‘You mean Grim?’ I said lightly. ‘It is sometimes useful to have the assistance of a person who is physically stronger, yes. To restrain a patient who is thrashing about in pain, for instance, or to hold a severely broken limb straight while I splint and bandage it. Grim has helped me once or twice.’

‘Only once or twice?’ Mhairi was not letting this go. ‘Surely you’ve needed help more than that.’

‘Grim and I have not been travelling together long.’ I turned my attention back to my notebook. It was hard to work with Deirdre and Sinead standing right beside me; they were still too close, and it set my teeth on edge. ‘What are you working on?’ I asked, with a glance intended to take in both of them.

They did as I’d hoped, retreating to fetch their work so I could admire it. Sinead was embroidering a border of ivy around the hem of a skirt. It seemed a waste of time to me – wouldn’t it soon get muddy? – but the result was pleasing enough. Deirdre was making a little gown for a baby, with birds on it. I muttered a comment, finding it impossible to be kind. She could not know what images had flooded my mind when I saw the garment. My baby in a gown almost twin to this. Brennan in my arms, his slight, sleeping weight, the sweetness of his breath, his mouth hungry on the breast. My baby gone. Gone to the flames.

‘Mistress Blackthorn?’

Someone had been talking and I had not heard a word. ‘I’m sorry, what was that?’ Pull yourself together. Listen. Learn. If only I hadn’t told Grim the story. I’d had it well locked away before. Now it was close again, a darkness on the edge of everything.

‘It was a foolish question.’ Lady Sochla sounded repressive. ‘Teafa asked whether folk come to you for spells. Magical potions and cures.’

Teafa was one of the young seamstresses. She was blushing now, her head bent over her work. Had I seen her before, perhaps asking for something to make a certain youth notice her? I couldn’t remember; one silly girl tended to fade into another after a while. ‘They ask, yes. Cures for broken hearts. Love potions. Sometimes they want curses to be cast on an enemy, or spells to make them beautiful or to help them please their wives better.’

Now I really had everyone’s attention.

‘And do you give them what they want?’ asked Fíona.

‘I give them what they need.’

Sinead’s eyes had gone wide. ‘You can do magic?’ she breathed. ‘Real magic?’