‘But can that next part be right? Did the Queen of Mercia really attack the crannog because of a murdered abbot?’

‘That is what is recorded. However, Queen Aethelflaed had been at odds with the Cymru, that’s the Welsh, of course, for many years. It may be she used the hapless priest’s killing as an excuse to cross the border.’

‘And thirty-four people, no, thirty-five, including the king’s wife…’

‘In reality more likely a princess,’ the professor puts in. ‘We know that the crannog was built for a Welsh prince, a gift from his father, who had a region of his own to the south to worry about. Eager to have his son settled somewhere, I should imagine. And married to someone politically helpful. In such unstable times any manner of alliance that could be formed was worth a try.’

‘So the princess and these few people from the actual crannog, they were taken prisoner. What happened to the others? To the rest of the villagers?’

‘We must assume they were killed in the attack. The settlement on the crannog was set alight, burnt down to the wooden piles and stone base that remain. I should imagine all the dwellings along the lakeside would have been put to the torch also. These raiding parties were not in the habit of leaving anything much aside from devastation in their wake.’

For a moment Tilda is assailed by images flashing through her mind of what such an attack must have been like. Women and children running. People taking to the fortified island for safety, only to find themselves trapped. So many people killed. In a few short minutes, everything gone. And what of the woman in the boat? What of this other version of herself? Had she been one of the survivors?

‘Professor, is there a list anywhere that tells us about those who were taken prisoner?’

‘Not that I have been able to find, though there are some new documents being archived at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth even as we speak. The collection is being digitalized, so that at the click of a button one can be reading words written over a millennium ago. Astonishing. Truly astonishing.’

The professor pauses as the standard lamp beside him fizzes alarmingly.

No, not now. Steady. Let them work. All I have to do is let them work.

Tilda eyes the bracelet anxiously, wishing she could snatch it up and hold it close, but aware that to do so would look more than a little weird. The bulb in the lamp gives a fat popping sound and goes dark. The rest of the lights in the room, however, brighten once more and remain steady.