Einar sucked his teeth. ‘Hard to know. No doubt some are with you, knowing you’re Sviggar’s daughter and what you’ve done already. But they won’t show themselves. Not till you have some spears at your back.’

‘Some spears?’

‘An army,’ he said. ‘And one worth a man’s blood to stand in the shieldwall with. If Thrand starts making his mark, there’s many in the north won’t like it. But nor will they do anything till they think they can win. He already has the Danes in his pocket. The Skanskar and Gotar levies, too.’

‘Where can I find an army? If I went south, maybe, to the Wends—’

‘No. Not the Wends. They were allies of the Wartooth, and with them all flush from Bravik, there’s no chance they would go against the Old Boar’s last surviving son. Not unless you had gold enough to drown ’em in.’

‘We have the Nefelung hoard. What’s left of it.’

‘That can’t be much after your brother paid for his army.’ It was true. Sigurd, Lilla’s perfidious brother, had squandered most of their father’s gold on buying spears and the men to wield them in his pursuit of glory the previous summer.

But not all. ‘There’s enough left to whet an army’s appetite. They needn’t know the truth of it.’

‘Does Thrand know of the hoard?’

‘No.’

Einar chuckled. ‘Best keep it that way.’

‘What about west? Over the mountains into Norsk territory?’

Einar shook his head. ‘That journey’s hard at this time of year. And you’d be too long in this realm. Thrand would hunt you down quicker than hounds on a hind.’

‘I know the country better than he does.’

‘No doubt, my lady. Anyhow, you’d find little help in the west. The Norsk tribes are too divided. They spend half of every year at each other’s throats. If the best of their own can’t unite them, a Sveär queen never could.’

‘And east – across the sea? We’d leave Thrand’s territory at once.’ She hated to concede it was already his but why lie to herself? ‘My father has old allies from the Estland Wars that way.’

‘That was a long time ago.’

‘The Estlander tribes were loyal friends of ours, were they not?’

‘They were.’

‘And we’ve done nothing to break friendship since. King Ostein was close with my father. Will he not help Sviggar’s daughter as well?’

Einar shook his head. ‘Ostein fell at Bravik, Lady. . . fighting you.’

Lilla pinched her brow. It seemed hope was thwarted at every horizon. ‘The Livi are the largest tribe in Estland. Who rules them now in Ostein’s place?’

‘His son. I think his name is Osvald. He’s about the only man of high blood around the rim of the East Sea who didn’t stand at Bravik.’

‘Why not?’