A long time ago, so it seemed, he had been young and thoughtless. He smiled, thinking back on it. Perhaps not so long ago. But so much had happened. He had been thrown headlong into a world whose contours were more complicated than he had ever imagined as the neglected youngest child of the old count up in Heart’s Rest.

“For all I know, my father is dead by now, and my brother Gero become count in his place.”

Erkanwulf glanced at him, his expression unreadable. “What has that to do with us? My lord?”

“Nay, nothing. I just thought of it. I just thought how the world is changed, as you said yourself. Not just because of that storm or Biscop Constance’s imprisonment, or any of those things, but because I left my father’s estate and journeyed farther than I ever expected to go. I can’t be that youth that 1 once was. When I think of how I was then … I don’t know. It’s just different now. We’ve chosen our path. We can’t go back.”

“Huh. True enough words.”

“What do you think we’ll find in Autun?” Ivar asked.

Erkanwulf only sighed. “I hope we find what we’re looking for. Whatever that may be.”

2

IT snowed the morning they crossed the river on the ferry and moved into a straggle of woodland near the southern gate of Autun. They stumbled over two corpses half hidden under branches and mostly decomposed. Skulls leered at them, so they moved on. In the ruins of an old cottage abandoned among the trees, they stabled the horses with fodder and water, tying their thread-worn blankets over the animals’ backs. After that, they trudged overland to the city walls. No pristine stretches of fresh white snow blanketed the fields. It was all a muddy gray.

They passed several clusters of huts and cottages, shutters closed and doors shut against the cold. No one was about. Once they heard a goat’s bleat; once a child’s weary wailing dogged them before fading into the distance.

Erkanwulf led them first along the river and thence to a postern gate. They approached cautiously, hoods cast up over their faces. Ivar hung back as Erkanwulf strode forward to confront the two men hanging about on guard.

A conversation ensued; he knew them. After a moment he beckoned Ivar forward and without further conversation they were hustled past the gates and into the alleys of the city. Autun was a vast metropolis; Sigfrid had told him that perhaps ten thousand people lived there, cheek by jowl, but Ivar wasn’t sure he believed it. That was an awful lot of people, too many to comprehend. Even Prince Bayan and Princess Sapientia’s combined armies hadn’t numbered more than ten or fifteen centuries of soldiers in addition to auxiliaries and militia.

On this late winter afternoon, few braved the streets. In one square a trio of beggars huddled by a public fountain, hands and faces wrapped in rags to protect themselves from the bitter cold. The tiny child’s face was thin from hunger, and he scooted forward on his rump, like a cripple without use of his legs, to catch the copper coin Ivar tossed to them.