“That is what Paul said.” I see him beside me on the deck of a ship, a trading boat, the crew not Norsemen but Gauls. That’s rubbish, Felix. It’s just circumstances, that’s all. You do have a tendency to speak out when another man might find it prudent to hold his tongue, that’s true enough. But that doesn’t mean you carry some kind of cloak of doom with you.

“Then Paul was a wise man as well as a kind one.”

“And I killed him.”

I hear her draw a breath. “The sea killed him,” she says.

“I was too slow, too clumsy. I could not untie it . . . ” I shut my mouth on the words. His voice, his face, the rope around his ankles, the knots . . . the wave . . .

Calmly, Sibeal continues to replace the rods in their bag. “It happened so quickly,” she says in a murmur. “I was watching from the cliffs out there. My first full day on Inis Eala. It must have been chaos on the ship. I suppose people were trapped as everything broke up. And the waves were . . . of an unusual size.”

Save yourself, Felix. It washes over me again. I close my eyes, lost in the darkness.

Later, when Sibeal is abed, I lie awake and watch the shifting shadows thrown by the banked-up fire. The last lamp is quenched, the last candle extinguished. I breathe. How long will it take for my body to be whole again, how many days, how many turnings of the tide before I am strong enough for this task, this unknown task the runes lay on me?

Deiz presses close against my side, sighing in her sleep. She trusts me. It is a small blessing; a dog forgives much. I wish I could pray. I wish I could believe in a benign deity, a good father who holds us safe and heals our wounds. I wish I could believe my brother has gone to a better place. But I lost my faith in that god long ago. I lost my trust when I saw men claim power for themselves in his name. There are other gods; other paths. In time, perhaps my feet will carry me onto a true way. Perhaps I will wander until I die. Perhaps I will die tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, on the end of Knut’s sword, all for a truth that I cannot remember.

CHAPTER 7

~Sibeal~

On the day of the challenges I rose early as usual and went out walking, accompanied by Fang. Muirrin, who had patched up hundreds of injured combatants during her years on the island, would stay in the infirmary with Ardal while the bouts were on, ready to tend to anyone who needed her. Her presence there had a twofold purpose; Evan judged Ardal still too unwell to be left on his own.