Despite the interruptions while one of us did some work and earned the pittance that was all most folk could afford to pay, we made reasonable progress. I judged it to be close to the festival of Lugnasad, harvest time, when we came up over a pass and looked north across the region of Ulaid. To the east I could see the grey expanse of the sea, under a sky of building clouds that promised rain by nightfall. That meant another miserable wet camp, unless we reached farmland and happened on a barn whose owner wasn’t going to wake us up and demand a day’s labour for the privilege of shelter. Ahead, over those hills and valleys, away off in the misty distance, lay the kingdom of Dalriada. Somewhere up there was Winterfalls and the end of my journey. Just how far we still had to walk I wasn’t sure, and nor was Grim, since he’d never heard of Winterfalls until I mentioned the name. He did know Dalriada was in the far north-east of Ulaid, so we still had a way to go. All the same, getting over the mountains felt like some kind of achievement. I found myself hoping Ulaid was full of folk who didn’t need help, or preferred not to ask for it. Found myself, stupidly, wondering if the cottage Conmael had mentioned might turn out to be a sort of gift. Hah! The complications of this whole thing, the offer, the obligation, the guilt, the choices in it were enough to make a person’s head spin. It was both gift and burden. Because nothing came for free, ever.

‘Better be moving on,’ said Grim. ‘Storm’s coming.’

It was coming fast. The clouds were a dark stir in the sky; the distant sea was a slaty sheet. The wind poked chill fingers through the warm clothing Conmael’s folk had given me. I had not seen my fey benefactor since that night. I wondered, sometimes, if he’d become bored by the whole thing, or forgotten me. I considered testing this theory by heading off on my own in whatever direction I chose. But the price of being wrong on this particular point was far too high to take chances. If I got to Winterfalls, and if the time stretched out to a year, two perhaps, with still no sign of Conmael, then maybe . . .

‘Woods down there,’ Grim observed, leaning on the staff he had cut from a fallen oak branch. ‘Best shelter we’ll get.’

By the time we reached the wooded lower slopes, it was raining steadily. A rumble of thunder, not so far away, sent us along a track into dense oak forest. Here the canopy kept off the worst of the rain. But our clothing was already soaked. The storm had turned day to dusk; there was no choice but to make camp somewhere in these woods.