‘Path,’ Grim said. ‘Over there. Come in that way, saves the scramble through the trees.’

‘You might have mentioned that before I got all these scratches.’ My heart was pounding, and not only from the climb. ‘I don’t know what scares me more: the thought that it won’t work, or the thought that it will.’

‘Just one thing,’ said Grim. ‘What if it rains that night? She won’t be wanting to come out here if it’s soaking wet.’

‘It won’t rain.’

He gave me a straight look. ‘Conmael?’

‘If Conmael chooses to help, that’s his business. I’m not asking him for any favours. I’ll make sure the rain holds off.’ I’d been able to do it, long ago; natural magic, the kind that lets you use what is already present, the power of earth, air, fire and water, to help you in times of need. Small tricks, maybe, but deep ones. Whether I could summon that skill again was yet to be seen. I might need to have a word with the spider goddess, or the hole-dwelling surprise spirit, or the shade of Holly, if she lingered close by. I would need all the help I could get to make this work. Only not Conmael’s. I was in enough debt to that supercilious know-it-all already.

‘If you say so,’ said Grim with perfect confidence.

I let five days go by before I told Flidais the story. I judged that still left long enough for her to pluck up her courage and put the proposition to Oran, and for him to make a convincing show of reluctance before agreeing to it. That evening I tapped on her door after supper, and Mhairi let me in.

Flidais was examining two gowns laid out on the bed. One was deep violet blue, with a lilac over-tunic trimmed with fur. The other was pine green with a yellow tunic elaborately embroidered in leaves and flowers.

‘For your hand-fasting, Lady Flidais?’ I could not have been less interested. But I’d been practising saying the right things, using the right tone.

She straightened, turning to face me. ‘Do you have anything for me? Any news yet?’

‘As it happens, I do, my lady. I met some of the travelling folk – you’ll have heard that they’re camped near Silverlake at present. There’s a very old woman among them, whom I was asked to tend to. And it turned out she’d known the wise woman who once lived in my cottage, Holly, her name was.’ The lie would be more convincing if I kept it as close as possible to the truth. Flidais was not going to visit the travellers to check my story. She was not going to ask anyone about it; the matter was far too personal, and she had too much to lose. Besides, we had only a few days left.

‘And?’