‘Open that door,’ Gertrude shouts, ‘a sword runs through your guts till they are spilling on the ground, and you are done, and then I am done. Would you have me done?’

‘I would not have you done,’ Conn shouts, kicking some straw about his feet in frustration.

And yet this noise is worse than hell, he feels. He has listened to thunderstorms of crows every morning; calves with twisted guts, screaming out their deaths near his ear, their lamenting mothers lowing their mourning for days on end, and he has not minded it, but certain human noises have an intrusive and sharp quality he cannot stand, one that is unmatched in nature.

‘Why are you tapping your foot and walking in a circle?’ Gertrude shouts at him. ‘Is there something at you that wants to get out of here?’

Conn thinks of Gertrude’s voice, her easy and fluent company, and how this past few days has been for him like some great carousing festival of sociability and laughter; a great joy to him.

‘It is just the noise of the knocking,’ Conn shouts back. ‘It is driving me mad.’

‘Have we not had a pleasant time of it here, no?’ Gertrude says. ‘Why flee? We have everything.’

Conn knows this is true, and he knows he is hurting Gertrude with his impatience. Why do I want to go? he thinks. The floor is covered in hay and straw; the room becomes pleasantly smoky whenever they light a fire, and even his coughing becomes warm then. There are plenty of bags of grain stacked up in the corner; a barrel of cider; clean wool to lie on, and she shares this all with him, like he was her son.

He has never known such luxury, and he never thought people could talk so much; get such easy and painless pleasure by it. He has been blessed, and in some ways, though he is guilty for it, he wishes this sickness would go on forever.

‘I want to see Dervorgilla,’ he mutters to himself, suddenly acknowledging this unexpected truth.

‘What are you saying? I can’t hear you,’ Gertrude shouts. ‘It will stop, this noise.’

‘I have said nothing.’

‘I do not believe you want to leave the house and go back to shepherding,’ she shouts. ‘You have spoken too ill of it at too great a length. Who is there to talk to you there, but the Gaels you do not understand? And yet youth’s restlessness and anger is in you, and I must ask you what do you want that you cannot have here? Do not fool me with soft words. I am lifelong sick of lies, and afterwards being called names for my belief in them.’