The settlement was small compared to Stromgard, but busy with people trading goods and services. Carts full of agricultural produce made their way up and down mud tracks with simple wooden buildings on either side. The great longhouse at the heart of the community was impressive, however, and it was to this place the captives were brought.

With their hands still bound, they were ushered towards the entrance. Against the brightness of the morning light, the interior appeared dark and foreboding.

As they entered the place Fleya cast a glance in her nephew’s direction. Lann hadn’t uttered a word since their rude awakening at the hands of their Vorneland captors.

The captain called them to a halt before a dais that was made out of a giant millstone.

The Vorneland throne was carved from one huge piece of wood, fashioned to depict heads of wheat and corn as well as vegetables and other plants and foodstuffs; the legs had been shaped to represent livestock of every kind.

A woman sat on the throne. Dressed in a long blue dress which perfectly matched the polished stones set into her crown, Queen Favner stared out through eyes the colour of storm clouds. Below the silver circlet on her head, long grey hair hung down almost to her hips. A great hound, its own coat shot with white and grey, slept at her feet. The only other people in the place were the queen’s personal guards, and a small retinue of courtiers who were arranged in the area immediately behind the throne.

‘Well, well, what have we here?’ asked the woman atop the throne in a voice that portrayed little emotion.

‘Your Grace,’ Fleya said, speaking for the others and giving the ruler a small bow. ‘We have no idea why we have been brought before you like this. We are merely travellers passing through Vorneland and have committed no crime.’

‘No crime? How would you know? Only a king, or indeed a queen, has the right to decide what constitutes a crime in their own kingdom.’ She gazed over their heads into the middle distance. ‘The right of travel in Vorneland is no longer free to all. Your very presence on its lands is, in itself, a crime.’

‘Since when?’ Astrid asked.

There was no answer. The queen, a blank look in her eyes, stared out at something unseen beyond the longhouse. When the silence continued, some of the courtiers began to shuffle their feet.

Eventually Favner gave a tiny shake of her head and fixed Astrid with a cold look. ‘Did you say something, child?’

‘I asked you when Vorneland had taken the decision to stop free travel rights.’