‘Uh-huh, thank you,’ he mumbled through a mouthful of sausage spiced with pepper. ‘What is this?’ he dared to ask next, finding that the ale had loosened his tongue. ‘I mean, what’s happening here?’

‘Just friends, catching up,’ Yannic said.

Joe was unconvinced; he had always been good at noticing things, and this felt too organised to be a social gathering. Each of the groups now had exactly twelve people in it and there were at least ten different groups. ‘You’ve got lots of friends,’ he said. ‘And they’re all Norlanders.’ That was un­usual on an island that was full of people from all over their corner of the world and beyond.

‘That’s right,’ Yannic chuckled. ‘Curious little jackdaw, 59aren’t you?’ He edged even closer, so all Joe could see was Yannic’s generous stomach and the buckles on his leather belt. He’d kept his sword, he saw, while everyone else had had to leave theirs outside. So maybe he was in charge. ‘What about you? What’s your story?’

‘No one cares about that now,’ Joe told him gloomily, chasing the last crumbs on his plate. He hated the self-pity that crept into his voice.

‘What if we do?’ Asa suddenly reappeared, at Yannic’s elbow. ‘You are a Norlander, after all. Those blue eyes don’t lie.’

They obviously didn’t know who he was or what he’d done. They wouldn’t be so friendly once they found out. ‘What does that matter?’ Joe asked clumsily. ‘What’s so great about Norlanders?’

They laughed as if he’d said something funny.

‘We celebrate our heritage here,’ Asa told him. ‘We sing Norlander songs, eat Norlander food, tell the folk tales of our homelands.’

That sounded harmless enough. Joe nodded, but he hadn’t finished.

‘We are keeping the old ways alive, that’s all.’ Asa’s face took on a flinty look now. ‘So they don’t get lost, with everything else …’

Now Joe had eaten, he felt more alert. With a jolt, he noticed something he should have seen immediately: Yannic and Asa and about half the people in the room were wearing tattered black clothes. Some had cloaks or jackets over the top, so he hadn’t noticed before. 60

They were wearing the old army uniform, the one from before. The one from the old duke’s reign. Suddenly he knew exactly who these people were and what he’d stumbled into – they all belonged to the Brotherhood! He cursed himself for his woolly-headedness earlier. He tried to keep his face steady.

‘What’s been lost?’ he asked, hoping he sounded curious, not suspicious.

‘Ah, we’ve all lost something, Jowan Thornsen,’ Yannic said slowly. ‘Time’s coming for us to take it back.’

So they did know who he was! Joe flushed with shame. He knew the Brotherhood wanted to cause trouble for his sister and the duke. Would they hurt him to get to her? He focused with difficulty on what the men were saying.

‘We were in the last duke’s army, in the old days, when this island was properly run, with Norlanders in charge,’ Yannic said, puffing up his chest.