Ciar stared at Blackthorn, her chest heaving, her eyes wild. She said not a word.

‘Mhairi, why don’t you tell us?’ Blackthorn asked after a little pause.

‘After the drowning,’ Mhairi said in a wisp of a voice, ‘she told me –’

‘No!’ Ciar’s voice was like the crack of a whip. ‘I forbid you to speak! Have you forgotten what I said?’

A silence, then.

‘No,’ said Mhairi, lifting her chin and straightening her shoulders. ‘But I’m not covering up for you any longer. After I’d helped you for so long, ever since you told me on that first night what had happened to you, when I said Mistress Blackthorn was sure to work out the truth soon, even if Prince Oran didn’t, you said you’d send me straight back to Cloud Hill in disgrace if I didn’t do what you wanted. You said you’d tell everyone I’d stolen your silver bracelet – the one Lady Flidais’s mother gave her when she left home. You said you’d make sure nobody would ever give me a position again.’

Another silence; a telling one.

‘I was scared,’ said Ciar. She did not look at me, or at Mhairi, or at Blackthorn, but fixed her gaze on the middle distance, and I wondered if she was seeing that day unfold in all its shocking truth. ‘Scared by what happened to me. Scared to tell, because nobody would have believed me. I thought I could do it. I thought I could be Lady Flidais; I’d spent a whole year with her, listening as she prattled on, watching as she played with wretched Bramble or admired wildflowers or fussed over her letters and her books. What was I supposed to do that day, when I hardly knew myself what had happened? I came out of the water, and there was my own body lying on the shore, drowned. I thought I was dreaming. I thought I’d wake up any moment. But I didn’t. What I did – it felt like the only choice.’

‘Black Crow save us,’ muttered Grim.

‘So you took your mistress’s place,’ Blackthorn said with a mildness I suspected was deceptive. ‘You lay with her sweetheart, only days after you arrived in his house.’ I felt myself flush with mortification; just as well the place lay half in shadow. ‘You would have married the prince; you would have become lady of a great house, and in time, queen of Dalriada.’

‘I could have done it,’ Ciar said, looking up. Now there was a hint of defiance in her voice. ‘I may not be a chieftain’s daughter, but anyone can run a household and bear children. And I know how to please a man in bed, most likely better than Flidais ever would have.’ She fixed me with her gaze. ‘Prince Oran can attest to that; he wasn’t exactly reluctant.’