Alannah turns away from him. ‘You are too unreliable,’ she says. ‘I have known your type since I was a child; every new sound beckons you, and now it seems another woman has made herself available for this gallant man to save. Go, go to Mary. You are saving nothing, and either my husband will kill you, or you will kill him, and I care for neither of you, but don’t you hurt the old woman in your brawl. I am fond of her.’

The house at the end of the street harbours so much noise that it seems to be rocking. The birds are everywhere above him in great confusion. Everything in him wants to run from this town, to be free of this place, but there is a frenzied vitality in Mary’s keening that calls to him.

‘I will return for you,’ he says.

‘I am done with you; you are as stupid as they all are,’ she says. ‘Do you think I ever needed a gallant man, or any Norman? Did you think I was not guileful enough to escape this place on my own?’

He walks towards the house.

‘I do not think anything any more,’ William says.

‘Did you knock?’ …

‘Did you knock?’ Concessa whispers.

‘I do not remember knocking,’ Ruth says. ‘I have been in here with you, so it cannot have been me that knocked.’

The house is full of women, and they are making the room full with their talk. To Samthánn it feels as though they have been talking forever. Ruth is fat, small, and Samthánn wonders how she can be so fat when no one eats any more.

‘The knock came from outside,’ Neasa says, ‘so it could not have been us. We are inside.’

‘That child is trouble,’ Concessa says. ‘It could be her that knocked. We do not know her. She arrived with the sickness.’

‘There are no marks or swellings on her,’ Ruth says.

‘I remember how she came to this place,’ Neasa says. ‘But I do not remember it now. Someone brought her here.’

Samthánn plays with the rock in her hands. Some of it is smooth, but one part of it is sharp, but it is sharp in the wrong place. This is like people, she feels.

‘She is just an orphan,’ Concessa says, ‘from Kells, probably.’

‘How is it that there are fewer people but orphans are more abundant?’ Ruth asks. ‘It is strange to me.’

‘Faeries could be birthed by the faerie tree by the lake if the weather is right, but the weather is always wrong,’ Neasa says. ‘Are you from the tree, child?’

Samthánn has not spoken since the women took her in; they do not even know if she can.