They skirt around Moynagh Lake, engulfed in oak trees. Glimmering water glimpsed through the thickness and shade of the summer trees. A black-haired woman with a large blemish on her face stands on the edge of a crannóg, stepping onto the bridge that sprouts from it, a large axe slung over her shoulder. Behind her is a mud hut. She waves at them. Tools line the bridge, hanging down, slung off leather hoops, wind whipping the water beneath, shivering them in ghostly swingings. William of Roscrea waves back and then she begins heaving the axe down on the bridge.

‘It would seem she’s destroying it,’ William says, ‘so as to more happily isolate herself from the cares and ravages of this diseased land, or so it would appear on casual observance.’

‘I did not think those dwellings were still habitated,’ de Flunkl says.

‘Humans enter available space, regardless of fashion, tradition or superstition,’ William says. ‘And often they invade unavailable space,’ he continues, glancing at de Flunkl.

‘I too would enjoy a little fairy island on which to ruminate,’ Harold Tuite says. ‘A few sacks of grain my only company, a gentle blanket of grass beneath my weary bones. Still water lapping around me, rocking me to sleep. Magnificent clouds above me sailing by, multi-formed shapes dazzling and awakening my imagination, heaving me in turns with their vengeance of tumultuous dreams every night. Birdsong lullabies and windy trees like soft-edged chimes with many hands the only noise external to the body in which my bruised heart does rock gently within me, measuring out the space of my heartbreak until I join my beloveds in heaven.’

‘You will eventually join your family, but you may yet get your more immediate wish,’ William says. ‘Property is vacant, more than we could have ever imagined when we began this quest, and a claimant may lodge his suit with the only remaining sovereign power, which is, on all appearances, and in many cases, the unprotesting dead.’

‘You best hope that’s not the truth,’ de Flunkl remarks, throwing an evil glance at William. ‘You best hope that’s not true, for our sakes, mine as well as yours. You best hope that chaos respects the limits of property.’

Harold rubs a shivering Saint John on the back and shrugs on William’s behalf.

‘She may be infected,’ William says, referring to the woman on the bridge. ‘Though she seems too invigoratingly vibrant and vital with her manly axe swings to be yet stricken. I hope I too have the courage to isolate myself if I am taken by the precipitous trembling and weakness that foreshadows, or rather foreswears, the sickness, with its promise of imminent and painful death. I hope to do it somewhere as beautiful as this earthy fortification, the fruits of an earlier, stronger and more nimble people.’