We walked slowly past a timber trough. It lapped with water, reflecting the sky and the large building behind it. This structure was only partially burnt, with a section of its golden thatch roof miraculously intact. A stable perhaps, I thought. Peering into the shadows beneath the jutting timbers and thatch, I saw again that there was no sign of bones, not even of horses or livestock.

“You think Aelfwyn might yet live?” Eadmaer said. I wished he would be silent.

I could not imagine how my cousin could have survived what had taken place here, and yet I did not wish to confront my thoughts head on. Nor did I wish to talk to Eadmaer about her possible fate. I thought of the conversation with Drosten on the ship, and how to speak of his loss had unburdened him. But for years Drosten had held his grief close, speaking of it to nobody. I would not speak of Aelfwyn yet. Until I found her, or heard tidings of her fate, she was to me alive, somewhere in this land, and I chose to ignore the likelihood of her death.

Runolf did not speak as he walked through the wreckage of the buildings. Even Eadmaer fell mercifully silent. None of us knew how to respond to his questions. I certainly did not wish to be forced to think of the answers.

Together, sombre and tense, we walked in a morose hush through the settlement, until we came to a rise crowned with a copse of elm. Looking back the way we’d come, I saw we were some way from the Brymsteda now. I could make out that the crew were setting up camp on the beach there. Every now and then a snatch of their conversation reached us, but there was none of the laughter and jeering that was normal when many men were gathered together.

The stillness of the settlement was almost absolute. The only sounds were those of our breathing, our footfalls rustling through the long grass, the breeze sighing through the leaves of the elms on the hill and, as Runolf halted, the trickling burble of a stream that ran over rocks to where the path crossed it on a small timber bridge. The bridge was well-maintained, and its straight timbers and solidity were somehow shocking after the almost total destruction we had witnessed throughout the steading.

Runolf knelt close to the stream. I halted a few paces behind him, not wishing to disturb the man in his grief, and yet also wishing to reach out to him, to show him that he was not alone. We had come to this place together, to face whatever we may find, however dark. I too grieved, though neither of us truly knew what had occurred there.