He was panicking, but it seemed at a distance, a remote fear for the well-being of someone he knew only vaguely. It was a sensation he had felt before. When he was young he stole a bottle of rotwine from Trengborne’s shop and sloped out into the fields with his friends. He felt big and brave, but within an hour of the first gulp he wished he had never even heard of the drink. He had often wondered why those men and women sitting inside and outside the tavern looked so lifeless, so devoid of emotion, and now he had found out. Everything receded until there was only fire in his veins, blurring the edges of his senses.

His father had found him and dragged him back to the house, sat up with him all night until Rafe came to and vomited across the floor. His parents did not tell him off. They said he had scolded himself, and that they hoped he had learned a lesson.

His parents. They were kind and thoughtful, not impulsive and cruel like so many people he knew. They were also open and honest, and he loved them for that. Most people would have chosen never to tell their son that he was not truly their flesh and blood; that they had found him out on the hillside, a babe abandoned by rovers or a family too poor to care for another child; that though both as barren as some of the village fields, they had been so desperate to have a child that they had taken him and called him their own. Such honesty had troubled him at first, but in time it had made him love them even more. The trust implicit in their telling of the truth revealed the depth of their feelings for him.

And now they were dead.

“Dead!” he shouted, but hands pushed him back down as he tried to sit up, and he realized they were trying to help. The washing had stopped and now he was being dried with a rough towel, the cuts on his legs and arms stinging as clumsy but caring hands scoured them.

Rafe sat up again, pushing at whomever held him down. He touched his face to see if his eyes were open—they were—and the confirmation helped his vision creep back. With it came sound, and smell. He looked around, sniffed and began to wish he was still unconscious.