“He’s not done for yet,” Gull said, and I felt tears well in my eyes and flow down my cheeks, welcome as spring rain. “Roll up his left sleeve, will you, Sibeal? I think the blood’s coming from that arm. Ah, yes—a nasty flesh wound here, but it doesn’t look deep. I’ll wrap something around it for now. As for his head—” He moved up, supported Ardal’s neck with one hand, felt the skull gently with the other, under the thick fall of hair. “He’ll have a monstrous headache and a lump like an egg—it’s already swelling—but my opinion is he’ll survive both this and the knife wound. Ardal’s a man on a mission, even if he doesn’t quite know what it is. He’s not going to let something like this stop him. As for Knut, he has some explaining to do, and I don’t think it can wait for morning.”

“Thank you,” I said, scrubbing my cheeks. “Gull, thank you.” For coming in when you did. For saving us. For being so calm and wise. For telling me Ardal isn’t dead.

“Just wish I’d been quicker. You’d best go for help now. Straight to Johnny. Ask him to bring Gareth and Cathal, and maybe one of the Norse speakers, if someone can be fetched without waking the whole place. I suppose we need to hear both sides of the story, whatever it turns out to be. Likely you’ll find someone on the way here already; that was quite a scream. Enough to put a man off going to the privy by himself at night for a long time.”

I fetched my cloak from my little chamber, then came back through the infirmary. Gull had placed a pillow under Ardal’s head and a blanket over his legs. Ardal was stirring; he muttered something in his own tongue.

“Lie still, son,” Gull said quietly. “You’re hurt. I’m just finding a bit of bandage for your arm, and Sibeal’s off to get Johnny.”

“I’ll be back soon,” I said, trying for a reassuring tone and managing a strangled croak.

As I moved to the door, Ardal spoke. The sound of it stopped my heart. It was as if he had opened a window and found himself gazing straight into his worst nightmare. I understood in that moment that at last he had remembered.

“We left them. Gods have mercy on us, we left them behind.”

CHAPTER 9

~Sibeal~

They went to find shelter, to find a safe place—if he hadn’t come back early—they wouldn’t listen—when Paul tried to—”