Bran, unable to make a coherent reply, merely blinked his eyes in silent assent. She busied herself by the fire, returning a short time later with a wooden bowl. Taking up a spoon made from a stag's horn, she dipped it into the bowl and brought it to Bran's mouth, parting his lips with a gentle yet insistent pressure.

Barely able to open his mouth, he allowed some of the lukewarm liquid to slide over his teeth and down his throat. It had a dusky, herbrich flavour that reminded him of a greenwood glen in deep autumn.

She lifted the spoon once more, and he sucked down the broth. "There, and may it well become you," she said soothingly. "Thou mayest yet make good your return to Tir na' Nog."

An inexplicable sense of pride and accomplishment flushed his cheeks, and he suddenly found himself eager to please her with this trifling display of infant skill. The broth, although thin and clear, was strangely filling, and Bran found that after only a few more sips from the spoon, he could hold no more. The food settled his stomach, and exhausted with the small effort expended, he closed his eyes and slept.

When he woke again, it was brighter in the cave, and he was hungry again. As before, the old woman was there to serve him some of the herbal broth. He ate gratefully, but without trying to speak, and then slept after his meal.

Life proceeded like this for many days: he would wake to find his guardian beside him, ready to feed him his broth, whereupon, after only a few sips from the stag horn spoon, he would be overcome by the urge to sleep. Upon waking, he would find himself better refreshed than before, and what is more, Bran not only found that he was eating more each time, but also suspected that the intervals between sleeping and eating were shorter.

The comforting routine was interrupted one day when Bran awoke to find himself alone in the cave. He moved his head to look around, but the hag was nowhere to be seen. The pit-pat drip of water that had accompanied his waking moments for the last many days was gone. Alone and unobserved, he decided to stand up.

Slowly, cautiously, he levered himself onto the elbow of his good arm. His shoulders were stiff, and his chest ached; even the tiniest movement set off a crippling surge of agony that left him panting. At each attack he would pause, eyes squeezed shut, clutching his chest, until the waves of pain receded and he could see straight again.

On the ground near his bed was a shallow iron basin full of water; guarding against any sudden moves, he stretched out his hand and was able to hook two fingers over the rim and pull the heavy vessel loser. When the water stopped sloshing around the basin, he leaned over it and looked in. The face staring back at him was woefully misshapen; the right side was puffy and discoloured, and a jagged black line ran from the lower lip to the earlobe. The flesh along this lightning-strike line was pinched and puckered beneath a rough beard, which had been unevenly shaved to keep the hair away from the wound.

Angry at what he saw reflected in the water, he gave the basin a shove and instantly regretted it. The violent movement caused another upwelling of pain, greater than any before. He could not bear it and fell back, tears streaming down the sides of his face. He moaned, and that started him coughing, which opened the wound in his chest. The next thing he knew, he was coughing up blood.

The stuff came bubbling up his throat, thick and sweet, and spilled over his chin. He gagged and hacked, spitting blood in a fine red mist over himself. Each cough brought forth another, and he could not catch his breath. Just when he thought he would choke to death on his own blood, the old woman appeared beside him.

"What hast thou done?" she asked, kneeling beside him.

Unable to reply, he wheezed and spluttered, blood welling up over his teeth. With a quick motion, Angharad tore aside the sheepskin covering and placed a gentle hand on his chest. "Peace!" she whispered, like a mother to a distraught and unquiet child.

Power of moon have I over thee,

Power of sun have I over thee,

Power of stars have I over thee,

Power of rain have I over thee,

Power of wind have I over thee,

Power of heaven have I over thee,

Power of heaven have I over thee in the power

of God to heal thee.

She moved her hand over his chest, her fingertips softly brushing the injured flesh. "Closed for thee thy wound, and stanched thy blood. As Christ bled upon the cross, so closeth he thy wound for thee," she intoned, her voice a caress.

A part of this hurt on the high mountains,

A part of this hurt on the grass-deep meadow,

A part of this hurt on the heathered moors,

A part of this hurt on the great surging sea

that has best means to bear it.

This hurt on the great surging sea, she herself

has the best means to bear it for

thee… away… away… away.

Under Angharad's warm touch, the pain subsided. His lungs eased their laboured pumping, and his breathing calmed. Bran lay back, his chin and chest glistening with gore, and mouthed the words, Thank you.

Taking a bit of rag, she soaked it in the basin and began washing him clean, working patiently and slowly. She hummed as she worked, and Bran felt himself relaxing under her gentle ministrations. "Now wilt thou sleep," the old woman told him when she finished.

Eyelids heavy, he closed his eyes and sank into the soft, dark, timeless place where his dreams kindled and flared with strange visions of impossible feats, of people he knew but had never met, of things past or perhaps yet to come-when the king and queen gave life and love to the people, when bards lauded the deeds of heroes, when the land bestowed its gifts in abundance, when God looked with favour upon his children and hearts were glad. Over all he dreamed that night, there loomed the shape of a strange bird with a long beak and a face as smooth and hard and black as charred bone.

pring could not come soon enough for Falk-es de Braose. The count ached for an end to the roof-rattling, teeth-chattering cold of the most inhospitable winter he had ever known-and it had only just begun! As he shivered in his chair, wrapped in cloaks and robes-a very hillock of dun-coloured wool-he consoled himself with the thought that when winter came next year, he would be firmly ensconced in his own private chamber in a newly built stone keep. In blissful dreams he conjured snug, wood-panelled rooms hung with heavy tapestries to keep out the searching fingers of the frigid wind, and a down-filled bed set before a blazing hearth all his own. He would never again suffer the dank drear of the great hall, with its drafts and smoke and freezing damp.

He would not abide another winter swaddled like a grotesquely oversized worm waiting for spring so it could shrug off its cocoon. Next winter, a ready supply of fuel would be laid in; he would determine how much was required and then treble the amount. This daily struggle to squeeze inadequate warmth from wet timber was slow insanity, and the count vowed never to endure it again. This time next year, he would laugh at the rain and cheerfully thumb his nose at each snowflake as it floated to the ground.

Meanwhile, he waited in perpetual dudgeon for the spring thaw, studying the plans drawn by the master architect for the baron's new borderland castles: one facing the yet-to-be-conquered northwestern territories, one to anchor the centre and the lands to the south, and one to defend the backs of the other two from any attacks arising from the east. The castles were, with only slight variations, all the same, but Falkes studied each sheaf of drawings with painstaking care, trying to think of improvements to the designs that he could suggest and that might win his uncle's approval. So far, he had come up with only one: increasing the size of the cistern that captured rainwater for use in times of emergency. As this detail was not likely to impress his uncle, he kept at his scrutiny and dreamed of warmer climes.