I withdrew and headed out my door before he could give words to the doubt I saw on his face. No sign of Fang this morning. Perhaps it was too early even for her. But not for everyone. As I walked toward the cliff path I saw two figures down by the water, near the fisherman’s cottage, deep in conversation. One wore a druid’s robe, the other was clad all in black. One had hair of deepest red, the other was dark as night. Ciarán and Cathal. I shivered. Enmeshed in my own woes, I had lost sight of what was to come for them, and perhaps for us all. Out beyond the safe margin of Inis Eala, Mac Dara still waited. I thought of the tiny tokens around the fragile necks of those two babes. What if a talisman was lost or broken? What if the cord snapped? What if the child was out playing and . . . No, I would not think of that. As soon as I imagined Firinne and her brother at three or four, I saw my own daughter running and climbing and being swung up high by her father, with her own talisman around her neck, and that was simply too hard to bear.

I passed the cove where Svala had crouched over her pile of fish bones. I passed the place where she had pushed Rodan to his death. I could almost understand that now. She was in thrall to Knut, bound to do his will, bound to share his bed although she shrank from him; that little sliver of skin was enough to let him control her while they were close, at least until we came to the serpent isle and the call of her beloved put new strength in her veins. But Rodan had no such talisman, and when he approached her, she did to him what she had long wished she could do to the man who had called her his wife. The man who had stolen her away, and lied about her, and used her as if she were a possession, not a living, breathing woman. A living, breathing creature. Gods, it was like an ancient epic of heroes and monsters.

Musing on this, I reached the narrow passage in the rocky headland and slipped through into Finbar’s cave.