A pox on Knut! How dare he make such a suggestive remark in front of my family? I opened my mouth to answer, then shut it again. The best response was a dignified silence.

Gull rose to his feet. “We’ll have our little talk outside, boys.” He looked across at Cathal. “Should be a good bout.”

“May the best man win,” said Cathal lightly.

There was time to fill before the fighting started. Biddy, sensitive to Clodagh’s distracted mood, sent the two of us off to the root cellar to fetch vegetables. When that was done she set us to chopping while she plucked and gutted chickens. My knife moved steadily: red-gold circles of carrot like little suns, creamy slices of turnip, pungent, translucent slivers of onion. On Biddy’s side of the table a drift of feathers filled the air, a strange summer snow.

“Are you coming out to watch the fighting, Biddy?” Clodagh asked.

“I’ll venture over to see how the Norseman stands up against Cathal. If that man of mine works a miracle, I don’t want to have to tell him I missed it.”

The knife stilled in my hand. A man falling, falling . . . blood on the stones. A scream cut off sharply. His head . . . oh gods, his head, where it had struck . . . I sat down abruptly, my hands to my brow, mumbling something about feeling faint.

Clodagh brought me a cup of mead, a heady brew for so early in the morning. I gulped a mouthful down. My sister had seated herself beside me, her hand on my shoulder.

“What did you see, Sibeal?” Last time we had watched Cathal fight, she had been edgy. The closer it came to the time of her delivery, I thought, the more difficult it would be for Clodagh to see her husband in any danger.

“Nothing to worry about,” I said. “A snatch of Sight, that’s all.” Who was that falling man and why had I seen him?

Biddy had the chickens hanging up on strings as she worked on them. A bucket stood underneath to catch the entrails. I could not look at this without seeing the image again: a man’s head smashed on stone, the contents splattered, a feast for squawking gulls. “Excuse me,” I murmured and made a hasty exit into the kitchen garden, where I spewed up my meager breakfast in a corner. I felt suddenly cold and shaky. I bring shadows. I bring ill luck. I had told Ardal not to say such things, not even to think them. But I felt the chill. I felt the shadow. Whether he was right, and he had indeed brought a darkness with him to the island, or whether another force was at play among us, I felt its grip and was afraid.

I waited until I was reasonably composed before going back in.

“Better?” Clodagh scrutinized me.

“I’m fine. It was nothing.”