“There came a time when he and I were betrayed to an old enemy and taken prisoner. This fellow thought he could play on our particular weaknesses to get what he wanted.” Gull shot me a glance; I think he was not quite sure whether I knew that the enemy in question had been my mother’s own brother, Eamonn. “He knew the Chief had a terror of confined places, and that he feared the dark more than anything. So he shut him up in a hole under the floor with barely room to breathe and none to move. I was luckier: thrown in a dungeon and strung up by the wrists. Trouble was, each time the Chief was taken out of his little cubbyhole and subjected to questioning, and each time he refused to talk, I lost one finger.” He held up his maimed hands. “We had a code, the Painted Men. We never gave in to that kind of pressure. I knew the Chief wouldn’t talk to save me. This fellow wasn’t going to keep his word anyway. He wanted the Chief dead; once he’d had his bit of fun, he’d dispatch him without a second thought. Our captor had a double grudge. The Chief had bested him in battle. And he’d taken his woman, or at least the woman this fellow believed was his intended. Matter of pride. We were never going to be released alive.”

Although I knew the story from Ciarán, it was still shocking to hear it told. The passage of so many years did not make it any less cruel. If the precise details of what Eamonn had done to Gull and Bran had never been known to my mother, she had surely been aware of her brother’s love for Liadan and his jealous hatred of the man who had taken her from him.

“Well, there I am,” Gull said, “in this fellow’s fortress, strung up with my arms fair breaking out of their sockets and my hands somewhat the worse for wear after a little butchery, wondering how we’re going to get out of this one, when in walks Liadan accompanied by a guard with a torch. She’s come all the way from her own home on a hunch, a sudden concern for Bran’s safety. What agreement she’s reached with our captor I have no idea, but suddenly she’s giving orders and someone’s cutting me down—gods, that was the worst pain you can imagine, the feeling coming back to my arms—and then we’re off to find the Chief. Somehow this young woman, about the same age as Sibeal here and of very similar appearance, has bargained to get the two of us out of that place. Just to make the tale all the more astonishing, I should tell you that she has a little baby with her, in a sling on her back.”