Merry couldn’t quite believe she had made it back again, even though history said that she had. She felt even more terrified by the old world this time, knowing some of what it had in store for her.

One battle at a time, she told herself. First, disguise yourself.

She unzipped her backpack and took out the box containing her glass eye. Feeling squeamish, as she always did when handling it, she pushed it into place. Then she stepped from her wet swimming costume and pulled on her warm clothes.

She glanced around, feeling that someone was near. Maybe she was just paranoid. She took her knife from her backpack. Looked around again. She couldn’t see anyone, but her instincts were screaming at her. Time to get away.

She ran through the forest, out on to the open land. She paused, scanned the landscape. No one.

She ran down towards Sarn Helen, picking up speed. She wanted to get to Mair’s, get to safety, get out of the night.

She reached Nanteos, saw the massive edifice of the Black Castle looming in the moonlight. She ran along the valley, up the hill to Ty Gwyn.

An owl hooted. Merry jumped. She half expected the earl’s men to be lurking behind every clump of trees.

She glanced over her shoulder then knocked quietly on Mair’s door.

‘Mair. It’s me. Merry . . .’ She waited, shifting from one foot to the other, growing cold. Growing worried. Silence. She knocked again, louder, listened hard.

Footsteps, heavy, coming closer.

‘Mair! It’s me. Merry,’ she whispered again. She pulled off her pack, sheathed her knife, realizing she probably looked terrifying.

The rusty sound of bolts drawing back. The old woman stood at the door in a worn nightdress, white hair streaming down her back like a ghost. Or a witch. She carried the stinking fish-whiff tallow candle, which cast a pool of light around her. Beyond, there was darkness.

The healer eyed Merry, looked past her. She seemed to be debating something, biting her lip, her eyes anxious and flickering.

At last she beckoned Merry in.

‘Thank you,’ breathed Merry, hurrying inside. She stood, waiting, uncertain of her welcome as Mair pushed shut the door, slid home the bolts.

Merry pulled off her beanie, gripped it in her hand. Water dripped from it to the rough stone floor.

‘They say you are a horse thief,’ Mair declared, holding her candle to Merry’s face. ‘A prized Arab stallion was stolen.’ She spoke slowly, like a judge gearing up to pass sentence. ‘There’s a price on the head of the one-eyed bandit. Ten sovereigns.’

Merry said nothing, just stood, clutching her hat, waiting.

‘They hang thieves!’ hissed Mair with a sudden, shocking passion, as if Merry’s silent impassivity were too much to bear. ‘And they hang those who give them shelter.’

Merry swallowed. She hadn’t thought of that. Did the healer plan to turn her in or turn her away? She could fight, she could run, but she needed help and the old woman was the only one here to give it to her.

‘I have two eyes,’ said Merry.

Mair barked out a laugh, surprising Merry. ‘So you have!’ The laughter faded. ‘How?’

Merry swayed. She was tired, cold and desperate. She wanted to sit down; she wanted to get on with what she came for.

‘It’s a long story.’

‘I’m a patient woman,’ said Mair, finally gesturing at the table and stool.

Relieved, Merry sat. The fire was banked for the night, no flames, just glowing embers, but Merry was grateful for even their scant warmth.

‘You’ve woken me,’ said Mair, taking a poker, prodding the flames into life before adding two thick logs. Then she took a stool and sat opposite Merry. ‘I won’t get back to sleep again this night. I have time for a story or two.’

A sudden wind kicked up, howling against the cottage.

‘First I need to ask you, what news of Longbowman Owen?’ said Merry. ‘Did they kill him?’

Mair made the sign of the cross, shaking her head violently. ‘God have mercy, no they did not.’

Merry scratched her chin. Where had he been when she went searching for him? Was he being interrogated in some other part of the castle?

‘Where is he now?’ she asked.

‘He languishes in de Courcy’s dungeon. Pending the king’s decision. His family fears he will hang.’

‘Damn the king!’

‘Careful, girl! If anyone heard, you’d be joining him at the gallows.’

Merry sucked in a breath. She’d have to learn to bite her tongue in this time.

‘In that case,’ she said, her voice low, determined, more of a declaration than a request, ‘I need a longbow. One that’s my height, not too powerful a draw. And flight arrows made for the bow.’

‘You? A war bow! What for?’

‘It’s a long—’

‘God in his heaven! No more long story excuses!’ exclaimed the healer. ‘One more time and I’ll cast you out!’

Merry couldn’t think of anything to say.

‘How old are you?’ demanded Mair.

‘Fifteen.’

‘And you want a bow?’

‘I do.’

‘What for?’

‘For the king’s tourney.’

‘What tourney?’

‘The tourney where he asks for the Owen family to fulfil their pledge. Where he asks for a longbowman to come forward.’

‘He hasn’t asked for any such tourney.’

‘He will.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Mair, eyes wide, all signs of tiredness gone.

‘Does it matter?’ replied Merry. ‘All I need is a longbow so that I can honour the pledge.’

‘But you’re not an Owen, girl!’

‘Oh, but I am!’ She paused, emotions rising. ‘I saw Longbowman Owen’s daughter run out to him when the king’s men took him away. Even from a distance I could see the resemblance. I looked like her, at her age, when I had both my eyes . . .’

Mair tilted her head, studied Merry. ‘You weren’t born like that?’

‘No,’ said Merry. ‘I lost my eye in a longbow accident three years ago.’

‘Why would you play with a longbow?’ asked Mair, frowning.

‘I don’t play with one. I’ve trained since I was five years old to shoot the longbow. Every generation of Owens has a longbowman.’

‘Glyndŵr Owen.’

‘Yes. And now me. I am the longbow girl.’ Merry leant towards the old woman. Her words came out slow and heavy and deliberate. She had to make Mair understand. And believe.

‘There will be a tourney. The king will call the Owens on their pledge. I will answer it.’

‘If you are a longbow girl as you claim, then where’s your bow?’

Merry felt waves of exhaustion hit her, the sheer, grinding weariness of accumulated lies.

‘And how can there be two bowmen?’ continued Mair. ‘Or one bowman and one longbow girl at the same time?’

Merry gave a hollow laugh. It was time for the truth. ‘That’s just it. We’re not at the same time. You want a long story? I’ll give you one.’

In the flickering light of the fire, Merry told her tale.

Mair sat and listened, fists clenching and relaxing, clenching and relaxing, like a heart beating. Outside the wind roared down off the Beacons, just as it always had, just as it always would.

The tallow candle burnt down as Merry talked. When she finished, she simply sat, palms turned upwards on her thighs. She’d risked it all. She could be turned out as a raving lunatic. She could be betrayed. There was the bounty on her head.

Mair said nothing. She just looked from Merry to the fire and back, eyes restless as the flames. Finally she spoke. Her voice was faint, as if she were talking to herself.

‘How can I trust you?’

‘What? You want proof?’

‘Not for my heart, not for my soul, but for my mind . . .’

Merry got up, paced round the kitchen. ‘First, the de Courcys will declare a tourney. Wait and see.’ She was angry. She hadn’t come here, left her home, risked everything to be doubted. ‘Second, there’s a brick here, in your hearth, three up, four across.’ Merry hoped this wasn’t a recent addition. Seren had shown it to her when she was a child, told her it was where the Morgan family had always kept the few valuables they’d possessed.

‘Take it out and there’s a hiding place,’ she continued, and knew from the flare of Mair’s eyes she was right, that the hiding place was there now. ‘You have a leather book, a healer’s book of remedies and herbs and recipes dating back hundreds of years, even from this time.’

Merry fell silent. She sat down, rocked her body back and forth. It was too much, too much. What doesn’t kill us doesn’t always make us stronger . . . but she felt she had no strength left. ‘A longbow girl,’ murmured the old lady. ‘From another time.’ She reached out, touched Merry’s shoulder as if to prove to herself she was flesh and blood. Merry looked up, met her gaze. The woman seemed to see the truth in it, for she nodded and went to stoke the fire. ‘Forgive me and my doubts,’ she said to the flames.

Then she turned back to Merry.

‘I’ve saved someone in every family in the Beacons and beyond. They all owe me. You’ll have your bow by the end of the morrow. Now you must rest. You may sleep on the pallet I keep in my herb room.’

Mair gave Merry a rough woollen blanket; then she disappeared into a small room next to the kitchen.

Merry felt spent, purged, beyond exhaustion. She pulled the pallet bed from the herb room, pushed it close to the fire. She took out her glass eye, put it in its box, lay down on the straw mattress, pulled the blanket over her and fell fast asleep.

The healer did not try to sleep.

The girl of her visions had returned. The girl with the hands of an archer. The longbow girl from another time.