It took Lacroix a full mile to find the horse’s mind, to establish some understanding between them. At certain places, entirely of the horse’s choosing, they trotted. For the rest they plodded, ambled, the motion easier for them all. They rode towards the sun. Emily, side-saddle, rested her head against Lacroix’s back. Her bag was in front of him; his own bag he had left at the inn to be collected when he returned the horse. He wondered what the innkeeper would have said if they told him the truth of their journey. Where would it fit among the strange, even fabulous things, the man might know? An innkeeper on one of the edges of the world! And these people, the Gaels, were a curious mix, rooted and practical, but living easily among dreams and stories and superstition, one ear always pressed against the night-world, or whatever it was, the correct name for that part of life people were forgetting how to address.

“I can smell the burning,” said Emily.

“A turning? Here?”

“The kelp, John. We cannot be far off.”

He had done no more than follow the road. Now, as the road became uncertain, became a track, became two paths, paths that soon guttered out in the grass, he began to recognise the landscape. He tapped old Tom’s flanks with his heels. The horse looked up, caught something of the new mood of purpose, and went on at a smarter pace. Smoke to the south, grey smoke and the haze of heat from the trenches. Then the sea was in view, dark under the blaze of a low sun. Another half-hour and a patch of white became the facing wall of a house. Fifteen minutes after that and both house and boat shed were in plain view, and not smouldering ruins but exactly as they had left them. Lacroix tensed his gaze, trying to pick out the human upright, a moving figure. He could see Emily’s garden, the path to the well . . .

“They will be amazed to find us suddenly in front of them,” he said. For a moment he had put aside the reason for their return. This was a homecoming. Emily had been placed in his care and here he was, returning her, unharmed and perhaps soon to have the use of her eyes again.

“Jane is in her room,” said Emily. “She is sewing something. Not very well.”

“And Cornelius,” said Lacroix, “is uncovering the last blackened toe of the Caledonian Achilles while poor Ranald pretends to take an interest.”

“Yes,” she said, “Ranald. There’s a voice I have missed.”