I could not settle to anything. I wanted it to be evening now, and Flannan here telling us what he had discovered. I wanted to run up to St. Olcan’s so I could sit right beside him while he completed the translation. I wanted . . . I wanted to be free of lies. To start telling the truth. Often, since we came to Bann, I had wondered if I was surrounded by lies. The bland-faced servants, so courteous and efficient, so guarded in their responses. Geiléis, with her odd defensiveness and her reluctance to let me investigate properly. The local folk, those few I had managed to meet, with their strangely vague memories. But then, the curse itself might be deadening their minds. Making them forget. It might have been making people forget since the time of Geiléis’s ancestors. The monster could have come back over and over with nobody remembering long enough to pass the tale on. It could have been going on since that document of Flannan’s was set down. Before, even. Which would explain why nobody at court had known anything about Geiléis or her situation, even though Bann was within Dalriada’s borders and right next to St. Olcan’s, which was famous everywhere for its scholarship and had the means to send messages out and in. Even the monks might be caught in a web of forgetting.

I took this theory to Geiléis, who had arisen late as usual and was talking to Senach in the dining chamber. “It’s possible, don’t you think? Something as big as this doesn’t simply vanish from the tales. Even if it’s a long time since the creature was last in the tower—a hundred years, say, or longer. The tower is right next to what used to be a busy river crossing, only two years ago. It’s not the sort of place you forget seeing. And the monks are not so very far away. You’d think every scholar who visited St. Olcan’s would take the story with him when he left. You’d think it would have spread not only throughout Dalriada, but right across the north. Perhaps even more widely. Grim said those pigeons fly as far south as Mide, or even farther. What about those young men you said have moved out of the district because they can’t bear the effects of the curse? Don’t they talk about this once they’re settled somewhere else? It seems not. I thought maybe folk did know the story and for some reason weren’t telling. But maybe they’re silent because they can’t tell. Because something has made them forget.”

Geiléis and Senach had listened in silence while I expounded this theory. Now Geiléis said, “You seem strung tight today, Blackthorn. Are you having second thoughts?”

“Of course not!” I snapped. I’d expected an informed opinion on my theory, not a comment on my demeanor, which had nothing to do with the matter in hand. “I said I’d attempt this for you and I will. But it’s stupid to go into it without learning everything I can beforehand. To be quite honest with you, I’ve sometimes felt as if I’m being prevented from doing that, and that this household is part of it. But that’s nonsense. You’re asking me to risk my life on your behalf. Why wouldn’t you do everything in your power to help me succeed?”