I nod my head, not saying if I’ll drop in later or not, then I’m gone. Out of the settlement, along the lake shore, and up to a house that must be the baker’s, since this is the end of the track.

It’s an odd-looking place, sort of cobbled together, with a roof that needs re-thatching and a damp look to it. There’s a yard where I can turn the horses, and a barn with a big door. I’m guessing that’ll be where he wants the flour bags. Nobody about, so I back the cart up there and call Storm and Sturdy to stand fast. I hop down. Before I can make another move a man comes round the side of the barn with a pitchfork in his hand, all ready to run it through me. I don’t bother to tell him what a bad idea that would be. I make myself hold still.

‘Come from Scannal’s,’ I say. ‘Brought your flour. Where do you want it?’

Pitchfork man gives me a good look over, not the way the woman in the village did, but as if he doesn’t like what he sees but thinks it’s too big to tackle on his own. From what the woman was saying, Branoc lives alone, so this must be him. He’s long and gangly, dark-haired, with a look about him that says he wants me gone soon. ‘In there,’ he says, jerking his head toward the barn door. ‘Wait.’

The door’s got big bolts across it. Fellow must be scared someone’ll steal his bread-baking secrets. I go to help him with the bolts and he snaps, ‘Leave it!’

I back off. Bonehead, a voice says inside me. I wait. I’ve been planning to feed and water the horses while I’m here, but now I’m thinking I’ll take them back down to the shore first.

Door’s open. Not much to see in the barn. Seems it’s only for stores, and the baking’s done somewhere else. A couple of full sacks, some sickles and forks and spades, barrels of this and that. Buckets, ladles. There’s a sort of loft, too dim to see properly, and a ladder going up through a trapdoor. Steep.

‘Where do you want them?’ I ask, loading the first sack onto my back. ‘Up there?’ I hope the answer’s no, though if it was me, I’d be storing my flour upstairs out of the damp.

‘I will carry them up later,’ Branoc says, surprising me – who’d want to be clambering up and down that flimsy ladder with a weight over his shoulder, if he had someone to do the job for him? ‘Place them by the wall, there, and be sure to stack them neatly.’ He takes the ladder down and carries it outside. Helpful, since that’ll make it easier for me to get the full bags over to the spot where he wants them.