flour. Where do you want it?’

Pitchfork man gives me a good look over, not the way the woman in the village did, but as if he doesn’t like what he sees but thinks it’s too big to tackle on his own. From what the woman was saying, Branoc lives alone, so this must be him. He’s long and gangly, dark-haired, with a look about him that says he wants me gone soon. ‘In there,’ he says, jerking his head toward the barn door. ‘Wait.’

The door’s got big bolts across it. Fellow must be scared someone’ll steal his bread-baking secrets. I go to help him with the bolts and he snaps, ‘Leave it!’

I back off. Bonehead, a voice says inside me. I wait. I’ve been planning to feed and water the horses while I’m here, but now I’m thinking I’ll take them back down to the shore first.

Door’s open. Not much to see in the barn. Seems it’s only for stores, and the baking’s done somewhere else. A couple of full sacks, some sickles and forks and spades, barrels of this and that. Buckets, ladles. There’s a sort of loft, too dim to see properly, and a ladder going up through a trapdoor. Steep.