The Last Light of the Sun

FIVE

It had not been a good spring or summer for the traders of Rabady Isle, and there were those quite certain they knew why. The list of grievances was long.

Sturla Ulfarson, who had succeeded Halldr Thinshank as governor of the island's merchants and farmers and fisherfolk, might have only one hand but he possessed two eyes and two ears and a nose for the mood of people, and he was aware that men were comparing the (exaggerated) glories of Thinshank's days with the troubles and ill omens that had marked the beginning of his own.

Unfair, perhaps, but no one had made him manoeuvre for this position, and Ulfarson wasn't the self-pitying sort. Had he been so, he'd have been inclined to point out that the notorious theft of Thinshank's grey horse and the marring of his funeral rites last spring—the start of all their troubles—had happened before the new governor had been acclaimed. He'd have noted that no man, whatever kind of leader he might be, could have prevented the thunderstorm that had killed two young people in the night fields shortly after that. And he might also have bemoaned the fact that it was hardly within the power of a local administrator to control events in the wider world: warfare among Karch and Moskav and the Sarantines couldn't help but impact upon trade in the north.

Sturla One-hand did make these points decisively (he was a decisive man, for the most part) when someone dared challenge him directly, but he also set about doing what he could do on the isle, and as a result he discovered something.

It began with the families of the young man and woman killed in the storm. Everyone knew Ingavin sent the thunder and all manner of storms, that there was nothing accidental if people were killed or homes ruined by such things (a world where the weather was utterly random was a world not to be endured).

The girl had been doing her year of service to the volur at the compound by the edge of the forest. The young women of Rabady Isle took this duty, in turn, before they wed. It was a ritual, an honourable one. Fulla, the corn goddess, Ingavin's bride, needed attention and worship too, if children were to be born healthy and the fields kept fertile. Iord, the seer, was an important figure here on the isle: in her own way, as powerful as the governor was.

Sturla One-hand had paid a formal visit to the compound, bringing gifts, shortly after his election by the thring. He hadn't liked the volur, but that wasn't the point. If there was magic being used, you wanted it used for you, not against you. Women could be dangerous.

And that, in fact, is what he discovered. The families of the young man and the girl were elbowing each other towards a feud over their deaths, each blaming the other's offspring for the two of them being out by the memorial cairn, lying together when the lightning broke. Sturla had his own thoughts as to who had inveigled whom, but it was important to be seen to be conducting an inquiry first. His principal desire was to keep a blood feud from Rabady, or, at the least, to limit the casualties.

He set about speaking with as many of the young ones as he could, and in this way came to have a conversation with a yellow-haired girl from the mainland, the newest member of the circle of women in the compound. She had come (properly) in response to his summons and had knelt before him, shy, eyes suitably downcast.

She had little assistance, however, to offer concerning the two lightning-charred young ones, claiming to have seen Halli with the lad only once, "the evening before Bern Thorkellson came to the seer with Thinshank's horse."

The new governor of Rabady Isle, who had been leaning back in his seat, an ale flask in his one good hand, had leaned forward. The lightning storm, the two dead youngsters, and a possible feud became less compelling.

"Before he what?" said Sturla One-hand.

He put the flask down, reached out with his hand and grabbed the girl by her yellow hair, forcing her to look up at him. She paled, closed her eyes, as if overwhelmed by his powerful nearness. She was pretty.

"I… I… should not have said that," she stammered.

"And why not?" growled Ulfarson, still gripping her by the hair. "She will kill me!"

"And why?" the governor demanded.

She said nothing, obviously terrified. He tugged, hard. She whimpered. He did it again.

"She… she did a magic-working on him."

"She what?" said Sturla, struggling, aware he was not sounding particularly astute. The girl—he didn't know her name—suddenly rocked forward and threw her arms around his legs, pressing her face to his thighs. It was not actually unpleasant.

She said, weeping, "She hated Thinshank… she will kill me… but she uses her power for… for her own purposes. It is… wrong!" She spoke with her mouth against him, arms clutching his legs.

Sturla One-hand let go of her hair and leaned back again. She remained where she was. He said, "I will not hurt you, girl. Tell me what she did."

In this way, the governor—and later the people of Rabady—learned of how Iord the seer had made a black seithr spell, rendering young Thorkellson her helpless servant, forcing him to steal the horse, then making him invisible, enabling him to board the southern ship that had been in the harbour—board it with the grey horse—and sail away unseen. It was done by the volur to spite Halldr Thinshank, of course, which was not an unreasonable desire, by any means. But it was a treachery that had unleashed—obviously-malevolent auras upon the isle (Halidr's, one had to assume), causing the calamities of the season, including the lightning storm that killed two innocent youths.

Erling warriors were not, by collective disposition, inclined to nuanced debate when resolving matters of this sort. Sturla One-hand might have been more thoughtful than most, but he'd lost his hand (and achieved some wealth) raiding overseas. You didn't ponder when attacking a village or sanctuary. You drank a lot beforehand, prayed to Ingavin and Thünir, and then fought and killed—and took home what you found in the fury and ruin you shaped.

An axe and sword were perfectly good responses to treachery, in his view. And they would serve the useful additional purpose of displaying Sturla's resolution, early in what he hoped would be a prosperous tenure as governor of the isle.

Iord the seer and her five most senior companions were taken from the compound early the next morning, stripped naked (bony and slack-breasted, all of them, hags fit for no man), bound to hastily erected posts in the field near the cairn stone where the two youngsters had died.

When they came for her, the seer tried—babbling in terror—to say that she'd deceived young Thorkellson. That she'd only pretended to cast a spell for him, had sent him back into town to be found.

Sturla One-hand had not lived so many years by being a fool. He pointed out that the lad had not been found. So either the seer was lying, or the boy had seen through her deception. And though young Thorkellson had been known to be good with blade and hammer (Red Thorkell's son would be, wouldn't he?), he was barely grown. And where was he? And the horse? She had her magic, what answer would she give?

She never did answer.

The six women were stoned to death, the members of the two feuding families invited to throw—standing together—the first volleys of stone and rock, as the most immediately aggrieved. The wives and maidens joined the men, one of the times they were permitted to do that. It took some time to kill six women (stoning always did).

The ale was good that night and the next, and a second ship from Alrasan in the south—where they worshipped the stars—appeared in the harbour two days later, come to trade, a clear blessing of Ingavin.

The yellow-haired girl from the mainland had stood at the edges of the stoning ground; they'd made the younger ones from the compound come watch. She'd had a fearsome serpent coiled about her body, darting a venomous tongue. She was the only one not terrified of it. No one stood near her as they watched the old women die. The governor couldn't remember (he'd drunk a good deal that day and night) just how he'd learned about her having been bitten back in the spring. Perhaps she had told him herself.

The snake was noticed in the field. Not surprisingly. Serpents held the power of the half-world within the skin they sloughed, rebuilding it anew. A snake would devour the world at the end of days. It was much talked about that night. A sign, it was agreed to be, a harbinger of power.

The girl was named by Sturla Ulfarson as the new volur of Rabady Isle a few days later, after the southern ship had done its trading and gone. Normally the men of Rabady didn't make this choice, but these weren't normal times. You didn't stone a seer every year, did you? Maybe this change would prove to be useful, bring the power of women, seithr and night magic, the compound itself, more under control.

Sturla One-hand wasn't sure about that, and he couldn't actually have traced with precision the thoughts or conversations that had led to any of these decisions. Events had moved quickly, he had been… riding them… the way longships rode a wave, or a leader on a battlefield rode the sweep of the fight, or a man rode his woman after dark.

She was young. What of it? All the old ones were dead. They could have sent for a woman across the water to Vinmark, even to Hlegest itself, but who knew what that might have brought them, or when? Better not draw the attention of increasingly ambitious men there, in any case. The girl had saved them from the effects of an angry spirit and seemed to have been already chosen by the snake. Men had been saying that, in the taverns. Sturla could read a rune-message if it was spelled out for him.

He did know her name by then. Anrid. They called her "the Serpent," though, by summer's end. She hadn't come to him in the town again nor, in fact, did it occur to him to ask her to do so. There were enough girls about for a governor, no need to get entangled in that way with seers who kept snakes by their beds in the dark or wrapped them around their bodies to watch stones split flesh and crack bone in the morning light.

Jormsvik was more a fortress than a city.

For one thing, only the mercenaries themselves and their servants or slaves lived within the walls. The rope-makers, sail-makers, armourers, tavern-keepers, carpenters, metalsmiths, fishermen, bakers, fortune-tellers all lived in the unruly town outside the walls. There were no women allowed inside Jormsvik, though prostitutes were scattered through the twisting streets and alleys just outside. There was money for a woman to make here, beside a large garrison.

You had to fight someone to become one of the men of Jormsvik, and fight steadily to stay in. Until you became a leader, when your battles might reasonably be expected to be all for hire and profit—if you stayed out of the tavern brawls.

For three generations the mercenaries of this fortress by the sea had been known and feared—and employed—through the world. They had fought at the triple walls of Sarantium (on both sides, at different times) and in Ferrieres and Moskav. They had been hired (and hired away) by feuding lords vying for eminence here in the Erling lands, as far north as the places where the sky flashed colours in the cold nights and the reindeer herds ran in the tens of thousands. One celebrated company had been in Batiara, joining a Karchite incursion towards fabled Rhodias forty years ago. Only six of them had returned—wealthy. You received your fee in advance, and shared it out beforehand, but then you divided the spoils of war among the survivors.

Survivors could do well.

First, you had to survive getting in. There were young men desperate or reckless enough to try each year, usually after the winter ended. Winter defined the northlands: its imminent arrival; the white, fierce hardness of the season; then the stirring of blood and rivers when it melted away.

Spring was busiest at the gates of Jormsvik. The procedure was known everywhere. Goatherds and slaves knew it. You rode up or walked up to the walls. Shouted a name—sometimes even your real one—to the watch, issued a challenge to let you in. That same day, or the next morning, a man drawn by lot would come out to fight you.

The winner went to bed inside the walls. The loser was usually dead. He didn't have to be, you could yield and be spared, but it wasn't anything to count on. The core of Jormsvik's reputation lay in being feared, and if you let farmboys challenge you and walk away to tell of it by a winter's turf fire in some bog-beset place, you weren't as fearsome as all that, were you?

Besides which, it made sense for those inside to deter challengers any way they could. Sometimes the sword rune could be drawn from the barrel on a morning by a fighter who'd been too enthusiastically engaged in the taverns all night, or with the women, or both, and sometimes it wasn't just a farmboy at the gates.

Sometimes, someone came who knew what he was doing. They'd all gotten in that same way, hadn't they? Sometimes you could die outside, and then the gate swung open and a new mercenary was welcomed under whatever name he gave—they didn't care in Jormsvik, everyone had a story in his past. He'd be told where his pallet was, and his mess hall and captain. Same as the man he'd replaced, which could be unpleasant if the dead man had friends, which was usually the case. But this was a fortress for the hardest men in the world, not a warm meadhall among family.

You got to the meadhalls of Ingavin by dying with a weapon to hand. Time then for easiness, among ripe, sweet, willing maidens, and the gods. On this earth, you fought.

Bern was aware that he'd made a mistake, almost immediately after stooping through the low door of the alehouse outside the walls. It wasn't a question of thieves—the fighting men of Jormsvik were their own brutal deterrent to bandits near their gates. It was the mercenaries themselves, and the way of things here.

A stranger, he thought, a young man arriving alone in summer with a sword at his side, could only be here for one reason. And if he was going to issue a challenge in the morning, it made nothing but sense for any man in this ill-lit room (which was nonetheless bright enough to expose him for what he was) to protect himself and his fellows in obvious ways against what might happen on the morrow.

They could kill him tonight, he realized, rather too late, though it didn't even have to come to that. Those on the benches closest to where he'd sat down (too far from the doorway, another mistake) smiled at him, asked after his health and the weather and crops in the north. He answered, as briefly as he could. They smiled again, bought him drinks. Many drinks. One leaned over and offered him the dice cup.

Bern said he had no money to gamble, which was true. They said—laughing—he could wager his horse and sword. He declined. At the table they laughed again. Big men, almost all of them, one or two smaller than himself, but muscled and hard. Bern coughed in the dense smoke of the room. They were cooking meat over two open fires.

He was sweating; it was hot in here. He wasn't used to this. He'd been sleeping outdoors for a fortnight now, riding south into Vinmark's summer, trees green and the young grass, salmon leaping in the still-cold rivers. He'd been riding quickly since he'd surprised and robbed a man for his sword and dagger and the few coins in his purse. No point coming to Jormsvik without a weapon. He hadn't killed the man, which might have been a mistake, but he'd never yet killed any man. Would have to, tomorrow, or he'd very likely die here.

Someone banged down another tin cup of ale on the board in front of him, sloshing some of it out. "Long life," the man said and moved on, didn't even bother to stay to share the toast. They wanted him rendered senseless tonight, he realized, slack-limbed and slow in the morning.

Then he thought about it again. He had no need to challenge tomorrow. Could wake with a pounding head and spend the day clearing it, challenge the day after, or the morning after that.

And they'd know it, he realized, every man in this room. They'd all done this before. No, his first thought had been the wiser one: they wanted him drunk enough to make a mistake tonight, get into a brawl, be crippled or killed when there was nothing at stake—for them. Should he be flattered they thought he was worth it? He wasn't fooled. These were the most experienced soldiers-for-hire in the north: they didn't take chances when they didn't need to. There was no glory in winning a wall-challenge when the sword rune was drawn, only risk. Why take it, if you didn't have to? If the foolish traveller came into an ale room the night before, showing his sword?

At least he'd hidden the horse, among the trees north of town. Gyllir was accustomed to being tied in the woods now. He wondered if the stallion still remembered Thinshank's barn. How long did horses remember things?

He was afraid. Trying not to let them see it. He thought of the water then, that dead-black night, guiding the grey horse into the sea from the stony beach. Expecting to die. Ice-cold, end of winter, whatever lay waiting in the straits, under the water: what he'd survived. Was there a reason he'd lived? Did Ingavin or Thünir have a purpose in this? Probably not, actually. He wasn't… important enough. But there was still no need to walk open-eyed into a different death tonight. Not after coming out of the sea alive on a Vinmark strand as a grey day dawned.

He lifted the new cup and drank, just a little. A bad mistake, coming in here. You died of mistakes like that. But he'd been tired of solitude, nights alone. Had thought to at least have a night among other men, hear human voices, laughter, before he died in the morning fighting a mercenary. He hadn't thought it through.

A woman stood up, came over towards him, hips swaying. Men made way in the narrow space between tables for her, though not without squeezing where she could be reached. She smiled, ignored them, watched Bern watching her. He felt dizzy already. Ale after not drinking for so long, the smoke, smells, the crowd. It was so hot. The woman had been sitting with a burly, dark-bearded man clad in animal skins. A bear-warrior. They had them here in Jormsvik, it seemed. He remembered his father: Some say the berserkirs use magic. They don't, but you never want to fight one if you can help it. Bern saw, through fire smoke and lantern light, that the man was watching him as the woman approached.

He knew this game, too, suddenly. Stood up just as she stopped in front of him, her heavy breasts swinging free beneath a loose tunic.

"You're a pretty man," she said.

"Thank you," Bern muttered. "Thank you. Need to piss. Right back."

He twisted past her. She grabbed deftly for his private parts. With an effort, Bern refrained from glancing guiltily at the very big man she'd just left.

"Hurry back and make me happy," she called after him. Someone laughed. Someone—big, blond, hard-eyed—looked up then, from the dicing.

Bern slapped a coin on the counter and ducked outside. He took a deep breath; salt in the night air here, sound of sea, stars overhead, the white moon high. The nearer ones in the room would have seen him pay. Would know he wasn't coming back.

He moved then, quickly. He could die here.

It was very dark, no lights to speak of outside the inns and the low, jumbled wooden dwellings and the rooms where the whores took their men. A mixed blessing, the darkness: he'd be harder to find, but might easily run headlong into a group of people, trying to make his way north and out from this warren of buildings. A fleeing stranger, Bern was certain, would be happily seized to be questioned at leisure.

He ran up the first black alley he came to, smelled urine and offal, stumbled through a pile of garbage, choking. Could he just walk, he wondered? Avoid being seen to be running from something?

He heard noises behind him, from the alehouse door. No, he couldn't just walk. Needed to move. It would be a sport for them. Something to enliven a night outside the fortress walls, waiting for a new contract and a journey somewhere. A way to keep in fighting trim.

In the blackness he bumped into a barrel lying on its side. Stooped, groped, righted it. No top. Grunting, he turned it over, sweating now, and clambered up, praying the bottom was solid enough. He stood, gauged distance as best he could in the dark, and jumped for the slanting roof of the house above. Caught a purchase, levered a knee up, awkward with the sword at his hip, and pulled himself onto the roof. If there was someone inside they'd hear him, he knew. Could raise an alarm.

When you had no obvious choices, you acted as if what you needed to do could be done.

Why was he remembering so many of his father's words tonight?

Prone on the roof above the alley, he heard three or four men go by in the street. He was being hunted. He was a fool, the son of a fool, deserved whatever fate he met tonight. He didn't think they'd kill him. A broken leg or arm would spare someone the need to fight him tomorrow with a risk involved. On the other hand, they were drunk, and enjoying themselves.

Wiser to surrender?

More sounds, a second group. "Pretty-faced little shit-eater," he heard someone say, at the entrance to the alley. "I didn't like him." Someone laughed. "You don't like anyone, Gurd."

"Do yourself with a hammer," Gurd said. "Or do it to that little goatherd who thinks he can join us." There came the unmistakable sound of a blade being drawn from a scabbard.

Bern decided that surrender was not a promising option.

Carefully, holding his own sword out of the way, he backed along the roof. He needed to go north, get beyond these houses and into the fields. He didn't think they'd care enough to leave drinking and go looking for him out there in the night. And come morning, once he rode up to the gates and issued a challenge, he'd be safe. Although that probably wasn't the best way to describe what would follow then.

He could have stayed at home, a servant for two more years. He could have hired himself out on a farm somewhere on the mainland, invented a name for himself, been a servant or a labourer there.

That wasn't what he'd ridden the grey horse into the sea to become. Everyone died. If you died before the walls of Jormsvik, perhaps the sword in your hand would get you to Ingavin's halls.

He didn't actually believe that, truth be told. If it were so, any farmhand could get himself run through by a mercenary and drink mead forever with smooth-skinned maidens among the gods, or until the Serpent devoured the Worldtree and time came to a stop.

It couldn't be that easy.

Neither was moving on this roof, which slanted too much. They all slanted, to let the snow slide in winter. Bern skidded sideways, dug in fingers and boots to stop himself, heard the sword scrape. Had to hope, could only hope, no one else heard it. He lay still again, sweat trickling down his sides. No sounds below except for running feet. He slowly manoeuvred himself around to look the other way.

There was a ramshackle, two-storey wooden house on the other side of another narrow alley. Just the one, the others were all one-level, like the house he was on. One of the new-style stone chimneys ran up an outside wall, set back from the street, he saw. They didn't have these on the isle. It was meant to allow a hearth, warmth and food, on a second floor. It looked as if it was going to fall over. There was a window in that second storey, overlooking his rooftop. The wooden shutters were open. One hung crookedly, needing repair. He saw a candle burning on the ledge, illuminating a room—and the face of the girl watching him.

Bern's heart lurched. Then he saw her put a finger to her lips.

"Gurd," she called down, "you coming up?"

A laugh below. They had gone right around, were in the street on the other side now. "Not to you. You hurt me last time, you're wild when I do you."

Someone else laughed. The girl across the way swore tiredly. "How 'bout you, Holla?"

"I go with Katrin, you know that. She hurts me when I don't do her!"

Gurd laughed this time. "You see a stranger?" He was right below. If Bern moved to the roof's edge he could look down on them. He heard the question and closed his eyes. Everyone died.

"Didn't," said the girl. "Why?"

"Pretty farmboy thinks he's going to be a mercenary."

Her voice was bored. "You find him, send him up. I need the money."

"We find him, he's no good to you. Trust me."

The girl laughed. The footsteps moved on. Bern opened his eyes, saw her turn her head to watch the men below go down the lane. She turned back and looked at him. Didn't smile now, nothing like that. She moved back, however, and gestured for him to come across the way.

Bern looked. A small window in a flat wall, above his level. A slanting roof where he was, no purchase to run and jump. He bit his lip. The heroes of the Days of Giants would have made this jump.

He wasn't one of them. He'd end up clattering down the face of the wall to the street below.

Slowly he shook his head, shrugged. "Can't," he mouthed, looking across at her.

She came back into the window frame, looked left and right down the lane. Leaned out. "They're around the alley. I'll get you at the door. Wait till I open."

She hadn't given him up. She could have. He couldn't stay on this roof all night. He had two choices, as he saw it. Jump down, keep to shadows and alleys, try to get north and out of town with a number of fighting men—he didn't know how many—prowling the streets for him. Or let her get him at the door.

He pulled himself nearer the edge. The sword scraped again. He swore under his breath, looked over and down. Saw where the door was. The girl was still at the window, waiting. He looked back at her and he nodded his head. A decision. You came over into the world—crossed from an island on a stolen horse—you had decisions to make, in the dark sometimes, and living until morning could turn on them.

She disappeared from the window, leaving the candle there, so small and simple a light.

He stayed where he was, watching it, this glimmer in darkness. There was a breeze. Up here on the roof he could smell the sea again, hear the distant surge of water beneath the voices and laughter of men. Always and ever beneath those things.

An idea came to him, the beginnings of an idea.

He heard a sound. Looked down. She carried no light, was a shadow against the shadows of opened door and house wall. No one in the laneway, at least not now. He seemed to have decided to do this. Bern slid himself to the lowest point on the pitched roof, held his scabbard with one hand, and dropped. He stumbled to his knees, got up, went quickly to her, and in.

She closed the door behind him. It creaked. No bolt or bar, he saw. Two other doors inside, off the narrow corridor: one beside them, one at the back.

She followed his glance. Whispered, "They're in the taverns. Upstairs is mine. Step over the fourth stair, it's missing."

In the dark, Bern counted, stepped over the fourth stair. The stairs creaked, as well. Each sound made him wince. Her door was ajar. He went in, she was right behind him. This one she closed, slid down a bar to lock it. Bern looked at it. A kick would splinter lock and door.

He turned, saw the candle in the window. A strangeness, to be looking at it now from this side. Not a feeling he could explain. He crossed and looked out at the roof across the lane, where he'd been moments before, the white moon above it, and stars.

He turned back into the room and looked at her. She wore an undyed tunic belted at the waist, no jewellery, paint on her lips and cheeks. She was thin, legs and bones, brown hair, very large eyes, her face thin, too. Not really what a man would want in a woman for the night, though some of the soldiers might like them young, an illusion of innocence. Or like a boy. An illusion of something else.

She wasn't innocent, not living here. There was no furniture to speak of. Her bed, where she worked, was a pallet on the floor in a corner, the coverings spread over it neatly enough. A bundle against the wall beside it would be her clothing, another pile of cooking things, and food. That shouldn't be on the floor, he thought. There'd be rats. A basin, a chamber pot, both on the floor as well. Two wooden stools. A black pot hooked on an iron bar stretched across the fireplace he'd seen from outside. Firewood by that wall. The candle on the window ledge.

She went to the window, took the candle, put it on one of the stools. She sank down on the bedding, crossed her legs, looked up at him. Said nothing, waiting.

Bern said, after a moment, "Why hasn't anyone fixed that stair?"

She shrugged. "We don't pay enough? I like it. If someone wants to come up they need to know the hole's there. No surprises." He nodded. Cleared his throat. "No one else in here?"

"They will be later. In and out. Told you. Both of 'em at the taverns."

"Why… aren't you?"

The same shrug. "I'm new. We go later, after the others start their night. They don't like it if we get there too soon. Beat us up, make scars, you know…"

He didn't, not really. "So… you'll go out soon?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Why? Got a man here, don't I?" He swallowed. "I can't be found, you know that."

"'Course I know. Gurd'll kill you for fun of it."

"Do… any of them… just come up?"

"Sometimes," she said, failing to reassure.

"Why did you help me?" He wasn't used to talking. Not since leaving the isle.

She shrugged again. "Don't know. You want me? What can you pay?"

What could he pay? Bern reached into his trousers and took the purse looped inside them, around his waist. He tossed it to her. "All I have," he said.

He'd had it off the careless merchant north of here. Perhaps the gods would look kindly on his giving it to her.

That vague, new-formed idea that had come to him on the roof was still teasing at the edges of his mind. No use or meaning to it, unless he survived tonight.

She was opening the purse, emptied it on the bedding. Looked up at him.

First glimmering of youth, of surprise, in her. "This is too much," she said.

"All I have," he repeated. "Hide me till morning."

"Doing it anyhow," she said. "Why'd I bring you?"

Bern grinned suddenly, a kind of light-headedness. "I don't know. You haven't told me."

She was looking at the coins on her bed. "Too much," she said again.

"Maybe you're the best whore in Jormsvik," he said.

She looked up quickly. "I'm not," she said, defensively.

"A jest. I'm too afraid right now to take a woman, anyhow."

He doubted she was used to hearing that from the fighters in Jormsvik. She looked at him. "You going to challenge in the morning?"

He nodded. "That's why I came. Made a mistake, going to an inn tonight."

She stared at him, didn't smile. "That's Ingavin's truest truth, it is. Why'd you?"

He tilted the sword back, sat carefully on the stool. It held his weight. "Wasn't thinking. Wanted a drink. A last drink?"

She appeared to be thinking about that. "They don't always kill, in the challenges."

"Me they will," he said glumly.

She nodded. "That's a truth, I guess. After tonight, you mean?" He nodded. "So you might as well have the purse."

"Oh. That's why?"

He shrugged.

"I should at least do you then, shouldn't I?"

"Hide me," Bern said. "It's enough."

She looked at him. "It's a long night. You hungry?" He shook his head.

She laughed, for the first time. A girl, somewhere in there with the Jormsvik whore. "You want to sit and talk all night?" She grinned, and began untying the knotted belt that held her tunic. "Come here," she said. "You're pretty enough for me. I can earn some of this."

Bern had thought, actually, that fear would strip away desire. Watching her begin to undress, seeing that unexpected, amused expression, he discovered that this was wrong. It had been, he thought, a long time since he'd had a woman. And the last one had been lord, the volur, in her cabin on the isle. The serpent coiling somewhere in the room. Not a good memory.

It's a long night. After a moment, he started to remove his sword-belt.

He was later to consider—sometimes soberly, sometimes not so—how a man's life could turn on extremely small things. Had he turned up another alley when he'd left that tavern, found a different roof to climb. Had they begun to disrobe even a little sooner…

"Thira!" they heard, from downstairs. "You still up there?" He knew that voice now. Gurd'll kill you for fun of it, she had said.

"In the fireplace!" she whispered urgently now. "Push up a ways. Hurry!"

"You can turn me in," he said, surprising himself.

"No to that," she said, retying her belt quickly. "Get in there!" Turning to the door, she shouted, "Gurd! Watch fourth step!"

"I know!" Bern heard.

He hurried to the chimney space, bending down and stepping over the rod that held the black pot. Awkward, especially with the stolen sword. He scraped his shoulder on the rough stone, swore. He straightened up inside, cautiously. It was pitch black and very tight. He was sweating again, heart hammering. Should he have stayed in the room, fought the man when he came up? Gurd would kill him, or simply step back and call for friends. Bern would have nowhere to go.

And the girl would die, as well, if he was found here. A bad death, with these men. Should he care about that, if he wanted to be a Jormsvik mercenary? No matter, too late now.

The chimney widened a little, higher up, more than he'd thought. He reached overhead with both hands, scrabbling at stone. Pebbles fell, rattling. He found places to grip, levered himself, got his boots on either side of the bar that stretched across, pushed the sword to hang straight down. He needed to get higher but couldn't see a thing in the blackness of the chimney, no way to check for footholds. He put his boots right to the edges, pressing against the stone. The bar held. For how long, he didn't know, or want to think. Imagined himself crashing down, unable to move in the chimney, spitted like a squealing pig by the man in the room. A glorious death.

Gurd banged on the door; the girl crossed and opened it. He hoped—abruptly—that she'd thought to hide the purse. He heard her voice. "Gurd, I didn't think you'd—"

"Out of the way. I want your window, not your skinny bones." "What?"

"No one's seen him in the streets, there's ten of us looking. Shit-smeared goatboy may be on a roof."

"I'd have seen him, Gurd." Bern heard her footsteps cross behind the mercenary's to the window. "Come to bed?"

"You'd see nothing but one of us to screw. Ingavin's blood, it pisses me to have a farmhand escape us!"

"Let me make you feel better, then," the girl named Thira said in a wheedling voice. "Long as you're here, Gurd." "Slipped coins, all you want. Whore."

"Not all I want slipped, Gurd," she said. Bern heard her laugh softly and knew it wasn't real.

"Not now. I might come back later if you're dying for it. No money, though. I'd be doing you a favour."

"No to that," said Thira sharply. "I'll be down in Hrati's getting a man who takes care of a girl."

Bern heard a blow, a gasp. "Decent tongue in your head, whore. Remember it."

There was a silence. Then, "Why would you cheat me, Gurd? A man oughtn't do that. What I do bad to you? Do me and pay me for it."

Bern felt a cramping in his arms, held almost straight over his head, clutching the stone wall. If the man in the room turned to the fire and looked, he'd see two boots, one on either side of the cooking pot.

The man in the room said, to the woman, "Get your tunic up, don't take it off. Turn over, on your knees."

Thira made a small sound. "Two coins, Gurd. You know it. Why cheat me for two coins? I need to eat."

The mercenary swore. Bern heard money land on the floor and roll. Thira said, "I knowed you was a good man, Gurd. I knowed it. Who you want me be? A princess from Ferrieres? You captured me? Now you got me?"

"Cyngael," the man grunted. Bern heard a sword drop. "Cyngael bitch, proud as a goddess. But not any more. Not now. Put your face down. You're in the mud. In the… field. I got you. Like. This." He grunted, so did the girl. Bern heard shifting sounds where the pallet was.

"Ah!" Thira cried. "Someone save me!" She screamed, but kept it soft.

"All dead, bitch!" Gurd growled. Bern heard the sounds of their movements, a hard slap on skin, the man grunting again. He stayed where he was, eyes closed, though it didn't matter in this blackness. Heard the mercenary again, breath rasping now: "All carved up. Your men. Now you find… what an Erling's like, cow! Then you die." Another slap.

"No!" cried Thira. "Save me!"

Gurd grunted again, then groaned loudly, then the sounds ceased. After a moment, Bern heard him stand up again.

"Worth a coin, not more'n that, Ingavin knows," Gurd of Jormsvik, a captain there, said. "I'll take the other back, whore." He laughed.

Thira said nothing. Bern heard the sword being picked up, boots crossing the floor again to the door. "You see anyone on a roof, you shout. Hear?"

Thira made a muffled sound. The door opened, closed. Bern heard boots on the stairs, then a clatter, and swearing. Gurd had forgotten the fourth stair. A brief, necessary flicker of pleasure at that. Then gone.

He waited a few more moments, then stepped carefully down from the bar, stooped almost double, and squeezed out from the chimney. He scraped his back this time.

The girl was on the pallet, face down, hidden by her hair. The candle burned on the stool.

"He hurt you?" Bern asked.

She didn't move, or turn. "He took a coin back. He oughtn't cheat me."

Bern shrugged, though she couldn't see him. "You have a full purse from me. What's a coin matter?"

She still didn't turn. "I earned it. You can't understand that, can you?" She said it into the rough blanket of the pallet.

"No," said Bern, "I guess I can't." It was true, he didn't understand. But why should he?

She turned then, sat up, and quickly put a hand to her mouth—a girl's gesture again. Began to laugh. "Ingavin's eye! Look at you! You're black as a southern desert man."

Bern looked down at his tunic. Ash and soot from the fireplace were all over him. He turned up his hands. His palms were coal black from the fireplace walls.

He shook his head ruefully. "Maybe I'll scare them in the morning."

She was still laughing. "Not them, but sit down, I'll wash you." She got up, arranged her tunic, and went to a basin by the other wall.

It was a long time since a woman had tended him. Not since they'd had servants, before his father had killed his second man in an inn fight and been exiled, ruining the world. Bern sat on the stool as she bade him, and a whore by the walls of Jormsvik cleaned and groomed him the way the virgins in Ingavin's halls were said to minister to the warriors there.

Later, without speaking, she lay down on the pallet again and took off her tunic and he made love to her, distracted a little now by the noisy sounds of other lovemaking in the two rooms below. With a memory of what he'd heard from within the fireplace, he actually tried to be gentle with her, but afterwards he didn't think it had mattered. He'd given her a purse, and she was earning it, in the way she did that.

She fell asleep, after. The candle on the stool burned down. Bern lay in the darkness of that small, high room, looking out the unshuttered window at the summer night, waiting for first light. Before that came, he heard voices and drunken laughter in the street below: the mercenaries going back to their barracks. They slept there, always, whatever they did out here in the nights.

Her window faced east, away from the fortress and the sea. Watching, listening to the girl breathe beside him, he caught the first hint of dawn. He rose and dressed. Thira didn't move. He unbarred the door and went softly down the stairs, stepping over the fourth one from the bottom, and came out into the empty street.

He walked north—not running, on this morning that might be the last of his unimportant life—and passed the final straggling wooden structures, out into fields beyond. A chill, grey hour, before sunrise. He came to the wood. Gyllir was where he'd left him. The horse would be as hungry as he was, but there was nothing to be done about that. If they killed Bern they'd take the stallion, treat him well: he was a magnificent creature. He rubbed the animal's muzzle, whispered a greeting.

More light now. Sunrise, a bright day, it would be warm later. Bern mounted, left the wood. He rode slowly through the fields towards the main gates of Jormsvik. No reason to hurry now. He saw a hare at the edge of the trees, alert, watching him. It crossed his mind to curse his father again, for what Thorkell had done to bring him here, to this, but in the end he didn't do that, though he wasn't sure why. It also occurred to him to pray, and that he did do.

There were guards on the ramparts above the gates, Bern saw. He reined the horse to a halt. Sat silently a moment. The sun was up, to his left, the sea on the other side, beyond a stony strand. There were boats—the dragon-headed ships—pulled up on the shore, a long, long row of them. He looked at those, the brightly painted prows, and at the grey, surging sea. Then he turned back to the walls and issued a challenge to be admitted to the company of Jormsvik, offering to prove his worth against any man sent out to him.

A challenge could be entertaining, though usually only briefly so. The mercenaries prided themselves on dealing briskly with country lads and their delusions of being warriors. A trivial, routine aspect of their life. Draw the rune with a sword on it, ride out, cut someone up, come back for food and ale. If a man took too long to handle his lot-drawn task he could expect to be a source of amusement to his fellows for a time. Indeed, the likeliest way to ensure being killed—for a challenger—was to put up too much of a fight.

But why come all the way to Jormsvik-on-the-sea at the bottom of Vinmark just to surrender easily, in the (probably vain) hope of having your life spared? There might be some small measure of accomplishment back home for a farmer in having fought before these walls and come away alive, but not that much, in truth.

Only a few of the mercenaries would bother to climb the ramparts to watch, mostly companions of the one who'd drawn the sword-lot. On the other hand, for the artisans and fishermen and merchants of the town sprawling outside the walls, daily life offered little enough in the way of recreation, so it was generally the case that they'd suspend activity and come watch when a challenger was reported.

They wagered, of course—Erlings always wagered—usually on how long it would take for the newest victim to be unhorsed or disarmed, and whether he'd be killed or allowed to limp away.

If the challenge came early in the morning—as today—the whores were usually asleep, but with word shouted through the lanes and streets many of them would drag themselves out to see a fight.

You could always go back to bed after watching a fool killed, maybe even win a coin or two. You might even take a carpenter or sailmaker back with you before he returned to his shop, make another coin that way. Fighting excited the men sometimes.

The girl called Thira (at least partly Waleskan, by her colouring) was among those who came down towards the gates and the strand when word ran round that a challenge had been issued.

She was one of the newer whores, having arrived from the east with a trading party in spring. She had taken one of the rickety, fire-prone upper-level rooms in the town. She was too bony and too sharp-tongued (and inclined to use it) to have any real reason to expect a rise in her fortunes, or enough money to lower her bed to a ground-floor room.

These girls came and went, or died in winter. It was a waste of time feeling sorry for them. Life was hard for everyone. If the girl was fool enough to put a silver coin on the latest farmer who'd shown up to challenge, all you wanted to do was bite the coin, ensure it was real, and be quick as you could to cover part of the wager—even at the odds proposed.

How she got the coin was not at issue—all the girls stole. A silver piece was a week's work on back or belly for a girl like Thira, and not much less than that, at harder labour, for the craftsmen of the town. It took several of them, mingling coins, to match the wager. The money was placed, as usual, with the blacksmith, who had a reputation for honesty and a good memory, and who was also a very large man.

"Why you doing this?" one of the other girls asked Thira.

It had created a stir. You didn't bet on challengers to win.

"They spent half last night trying to find him. Gurd and the others. He was in Hrati's and they went for him. I figure if he can dodge a dozen of them for a night, he might handle one in a fight."

"Not the same thing," said one of the older women. "You can't hide out here."

Thira shrugged. "If he loses, take my money."

"Well aren't you the easy one with silver?" the other woman sniffed. "What happens if Gurd come out his self, to finish what he couldn't?"

"Won't. Gurd's a captain. I ought to know. He comes to me now."

"Hah! He come up those broken stairs to you only when someone he wants is busy. Don't get ideas, girl."

"He was with me last night," Thira said, defensively. "I know him. He won't fight… it's beneath him. As a captain and all." Someone laughed.

"Is it?" someone else said.

The gates had opened. A man was riding out. There were murmurs, and then more laughter, at the girl's expense. People were fools sometimes. You couldn't pity them. You tried to gain from it. Those who hadn't been quick enough to be part of the wager were cursing themselves.

"Give over the money now," a pockmarked sailmaker named Stermi said to the blacksmith, elbowing him. "This farmer's a dead man."

Seabirds wheeled, dove into the waves, rose again, crying.

"Ingavin's eye!" exclaimed the girl named Thira, shaken. The crowd eyed her with raucous pleasure. "Why'd he do this?"

"Oh? Thought you said you knew him," the other whore said, cackling.

They watched, a largish, buzzing group of people, as Gurd Thollson—a captain for two years now, excused from having to do this any more unless he chose to—rode out in glorious chain mail from the open gates of Jormsvik and moved past them, unsmiling, eyes hidden under helm and above bright yellow beard, towards the farmboy waiting on the stony strand astride a grey horse.

He had prayed. Had no farewells to make. There was no one who would lose anything at all if he died. This was a choice. You made choices, in the sea and on land, or somewhere between the two, on the margins.

Bern backed Gyllir up a little as the mercenary who had drawn the battle lot approached. He knew what he wanted to do here, had no idea if he could. This was a trained warrior. He wore an iron helm, chain-mail armour, a round shield hooked on the saddle of his horse. Why would he take any kind of chance? Though this was where Bern saw his own chance lying, small as it might be.

The Jormsvik fighter came nearer; Bern retreated a little more along the stony beach, as if flinching backwards. Edge of the surf now, shallow water.

"Where'd you hide last night, goatboy?"

This time, the retreat back into the water was genuine, instinctive. He knew the voice. Hadn't known which man in the alehouse last night was Gurd. Now he did: the big, yellow-haired dice player at the next table over, who had seen him pay and hurry out.

"Answer me, cowshit. You're dying here anyhow." Gurd drew his sword. There came a sound from those watching outside the walls.

Something rare came into Bern Thorkellson in that moment, with the deriding, confident voice and a memory of this man the night before. It actually took Bern a moment to identify the feeling. Normally he was controlled, careful, only son of a man too well known for his temper. But a shield wall broke inside him on that strand before Jormsvik, with the sea lapping at the fetters of his horse. He danced Gyllir a little farther backwards into the water—deliberately this time—and he felt, within, the heat of an unexpected fury.

"You're a sorry excuse for an Erling, you know that?" he snapped. "If I'm supposed to be a shit-smeared farmhand, why couldn't you find me last night, Gurd? I didn't go far, you know. Why's it take a captain to kill a goatboy today? Or be killed by one? I beat you last night, I'll beat you now. In fact, I like that sword of yours. I'll enjoy using it."

A silence; a man stunned. Then a stream of obscenity. "You beat no one, you lump of dung," the big man snarled, edging his horse forward in the water. "You just hid, and wet yourself."

"Not hiding now, am I?" Bern raised his voice to be heard. "Come on, little Gurd. Everyone's watching."

Again he backed up. His boots in the stirrups were in the water now. He could feel the horse reach for footing. The shelf sloped here. Gyllir was calm. Gyllir was a glory. Bern drew his stolen sword.

Gurd followed, farther into the sea. His horse danced and shifted. Most Erling warriors fought on foot, riding to battle if they had a horse and dismounting there. Bern was counting on that. For one thing, Gurd couldn't use the shield and sword and control his mount.

"Get down and fight!" the captain rasped.

"I'm here, little Gurd. Not hiding. Or is this Erling afraid of the sea? Is that why you're not raiding? Will they even let you back in when they see it? Come get me, mighty captain!"

Again he shouted it, to let those watching on the grass hear him. Some of them had begun drifting nearer the strand. He was surprised at how little fear he felt, now that it had come to this. And the anger in him was fierce and warming, a blaze. He thought of the girl last night: this massive, bearded captain stealing a coin from her out of sheer malice. It shouldn't matter—he'd told her that—but it did. He couldn't say why, didn't have time to decide why.

Gurd pointed with his blade. "I'm going to hurt you before I let you die," he said.

"No you aren't," said Bern, quietly this time, for no one else's ears but their own—and the gods', if they were listening. "Ingavin and Thunir led me through the sea on this horse in the dark of a night. They are watching over me. You die here, little Gurd. You're in the way of my destiny." He surprised himself, again—hadn't any idea he would say that, or what it meant.

Gurd rapped his helm down hard, roared something wordless, and charged. More or less.

It is difficult to charge in surf at the best of times. Things are not as one expects, or as one's horse expects. Movements slow, there is resistance, footing shifts—and then, where sand and stones slide away, it disappears entirely, and one is swimming, or the horse is, wild-eyed. One cannot charge at all, swimming, wearing armour, heavy and unbalanced.

But this, on the other hand, was a Jormsvik fighter, a captain, and he was not—taunting aside—afraid of the sea, after all. He was quick, and his horse was good. The first angled blow was heavy as a battle-hammer and Bern barely got his own blade across his body and in front of it. His entire right side was jarred by the impact; Gyllir rocked with it, Bern gasped with the force, pulled the horse back to his right in the sea, by reflex, more than anything.

Gurd pushed farther forward, still roaring, took another huge downward swing. This one missed, badly. They were deeper now, both of them. Gurd nearly unhorsed himself in the waves, rocking wildly as his mount, legs thrashing, struggled beneath him.

Bern felt an improbable mixture of ice and fire within him: fury and a cold precision. He thought of his father. Ten years of lessons with all the weapons Thorkell knew. How to block a downward forearm slash. His inheritance?

He said, watching the other man struggle and then right himself, "If it makes you feel better, dying here, I'm not a farmboy, little Gurd. My father rowed with the Volgan for years. Thorkell Einarson. Siggur's companion. Know it. Won't get you to Ingavin's halls this morning, though." He paused; locked eyes with the other man. "The gods will have seen you steal that coin last night."

If he died now, the girl did too, because he'd said that. He wasn't going to die. He waited, saw awareness—of many things—flicker and ripple in the other man's blue eyes. Then he steered Gyllir forward at an angle with his knees and he stabbed Gurd's horse with a leaning, upward thrust just above the waterline.

Gurd cried out, pulled at reins uselessly, waved his sword—for balance more than anything—slipped from the tilting saddle.

Bern saw him, weighted with chain mail, up to his chest in water, fighting to stand. His dying horse thrashed again, kicked him. Bern actually had a moment to think about pitying the man. He waited until Gurd, fighting the weight of his armour, was almost upright in the waves, then he angled Gyllir again, smoothly in the sea, and he drove his sword straight into the captain's handsome, bearded face just below the nosepiece. The blade went through mouth and skull bone, banged hard against the metal of the helm at the back. Bern jerked it out, saw blood, sudden and vivid, in the water. He watched the other man topple into white, foaming surf. Dead already. Another angry ghost.

He dismounted. Grabbed for the drifting sword, better by far than his own. He took hold of Gurd by the ringed neckpiece of his armour and pulled him from the sea, blood trailing from the smashed-in face. He threw the two swords ahead of him, used both hands to drag the heavy body up on the strand. He stood above it, dripping, breathing hard. Gyllir followed. The other horse did not, a carcass now, in the shallow water. Bern looked at it a moment, then walked back into the sea. He bent and claimed the dead man's shield from the saddle. Walked back out onto the stones again.

He looked over at the crowd gathered between sea and walls, and then up at the soldiers on the ramparts above the open gates. Many of them up there this sunlit summer morning. A captain riding out, claiming the fight: worth watching, to see what he did to the challenger who'd offended him. They'd seen.

Two men were walking out through the gates. One lifted a hand in greeting. Bern felt the anger still within him, making a home, not ready to leave.

"This man's armour," he called, lifting his voice over the deeper voice of the tumbling sea behind him, "is mine, in Ingavin's name."

It wouldn't fit him but could be altered, or sold. That's what mercenaries did. That's what he was now.

At the margins of any tale there are lives that come into it only for a moment. Or, put another way, there are those who run quickly through a story and then out, along their paths. For these figures, living their own sagas, the tale they intersect is the peripheral thing. A moment in the drama of their own living and dying.

The metalsmith, Ralf Erlickson, elected to return to his birthplace on Rabady Isle at the end of that same summer after ten years on the Vinmark mainland, the last four of which had been spent in the town outside the walls of Jormsvik. He'd made (and saved) a decent sum, because the mercenaries had needed his services regularly. He'd finally decided it was time to go home, buy some land, choose a wife, beget sons for his old age.

His parents were dead, his brothers gone elsewhere—he wasn't certain where any more, after ten years. There were other changes on the isle, of course, but not so many, really. Some taverns had closed, some opened, people dead, people born. The harbour was bigger, room for more ships. Two governors had succeeded each other since he'd left. The new one—Sturla One-hand, of all people—had just begun serving. Ralf had a drink or three with One-hand just after arriving. They traded stories of a shared childhood and divergent lives after. Ralf had never gone raiding; Sturla had lost a hand overseas… and made a small fortune.

A hand was a fair trade for a fortune, in Ralf's estimation. Sturla had a big house, a wife, land, access to other women, and power. It was… unexpected. He kept quiet about that thought, though, even after several cups. He was coming home to live, and Sturla was the governor. You wanted to be careful. He asked about unmarried women, smiled at the predictable jests, made a mental note of the two names Sturla did mention.

Next morning he went out from the walls, walking through remembered fields to the women's compound. There was an errand he'd promised to do. No need to ask directions. The place wouldn't have moved.

It was in better repair than he recalled. Sturla had told him a bit about that: the stoning of the old volur, emergence of a new one. Relations, the governor had allowed, were good. The witch-women had even taken to bringing food and ale for the harvesters at end of day. They never spoke, Sturla had told him, shaking his head. Not a word. Just walked out, in procession, a line of them, carrying cheese or meat and drink, then walked back. In procession.

Ralf Erlickson had spat into the rushes on the governor's floor. "Women," he'd said. "Just their games."

One-hand had shrugged. "Less than before, maybe." Ralf got the feeling he was taking credit for it.

The details of the town's reciprocation were evident as he approached the compound. The fence was in good condition; the buildings looked sturdy, doors hanging properly; wood was stacked high already, well before winter. There were signs of construction, a new outbuilding of some kind going up.

A woman in a grey, calf-length tunic watched him approach, standing by the gate.

"Ingavin's peace on all here," Ralf said, routinely. "I have a message for one of you."

"All peace upon you," she replied, and waited. Didn't open the gate.

Ralf shifted his feet. He didn't like these women. He vaguely regretted accepting the errand, but he'd been paid, and it wasn't a difficult task.

"I am to speak with someone whose name I don't know," he said.

She laughed, surprisingly. "Well, you don't know mine."

He wasn't used to laughter in the seer's compound. He'd come twice in his youth, both times to offer support to friends seeking a seithr spell from the volur. There'd been no amusement, on either occasion.

"Were you ever bit by a snake?" he asked, and was pleased to see her startle.

"Is that the one you need to see?"

He nodded. After a moment, she opened the gate.

"Wait here," she said, and left him in the yard as she went into one of the buildings.

He looked around. A warm day, end of summer. He saw beehives, an herb garden, the locked brewhouse. Heard birdsong from the trees. No sign of any other women. He wondered, idly, where they were.

A door opened and someone else came out, alone: wearing blue. He knew what that meant. Under his breath he cursed. He hadn't expected to deal with the volur herself. She was young, he saw. One-hand had told him that, but it was disconcerting.

"You have a message for me," she murmured. She was hooded, but he saw wide-set blue eyes and pulled-back yellow hair. You might even have called her pretty, though that was a dangerous thought with respect to a volur.

"Ingavin's peace," he said.

"And Fulla's upon you." She waited.

"You… the snake…?"

"I was bitten, yes. In the spring." She put a hand inside her robe and withdrew it, gripping something. Erlickson stepped back quickly. She wrapped the creature around her neck. It coiled there, head up, looking at him from above her shoulder, then flicked an evil tongue. "We have made our peace, the serpent and I."

Ralf Erlickson cleared his throat. Time, he thought, to be gone from here. "Your kinsman sends greetings. From Jormsvik."

He'd surprised her greatly, he realized, had no idea why. She clasped her hands at her waist.

"That is all? The message?"

He nodded. Cleared his throat again. "He… is well, I can say that."

"And working for the mercenaries?"

Ralf shook his head, pleased. They didn't know everything, these women. "He killed a captain in a challenge, midsummer.

He's inside Jormsvik, one of them now. Well, in truth, he isn't inside, at the moment."

"Why?" She was holding herself very still.

"Off raiding. Anglcyn coast. Five ships, near two hundred men. A big party, that. Left just before I did." He'd seen them go. It was late in the season, but they could winter over if they needed to. He had made and mended weapons and armour for many of them.

"Anglcyn coast," she repeated.

"Yes," he said.

There was a silence. He heard the bees.

"Thank you for your tidings. Ingavin and the goddesses shield you," she said, turning away, the serpent still about her neck and shoulders. "Wait here. Sigla will bring you something."

Sigla did. Generous enough. He spent some of it at an inn that night, on ale and a girl. Went looking for property the next morning. Not that there was so much of it on the isle. Rabady was small, everyone knew everyone. It might have helped if his parents had still been living, instead of buried here, but that was a waste of a wish. One of the names Sturla had given him was that of a widow, no children, young enough to still bear, he'd been told, some land in her own name, west end of the isle. He brushed his clothes and boots before going to call.

His son was born the next summer. His wife died in the birthing. He buried her back of the house, hired a wet nurse, went looking for another wife. Found one, and younger this time: he was a man with a bit of land now. He felt fortunate, as if he'd made good choices in life. There was an oak tree standing by itself near the south end of his land. He left it untouched, consecrated it to Ingavin, made offerings there, lit fires, midsummer, midwinter.

His son, fourteen years later, cut it down one night after a bad, drunken fight the two of them had. Ralf Erlickson, still drunk in the morning, killed the boy in his bed with a hammer when he found out, smashed in his skull. A father could deal with his family as he chose, that was the way of it.

Or it had been once. Sturla One-hand, still governor, convened the island's thring. They exiled Ralf Erlickson from Rabady for murder, because the lad had been asleep when killed, or so the stepmother said. And since when had the word of a woman been accepted by Erlings in a thring?

No matter. It was a done thing. He left, or they'd have killed him. Well on in years by then, Ralf Erlickson found himself on a small boat heading back to the mainland, landless (One-hand had claimed the exile's property for the town, of course).

Eventually, he made his way back down to Jormsvik, for want of a better thought. Worked at his old trade, but his hand and eye weren't what they had been. Not surprising, really, it had been a long time. He died there a little while after. Was laid in the earth outside the walls in the usual fashion. He wasn't a warrior, no pyre. One friend and two of the whores saw him buried.

Life, for all men under the gods, was uncertain as weather or winter seas: the only truth worth calling true, as the ending of one of the sagas had it.