He flopped down on the bench beside the twins who were already sating their hunger on heels of black bread draped with strips of hog fat. It was basic fare in Osvald’s hall, even if it kept a man alive and his belly full. But Erlan didn’t feel like eating.

Adalrik bid him welcome with bulging cheeks and tipped out a cup. ‘You promised you’d tell us the rest of them stories one day, Erlan,’ the lad said, refilling it from the ale-pitcher and passing it to him.

Erlan nodded his thanks and took a swig. ‘There’s not much to tell.’ That was a lie. ‘Nothing good anyway.’ Closer to the truth.

‘You’re still alive, ain’t you?’

‘For what that’s worth in this dungheap hall,’ he muttered. ‘No offence.’

The boy shrugged. ‘A dung beetle’s happy enough on his dunghill ’cause he knows no different. That’s your trouble, see. You’ve been spoiled.’

‘Spoiled? Hah!’ Erlan had to laugh at that.

‘You’ve seen too much of the world. Well, Leikr and me, we ain’t going to stick around here for ever. Are we?’

‘Damn right.’ His brother grinned, tapping their cups together.

‘Come on, Erlan,’ urged Adalrik. ‘If you tell us your tales, Leikr here will put you in one of his songs.’ Leikr fancied himself a skald. Mostly he used his rhymings and kennings to win favours from the bed-thralls that Osvald kept about his hall like house-hounds. He had a sweet voice but not much invention. The lad’s attention had drifted back to a couple humping away on the other side of the hall. ‘Is that Finna there?’ he asked absently. ‘Think she’d do that with me?’

‘Not bloody likely,’ said Adalrik.

‘Why not?’

‘’Cause she knows you’ve got a cock like a baby worm and breath like Aska’s arse!’ Adalrik folded into gales of laughter; Leikr scowled and kicked him under the table. Adalrik yelped. This happened a lot.

Aska was a long-limbed wolfhound. At the sound of his name, a mass of fur stirred under the table and prodded his nose into Erlan’s lap. Erlan peeled a stray strip of fat off the table and dropped it into his mouth. The dog gulped it down, gazing up at him with a single, grateful eye.

Aska was a stray Erlan had picked up when he left the halls of Uppsala. At first, Erlan had named him Kai after his murdered friend, but that soon felt too uncanny so he changed it to Askar – the name of Kai’s father – and finally to Aska which simply meant, Ash. Erlan scratched at the top of his head.

Leikr had that moony look on his face that meant he had a question burning. Erlan took another swig of ale. ‘Come on, out with it.’

‘Do you think that the woman came back? You know. . . And saw what we’d done?’