So he’s not being friendly after all. He’s done this because he’s suspicious. Gives me a bad feeling in my gut, one I should be used to by now. Could be disappointment. ‘What other story would there be?’ I ask.

‘You tell me, Grim.’

I just look at him.

‘He asked me to fetch you that day. If all he was planning to do was offer you accommodation here in the house, why did he tell me to bring you in the back way, so folk wouldn’t see you? Why not speak to you in the council chamber, or have Aedan do it?’

Time for some straight talking. ‘Tell me something,’ I say. ‘You’re the prince’s man. Have been for years, from what I understand. If he told you to keep something secret, would you go blurting it out to the first person to ask you?’

He flinches as if I’ve struck him. Then he says, in a tight sort of voice, ‘If you’d asked me that last spring, I’d have said no, never.’

‘What about now?’ Don’t like to press it. What I’ve said has hit the man hard. Didn’t expect that. But I want an answer. Isn’t that what this is all about, getting answers?

‘I would do what was best for him,’ Donagan says, looking wretched.

What in Black Crow’s name is going on with those one-time friends? I know nothing about this kind of folk, but I know a man in pain when I see one. ‘Thing is,’ I say, ‘you want me to tell you what the prince said to me and Blackthorn that day up on the hill. But if it was private, it was private.’

‘Fair enough,’ Donagan says. ‘But if he’s asked you to help him . . . to find answers to something he sees as a puzzle . . . I have to warn you that you’re probably wasting your time. There’s no puzzle there, just a . . . a mistake, an error. Look for answers all you want, but you won’t find any.’

This feels like wandering into a swamp with a blindfold on. Take a step the wrong way and you’re in over your head. Is Donagan guessing? Or does he know all about the prince’s problem? Could be Oran wants it kept from everyone, even this trusted friend. That’s what he said, more or less. I keep my trap shut. Seems safest.

‘If I could help him,’ says the prince’s man after a long, long time, ‘I would. Believe me.’