Before dusk, we rode out to Dreamer’s Wood; Ciar and I, Donagan and Mhairi. All of us were quiet. The day was chill but dry, and the fields were fading to purple-grey in the last light. The horses’ breath made little clouds in the freezing air; the sound of their hooves was muffled on the muddy track. It seemed to me the others might hear the pounding of my heart, which felt like the wild drumbeat of a charge to battle.

‘Are you warm enough, Flidais?’ I asked.

‘Fine.’ She was wrapped in a thick woollen cloak with rabbit fur around the hood, and looked utterly charming, her cheeks pink with the cold. Let this not fail, I prayed. Let Blackthorn not be wrong about this.

The wood lay in stillness, shadowy, forbidding.

‘We’ll tie up the horses by Mistress Blackthorn’s cottage,’ I said to Donagan, who knew every part of the plan.

‘Nobody home,’ he observed as we rode up to the little house, which had been expertly repaired and looked, against the gloom of the wood, almost reassuring in its neat homeliness. ‘Never mind. Should be enough light from the moon, and I don’t imagine you’ll be very long.’

‘Who knows?’ I said, attempting a smile. ‘Let me help you down, Flidais. Careful now.’

The next part was awkward. Blackthorn had told me where to go, and both Donagan and I knew the wood well enough to find the place. But with our purpose being so intimate, it did not seem quite right for me to suggest that he and Mhairi come with us all the way.

‘I’ll walk you in, my lord,’ said Donagan, staunch as ever. ‘Don’t want to leave you and the lady in the wood all alone; doesn’t feel right. Mhairi and I can wait at a distance, down by the water. I have a flask of mead to keep the chill out.’

‘Thank you, Donagan.’ Ciar was nervous now; when I offered her the support of my arm, I could feel her trembling. ‘All right, my dear?’ I wondered at my own capacity for deception.

‘Mm. Only, being here brings back that day. When Ciar was drowned. This is a strange place.’ And, after a moment, ‘We don’t need to go down there, do we? Where they brought her out of the water?’

‘No, my lady,’ said Donagan. ‘There’s a much better place up on the other side of the pool. It’s sheltered and grassy. Let me show you.’

It was dusk, and as we climbed the path the full moon appeared beyond the network of bare branches, casting a cool light upon us. An owl gave a sudden eerie call, disturbing the quiet of the wood. From further off, another answered.

‘This place scares me,’ said Ciar.

‘My lady,’ put in Mhairi, who had been unusually quiet, ‘you need not do this now, tonight.’