“Lean close,” Gran-pere muttered, and when Eddie did: “The only one Ah ever told was my boy Luke…Tian’s Da’, do’ee ken. Years and years later, this was. He told me never to speak of it to anyone else. Ah said, ‘But Lukey, what if it could help? What if it could help t’next time they come?’ ”

Gran-pere’s lips barely moved, but his thick accent had almost entirely departed, and Eddie could understand him perfectly.

“And he said to me, ‘Da’, if’ee really b’lieved knowin c’d help, why have’ee not told afore now?’ And Ah couldn’t answer him, young fella, cos ’twas nothing but intuition kep’ my gob shut. Besides, what good could it do? What do it change ?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie said. Their faces were close. Eddie could smell beef and gravy on old Jamie’s breath. “How can I, when you haven’t told me what you saw?”

“ ‘The Red King always finds ’is henchmen,’ my boy said. ‘It’d be good if no one ever knew ye were out there, better still if no one ever heard what ye saw out there, lest it get back to em, aye, even in Thunderclap.’ And Ah seen a sad thing, young fella.”

Although he was almost wild with impatience, Eddie thought it best to let the old guy unwind it in his own way. “What was that, Gran-pere?”

“Ah seen Luke didn’t entirely believe me. Thought his own Da’ might just be a-storyin, tellin a wild tale about bein a Wolf-killer t’look tall. Although ye’d think even a halfwit would see that if Ah was goingter make a tale, Ah’d make it me that killed the Wolf, and not Eamon Doolin’s wife.”

That made sense, Eddie thought, and then remembered Gran-pere at least hinting that he had taken credit more than once-upon-a, as Roland sometimes said. He smiled in spite of himself.

“Lukey were afraid someone else might hear my story and believe it. That it’d get on to the Wolves and Ah might end up dead fer no more than tellin a make-believe story. Not that it were.” His rheumy old eyes begged at Eddie’s face in the growing dark. “ Youbelieve me, don’t ya?”

Eddie nodded. “I know you say true, Gran-pere. But who…” Eddie paused. Who would rat you out? was how the question came to mind, but Gran-pere might not understand. “But who would tell? Who did you suspect?”

Gran-pere looked around the darkening yard, seemed about to speak, then said nothing.

“Tell me,” Eddie said. “Tell me what you—”

A large dry hand, a-tremor with age but still amazingly strong, gripped his neck and pulled him close. Bristly whiskers rasped against the shell of Eddie’s ear, making him shudder all over and break out in gooseflesh.

Gran-pere whispered nineteen words as the last light died out of the day and night came to the Calla.