Outside we find Siōn blowing into his hands and stamping his feet against the cold. He is making so much noise all by himself I doubt he would have heard an approaching army. At the sight of us he becomes brisk and arrogant, taking his place beside the princess importantly.

The women pull up their hoods. Princess Wenna takes a velvet purse from her robe and offers it to me.

‘Your payment,’ she says, ‘for your trouble.’

It is as well that the darkness shades the expression on my face. There is a silence charged with my own anger and the expectation of the three who stand before me. When I speak, I am aware my ire colors the sound of my words. The princess knows well how to insult me, and chooses to do so with her nephew as witness, so that the slight will be reported back to Rhodri.

‘I work for Prince Brynach’s betterment,’ I tell her. ‘For his safety, for his favor. I require no pieces of silver. A seer cannot be hired for coin. My gifts are not for sale.’ As if to give weight to my sentiment, a heavy cloud swallows up the bright moon so that the blackness about us deepens. There is no more to be said. The princess gathers her pride and her followers and turns for the crannog. I stand and watch as the three figures melt into the night.

Chapter 5

5

TILDA

A steady drizzle has rendered the landscape gray and blurred, so that Tilda is happy to be shut in her studio, turning her attention to her work. The feeble sunlight has compounded her lighting problems, however, so that she has resorted to candles and a storm lantern to light the space. She put a match to the fire in the wood-burning stove more than an hour ago, so that now the room is warm enough. Thistle, who has become her gray shadow, settles herself on the rag rug in front of the stove. The studio already has a familiar, cozy feel to it. Tilda sits in a dusty, glaze-stained chair by the patio doors, sketch book on her knee, attempting to reproduce the shapes and patterns she saw among the twisted branches of the crannog trees. She works with quick, confident strokes, her stub of soft pencil creating thick marks on the paper. She tries to recall the way the limbs of the trees entwined and crossed through and over one another.

As if winter winds have tied them in knots.