‘We departed in haste,’ said the dark-haired attendant. ‘Under the circumstances, our riding skills weighed more than our abilities to dress hair or mend garments. Ciar was a good rider.’

But not such a good swimmer, I thought, if she drowned so quickly. The cry for help could not have been hers, or surely I would have reached the pool to find her still alive. I had brought folk back from near-drowning before, folk who had stopped breathing but still had a pulse. Ciar had been well past that point.

I turned my attention back to Lady Flidais, who was taking reluctant sips of the draught. There was a little more colour in her cheeks now. ‘You left home in a hurry, my lady?’ I asked, not because I wanted to know, but to get her talking again. Cloud Hill, they’d said. Why did that name sound familiar?

‘My . . . my father’s holdings are under threat,’ Flidais whispered. ‘We had to get away quickly, yes. I don’t want to talk about it.’

An awkward silence ensued. The lady sipped her drink. Her attendants had run out of things to say, or at least, things they were prepared to say in my presence. That didn’t stop them having a good look: at the sleeping arrangements, at the bundles of drying herbs and the plaits of garlic and onions hanging from the roof, at the jars and bottles and bags containing various substances I used in my craft. At the boxes Grim had made to hold my supplies, with their carved lids, and the basket he’d woven for firewood. At the neat pegs to hold clothing, the well-scrubbed hearth, the rush-strewn floor. Whatever these ladies might think of me, nobody was going to say I was a slattern. A healer kept things orderly; couldn’t do her job otherwise. When wise women appeared in the old tales, they were often toothless hags living in caves festooned with dangling bones and full of wriggling things in jars. As hags went, I was a youngish one, and though I had lost a tooth or two in that place, I could still bite hard. If my story was ever told by the fireside, it wouldn’t send folk to bed with good dreams.