The darkness of the night was always accompanied by the screams of his father, the king:

‘THE CRYSTAL! DON'T TOUCH ME! THE CRYSTAL!’

Usually, the old man would continue like this until enough people could be gathered to lift him onto his throne and push him around the room at high speed. It was a heavy throne, carved from stone and covered with soft cushions so that his father would not have to fear breaking into pieces. It took at least twenty men to move it.

Once they managed to pick up some speed, the movement calmed the king's nerves until he fell asleep. But it had to be on the throne; he would not accept any other vehicle. And once the exercise began, it lasted for hours.

At this point, the servants and knights took turns to carry out this heavy task. There were not enough slaves in the castle to take turns, so servants and noblemen's sons alike had to participate.

It all started with that hideous amphora brought to him by the Romans. It was a monstrosity that served no purpose, but his father loved novel gifts, and glass was not something you saw every day in Cernyw. Even Baird himself learned of the existence of this material on the day the gift arrived.

He still remembered how his brother sat on his father's lap when they unveiled the amphora. Old Ailill stood up, carrying young Ailill, so they could be the first to touch the mysterious material.

‘It's cold!’ said young Ailill.

The entire court fell silent as both Ailills ran their hands around the circumference of the object. The Roman envoy spoke to them about the rarity of the material and, above all, its fragility.

‘Don't be fooled by how heavy it is. The slightest blow will shatter it.’

His father seemed fascinated by the concept. So much so that he talked about it for days, then weeks, months... And one day, he got up believing he was made of the same substance. His father, who must have fallen off his horse hundreds of times, who had participated in countless training sessions and multiple battles, now turned out to be made of glass.

His doctors attributed it to mood swings, druids, fairies, but his mother and he attributed it to the dreadful amphora.

‘Seeing such a luxurious, heavy and fragile object surely made him realise how fragile he is, despite being king,’ said the queen.

Of course, they both decided to hide this strange imbalance, not only from the people, but also from little Ailill, who protested that he could no longer sit with his father to receive visitors.

Nowadays, the pressure of running the government and keeping the nobles at bay kept him awake at night, consoling himself only with the memory of the beautiful Maeve.

She was alone in the forest, with a court composed only of trees. Her breasts shook as she emerged from the lake, completely naked.

He hadn't managed to find out much about her in the time since their encounter in the forest, only that she was the natural daughter of a noblewoman and that she sometimes earned her living as a midwife. But she didn't usually go near people. Especially not men.

For weeks he tried to track her down, but it was impossible. Her mother might have been a woman, but her father must have been a fox.

The servants must have been having difficulties somewhere in the process, because his father's shouts were unrelenting. Baird covered his ears and stared at the moon, thinking of Maeve, always Maeve. Out there, somewhere.

The poor woman must have been possessed too, perhaps with grief at having to live as an outcast in the wilderness instead of at court, where she belonged. Baird could spend hours thinking about this. What she would be like...

He almost had a plan. He would find her, they would talk, and she would realise that the prince was different from the members of the court.

He accepted her just as she was, and then she would agree to return to the castle with him. Then he could, perhaps, teach her to read, and the queen could instruct her in the feminine arts. Maeve would then be properly integrated into civilisation, and she would be indebted to Baird. He would be humble and take her as his concubine, so in time the common people would love her as he loved her, and he could officially make her his wife.

All he needed was to find her; fate had everything prepared for them except for that one detail. His daydream was so intense that he almost fell out of the window where he was sitting, and he decided to consult his pillow about his doubts.

He slowly removed his hands from his ears, checking that his father had indeed stopped shouting. He admitted to himself that he was guilty of wishing that the old man had actually fallen and shattered.

Upstairs, the wet nurses in charge of his brother must have been sighing quietly, as they could now put aside their games and distractions and take the prince to bed. Baird also feared that Ailill would discover his father's condition, but at the same time, he wondered what the point was. Did they expect the king to miraculously recover from his madness? It would be the first time such a thing had been seen in the kingdom. Meanwhile, the queen was seriously considering sending the little boy to Rome as a guard for his sister, with the excuse that he would enjoy all the benefits that only a cosmopolitan city could offer.

Baird did not have high hopes; his brother might well return with his own madness. The Romans surely had mountains of unpleasant customs, not to mention the danger of encountering pirates during the sea voyage. If all the guards were busy serving as horses for his father's monstrous stone carriage, how many would be there to protect little Ailill if something went wrong along the way?

Anxiety coursed through his veins once more, so he covered his head with the pillows, even though there was no longer any noise, and repeated Maeve's name until sleep overcame him.