There were folk in the dining hall, not laughing and talking as they usually did over their meals, but seated in subdued silence. The pots of soup and loaves of fresh-baked bread that might have fed a small army of survivors were a mute testament to the lives lost. Johnny spoke to one or two people—mostly senior members of the island community, those who had been at Inis Eala since his father’s time—then came over to tell me the burial rite would take place at dusk next day, if I agreed. It would take some time to choose a suitable spot, excavate the hard island soil, then place stones in the rough shape of a boat.

“It’s a while for the dead to lie waiting,” I said. “I should say some prayers over them when they’ve been laid out.”

“Thank you, Sibeal. That would be welcome. They’ve been taken to the net-mending shed.”

“I should speak to the survivors first. I’m hoping Knut will give me the names of the dead. They should be spoken aloud, if not now, then certainly as part of tomorrow’s ritual. Where are Knut and Svala? In the infirmary?”

“They’ll still be there, yes. Our healers are checking what damage they’ve sustained. You’ll find Jouko with them; he’s translating for Muirrin and Evan. Sibeal, go carefully with Knut. He seems calm and composed, but these fellows were his crewmates, perhaps friends. Looking on their drowned faces will be hard for him. He speaks very little Irish. Jouko will help you.”

For the duration of my stay on the island, I was in fact sleeping in the infirmary. There was scant privacy on Inis Eala, where single women slept in one communal area and single men in another, with a partitioned building for married couples. Only those with children had their own quarters. In recognition of my status as a druid and my personal need for quiet, I had been given a chamber of my own, a narrow space at one end of the building that more usually housed patients who must for one reason or another be isolated. The first time I had stepped inside this small chamber I had felt the sorrow there, and the kindness. The place was screened from the infirmary proper by a sacking curtain, and had its own door to the outside so it was possible to come in and out—for instance, to visit the privy—without walking across the main chamber. Before sleeping last night, I had marked protective runes on the walls with charcoal. It seemed they had been well chosen, for no bad dreams had visited my slumber. My druidic robe was hanging on a peg there. I would need to change before I said prayers for the fallen.