It was to Dunsgard that he had sailed in the last days of autumn, turning his back on the ghosts that haunted the Uppland halls and the fame he’d won at Bravik. Except that some memories were not so easily left behind. Many a night, before sleep overtook him, he heard phantom echoes of the sword-song over that blood-soaked plain. Other times, it was a gentler shade who came to torment him. Lilla, Queen of the Twin Kingdoms now, whose beauty lingered like an ache in his bones. He could still recall the taste of her, the brush of her fingertips in his palm. Wasted thoughts, all of it. She was the reward of another man now. A better man.

Erlan had left because he was a man of honour when honour was all he had left to him. That being such a man meant he was also a fool was the bitter lesson of it. Honour had left him friendless, loveless, lordless, homeless. A killer for hire, forced to accept the meat and mead of the first lord whose hall he came to, in return for his oath. Gods, he was not yet twenty winters old, yet so damn weary. As if all the blood on his hands was a load weighing him down. Blood that he had spilled in exchange for what? Bread and beer? Was that all?

His hand went absently to his chest where his silver amulet used to hang. . . At least Lilla was where she was meant to be. While she was in the world, somehow there was hope. Of what, he wasn’t sure. But so long as she lived, then so must he.

The gnarled gables of Dunsgard rose ahead of him, stone-still in the mist swirling off the Dagava’s muddy waters. The rain had stopped. A dreary dusk was closing in around the palisade that crowned the hilltop. The three riders kicked on through the gateway, crossing to the stables to dismount into a cold slop of puddles. Already the sound of revelry was leaking out from the mead-hall into the yard.

‘He’s early to his ale-skin tonight,’ chuckled Leikr.

‘He’s early to his ale-skin every night.’ Erlan jumped down into the mud. The old wound in his ankle jarred and sent a jolt of fire up his leg into his groin. He sucked in his breath, remembering with bitterness the lesson his father had meant to teach him as a boy. Instead he’d made his son a lame-foot. A cripple for life. ‘Hand me the sack there,’ Erlan growled irritably at Leikr. The youth tossed him the knapsack that contained the few valuables they had taken from Osvald’s debtor. A few bits of hack-silver, some cheap jewellery. It was far short of the debt the farmer owed, but it was all they had. Erlan felt no better than a thief. He tossed Leikr his reins. ‘I’ll see you inside.’