I don’t say anything. She’s got it wrong. But no point telling her that. She won’t believe me.

‘Grim?’

‘Mm?’

‘We need a plan. It’s not long until full moon and the prince’s council. And after that they’ll be riding off to their wedding and it will be too late. But pushing Flidais into Dreamer’s Pool isn’t going to achieve anything, even supposing we could convince her to go back over there. What do we do? Tell the prince the story we heard tonight and say we can’t do anything more? Tell him Flidais and Mhairi lied to me? Confront Flidais with what we suspect? None of those will do any good. Maybe we should suggest he marries her anyway, since the woman of his dreams is dead.’

I’m thinking hard. ‘You could ask Conmael,’ I say. ‘Since he seems to know all sorts of things he shouldn’t know. He might have the answer, if there is one.’

‘A pox on Conmael,’ says Blackthorn, so quiet the rain nearly swallows it. ‘We’re solving this ourselves. We need to talk to someone who was there that day, when Ciar was drowned.’

‘You were there.’

‘Not at first. By the time I reached the pool she was lying dead on the shore. I want to know exactly how it happened. We’re missing something, and it’s not pigs and cheese.’

‘Couldn’t you ask Flidais’s ladies? Not Mhairi, the other ones?’

I remembered them weeping and wailing over Ciar’s body. ‘I don’t think they’d be very helpful. Besides, there’s always the chance one of them would tell Flidais or Mhairi that I’d been asking questions again.’

‘The guards,’ I say. ‘Lady Flidais’s men-at-arms. Not the friendliest bunch, but I know them now. Think I could get one of them to tell me the tale. Young Eoin, he talks about it sometimes. Scared him. He’s the one went into the water to fish Ciar out that day. Probably lucky he came out a man and not a newt or a frog.’ Morrigan’s britches, the more I think about this, the odder it gets.

‘That’s your job for tomorrow, then,’ Blackthorn says. ‘The start of a plan. Ask him, but don’t be too eager, we don’t want word to get back to Flidais that we’re poking around again.’

‘And your job?’

‘Convincing the lady that I still believe her lies. Playing for time, until you bring me an answer.’

Next morning we take Storm back to Scannal’s. I tell the miller I found his horse wandering over Silverlake way, and it was too late to bring him home safely. Scannal’s a bit surprised, as you’d expect, but he seems all right with it.

Turns out I can’t talk to Eoin that day, or the one after, because Domnall’s organised some kind of training to keep the lads from Cloud Hill busy, and they don’t come in from that until supper time. Can’t talk about it after supper in the men’s quarters. Too many of them around, no privacy, can’t take him aside without drawing attention. And then I’m on duty.