“He does know, because he knows you are a good man. He knows you better than anyone, didn’t you say so yourself?” I moved across to him, cautiously, for I could not be sure what he would do. “Give me your hands, Cathal. Please.” Kneeling before him, I took his hands in mine, drawing them gently away from his face. His shoulders were hunched, his knees drawn up, his jaw clenched tight. There was a violent trembling coursing through him. I leaned over and touched my lips to his brow, where the skin was torn and bloody. “You’ve hurt yourself, dear one,” I said. “Whatever you think you’ve done, he would forgive you. In your heart you know that.”

He drew a ragged breath, and then, suddenly, he was kneeling too, his head bowed onto my shoulder, and my arms went around him, and he was weeping, not silently, but with a full-throated and wrenching sorrow that rang across the clearing and vibrated through every part of me. I held him, and he wept, and a little breeze passed through the foliage of the oaks beyond the hedge, sounding a rustling counterpoint. Eventually, like an exhausted child, he sobbed himself into silence, but we stayed there awhile longer, arms around each other, unable to move beyond the unthinkable thing that had happened. It was Becan’s hungry wailing that broke the spell.

“Go,” said Cathal, releasing me and dashing a hand across his cheeks. “Go and tend to him, go on.”

I sat back on my heels, regarding him closely. “He can wait,” I said. “Cathal, come over to the fire with me.”

He rose to his feet and I did the same. My legs were numb with cramp; I had a good excuse to put my arm around him as we made our way back, gathering Becan up on the way. It helped that there were things to do; it is hard to ignore a screaming baby. Cathal tended to the fire. I fed the child. When he was finished, I took the pot of water Cathal had heated and added some of the precious supply of honey, then divided the brew between Cathal and me.

“Drink it,” I told him. “Honey’s a restorative. We need this.”

He drank in silence, seated cross-legged, staring into the fire. The look on his face frightened me. When he began to speak, I expected a statement of vengeance; perhaps a vow to hunt down whoever had killed his friend in cold blood. But he said, “I’m sorry. I forgot how you must be feeling. You and Aidan . . . You meant so much to him . . . He was always talking about you. And your father liked him. Approved of him. If I hadn’t allowed my friend to die, you and he would have . . . I’ve stolen your future, Clodagh. How can you forgive me?”