Sir Corc looked at the boat for a long time. The man to whom Sir Corc had given the blanket and dirk was walking down the wharf, laughing and chatting with the other three. He climbed into the boat and unfurled the single sail while the others untied the craft from its moorings. The woman clutched the girl and looked at nothing as the craft left the wharf. Her face was placid, but her arms continued to stave off the girl’s awkward struggles. That face haunted Pocket long after it was lost from view. The boat was barely visible when Sir Corc finally answered.

“They are banished. Sent to live as exiles, along with all the others on some accursed island in the Knucklebones.”

“Others?” Flyn asked. “Other what?”

“Women,” Sir Corc answered. “The cast offs. Poisoners. Those whose insanity make them too dangerous to live amongst others. Those given to sorcery or who couple with…” He broke off and glanced down at Pocket.

“The gruagach,” Pocket finished the statement.

Sir Corc nodded. “The place they are taken. Taken…and left, is called the Isle of Mad Women.”

Pocket looked out over the flinty waters. The boat was gone from sight.

“That girl was simple!” Flyn declared. “Simple and misshapen! But she was not mad!”

“I know,” Sir Corc replied, his voice full of disgust. “It is not the girl who is deemed touched. It is her mother. Who else but a mad woman would refuse to abandon so flawed a child?”

“You paid them!” Flyn took a step toward the knight. “You paid that cur to dump them on some island?!”

Corc’s voice remained steady. “By human tradition, the women must pay for their passage. If they do not, it is likely the boatman will throw them over the side before they reach the isle. The woman had nothing to give.”

“How do you know that wretch won’t take your trifles and then dump them over just the same?!”

“Humans are a superstitious lot,” Sir Corc replied. “A blood price has been paid. He will not break such a bargain.”

Flyn was incensed. “We could have saved them! You! You could have saved them! Cut down those four dogs, not buy them off! This should not stand, sir! The Order should do something!”

“What?” Sir Corc asked flatly. “Do what? This stands, my young squire, because it has stood for hundreds of years. It is human tradition at its most cruel, but it is their tradition. There are places like this all across the Tin Islands. Not just here in Albain, but all over. Sasana, Kymbru, Airlann. They all have wharfs like this one and boats full of sorrow and they are all bound for that one isle. What can our Order do against that? Go to war with every human clan that casts off its undesirables? With fifty knights?”