The prince opens his mouth to respond, but I do not wait to hear his argument. I turn on my heel and stride out, away from my camp, away from the light of my fire, away from him. Unaccustomed to being dismissed, but wary of sending his raised voice after me for fear of giving away his whereabouts, Prince Brynach stomps with furious footsteps in the other direction, back to the crannog. Back to his princess.

Chapter 4

4

TILDA

Gasping, Tilda steps back from the figure—who is most definitely solid, as her bruised wrist and ribs assure her—and tries to shake the chaos from her head.

‘I’m sorry,’ she splutters, focusing on the elderly man she has just collided with. ‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

The man smiles at her calmly, a steadying hand still on her arm. He is tall and wiry, with bushy white hair that is partially covered by a tweedy hat. He sports an equally abundant beard and a pair of luxuriant eyebrows. His coat has evidently been chosen for reasons of practicality rather than style. He carries a walking stick with a bone handle carved to resemble a swan, and around his neck hang expensive-looking binoculars.

‘This mist can be confusing,’ he says, his accent lilting and softly Welsh, taking the hard edges off his words and giving the slightest hiss to each ‘s.’ ‘And you were running very quickly.’

‘I run most days,’ she tells him.

‘At such a speed? My goodness. How wonderful to be so strong and nimble. My own running days are over, I fear,’ he adds, and then, with a broadening grin, ‘unless I was being chased by something, of course. I like to think fear could still lend wings to my heels.’

Tilda tries to read the expression of this stranger.

What did he see? Did he see those … people, too? Does he know I was running away from them?

She cannot decide whether this notion makes her more anxious than the idea that the trio in the boat was the conjuring of her own imagination alone.

‘I…’ She hesitates; she cannot discuss what she has seen, what she thinks she has seen, with this apparently sensible, normal person. He will think her mad.

Perhaps I am. Perhaps I am losing my mind.

The man’s voice cuts through her thoughts.

‘Are you quite all right?’ he asks. ‘Forgive my saying so, but you look a little upset.’

Tilda shakes her head and tries to pull herself together. This is her new home, where she will have to live with her neighbors. She does not want them writing her off as the loon on the hill just yet.

‘I’m fine, thank you. I think I overdid it a bit, that’s all. Made me a little … light-headed.’