An open gateway in the hold’s wall led to the river, and to the stone bridge that spanned it, remnant and reminder of the giants that dwelt here once. Haelan saw figures moving on the bank amongst the moored craft. He glimpsed Swain, Wulf’s boy, the closest thing to a friend that he’d ever known. Back at Dun Kellen he’d had playmates, but there was always a divide between the future heir and future subjects. I am still heir of Isiltir, but here that does not seem so important. Sometimes he struggled to remember his mam and da’s faces.

Swain was the natural leader of those who were not old enough for the Rowan Field, and from Haelan’s first day at the hold had looked out for him.

Haelan ran down the hill, through the gates onto the riverbank.

‘There you are,’ a voice boomed, old Kalf beckoning to him, as barrel-chested as the boats he tended.

‘You’re late, but better late’n never, so here you go,’ Kalf said as he handed Haelan a mallet and a bucket, Haelan wrinkling his nose at the hemp and pine-tar inside. ‘Get cracking, then, before the day’s over.’

Haelan found a barge without workers and began. He knew what to do now, having performed the same task every day for the last ten-night. Gramm’s hold had grown wealthy on timber from Forn Forest, and most of it was transported down the river, great floating rafts of it tied and pulled by barges. Over a dozen of those barges had been dragged from the river and now hung suspended on timber frames in various stages of repair. All of their hulls needed caulking with the pitch in Haelan’s bucket.

I can do this now. Haelan felt a flush of pride as he banged tarred fibres into gaps between the timber strakes of a barge’s hull, the pine-tar sticking to everything. He managed to get most of the tar in the right place, unlike his first day, when his wastefulness had earned him more than one clump around the back of his head by Kalf. He’d felt ashamed and useless, until Swain had taken pity on him and shown him how to scoop and spread the pitch without losing half of it to the ground. Now with something resembling competence he scooped, spread, hammered and repeated, kept going until his arms were aching.

‘You’re getting better at that,’ a voice said close by. Swain appeared with a bucket of his own, his younger sister Sif and a scruffy dog at his heels. ‘I’ll help you finish up.’

‘I’ll help too,’ his sister said.

‘No,’ Swain said firmly. ‘Last time you tried you ended up with more tar on you than the boat. You looked like a river-wraith. Mam had to cut your hair and Da nearly killed me. You sit there and play with Pots.’