My throat was too hoarse to speak. In those moments of silence I realised he had been the one singing. Had I heard him before, elsewhere, or was that Christophor? But what would he know of such a voice, uncouth as he was?

The young man opened his mouth, but instead of singing, he screamed.

So low a sound, so deep compared to the singing, it didn’t seem real, not at first. His demeanour didn’t change at all; he continued to stare, slightly curious, this green-eyed man. Until Rebecca appeared in the garden. Rebecca pushed her way between the hanging sheets, and the man stopped his screaming. As if nothing untoward had happened, he turned and walked away.

‘Alexsander, what—’ She looked me up and down, taking in the full state of me. ‘What happened to you?’

‘I—’

‘Never mind that, come inside before you scare any more of the children.’ Rebecca took me in hand and, I’m ashamed to say, I leaned on her for much of the way up to the house. She led me into the handsome and well-looked-after greenhouse. Everything inside – the walls, the floor, the plants themselves – had a slick, hot wetness.

Without preamble she began checking me over, turning my face this way and that. She found dried blood on my hands and up my arms. I watched on, mute, as she pressed and prodded until she satisfied herself that either I was done with my bleeding or the blood was not mine. In truth, I couldn’t be sure myself which was the case.

Eventually, I managed to croak a request for water and she hurried off, commanding me to wait there. But I couldn’t wait. On a window sill, beside a plant with spiky, purple-tipped leaves, was a watering can. Holding it above my head I poured until I almost drowned.

‘I suppose it’s all from the same well,’ Rebecca said, a glass in her hand. I drank that too. ‘Now, tell me what happened.’

I recounted Christophor’s flight through the forest, his being thrown from the horse, and my waking up in the embrace of a tree.

‘And the horse?’ Rebecca said.

‘Gone.’ I did not want to disturb her with any details of just how.

She shifted her apron. I hadn’t properly taken her in until then. She was wearing working clothes and her hair was tied back with a handkerchief.

‘I’ve interrupted your day,’ I said, by way of an apology.

She waved away my concern. ‘Come with me.’

We walked through a maze of carpeted corridors, some of which I recognised; Christophor had investigated those corridors just the night before. The details were a little vague, but his feeling of unease wasn’t. I felt much the same under the gaze of the stuffed stags and large, old-fashioned paintings of severe men. I was glad when we passed through the pomposity of the family home and into the servants’ side. The walls went from an overbearing dark green to a clean white, and the furnishings became plain and functional. Perhaps it was my imagination, but Rebecca seemed to find the change more comfortable also.