Late one afternoon the weather did clear briefly, and Onchú and Donncha took me and Grim up the hill to watch the birds fly in to the tower at dusk. If nothing else, this outing gave me a better feel for the lie of the land. As the sun set, the birds winged their way to the tower, settling on every ledge, in every nook and cranny. The shutters were closed and the tower’s inmate fell silent. I suspected it would be the same every day. There was a pattern to the creature’s existence. If not for the abandoned nature of the screaming, one might have imagined it as a being of orderly habits.

Grim suggested maybe the monster could not tolerate light; he’d wondered if the brightness hurt its eyes, even on an overcast day or a rainy one. Hence its quietening down during the hours of darkness. But then, why did it open the shutters in the mornings? I, in my turn, had wondered if there was some compulsion over its behavior. Could there be a charm or spell in place that forced it to scream during the daylight hours?

Or, Grim said, it might be enduring a routine of strict discipline, as a prisoner would in a place of incarceration, for instance. Or a monk in a monastery. Or a man-at-arms in a school for warcraft. But if that were the case, who had instituted that discipline? Save for the birds, the monster seemed to be all alone in the tower. But perhaps there was someone else there, invisible, silent. The crouched figure of the drawing. A captor? A torturer?

After the brief dry spell, the rain set in again. The enforced inactivity made Grim morose and restless. He needed something to keep him occupied, but it was too wet for the thatching. He did not seem enthusiastic about that job anyway. He could have gone over to St. Olcan’s to take a look at the roof—if Flannan could walk in the rain, Grim surely could—but he hadn’t so much as suggested the idea, and that wasn’t like him at all. At Winterfalls he was always out helping one person or another with some job. Long days and hard labor suited him. Sitting around idle in a lady’s house surely did not.

Eventually I suggested it myself. “You could chat to the monks while you’re there,” I told him as we sat over our breakfast on yet another wet morning. “You might meet other folk too—they may have lay brothers or locals who go to help with the stock and the garden. You could start a conversation about the monster. Subtly, of course. You never know what might come out.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Grim. Remember that time after we escaped from the lockup, when you followed me for miles and miles and got soaked to the skin? You can’t be putting this off just because of the rain. What is the problem?”

“Nothing.”

That was quite plainly untrue, but anytime I raised the subject of the monastery he went silent, so I stopped asking. And there was another problem: Flannan. I’d expected him to be quickly caught up in his work, as scholars tend to be—I knew all about that; I’d been married to one. But that hadn’t happened, or he wouldn’t be finding the time to come down here so often. I was fond of the man; always had been. But I was starting to find his frequent visits unsettling, and his constant pressing of the case to head south even more so. I wanted to make the decision on my own, without him filling my mind up with his plans. The choice had to be mine alone. That way, if things went disastrously wrong, I could only blame myself.