“You will go home, Svala,” I said, ignoring the talk I had heard in the dining hall, about Knut perhaps being invited to stay for a trial period on Inis Eala, where his superb combat skills would be an asset. “You and Knut. Johnny can arrange for you to go as soon as he’s satisfied that you’re well enough.” I wondered about that. One could not describe the strapping Svala as unwell, but she was not as other women were, and I could understand Johnny’s reluctance to send her over to the mainland settlement or beyond. I could not see her living her life in any ordinary village or indeed any ordinary household. Knut did his best to protect her, but he could hardly do so all the time, and she had the capacity to wreak havoc. “A ship, yes. A voyage to . . . the place you set out from. Ulfricsfjord. Not with me. With Knut. Your husband.” That, I could not mime, but I hoped she would recognize the names.

Svala rose to her considerable height, towering over me where I knelt by the water. Her fists were clenched. She looked at me, then spat, precisely, on the cavern floor beside her feet. A sound issued from her, an explosion of fury and frustration.

I felt somewhat as a child might on finding itself alone in a field with a horned bull. Her anger frightened me. We were far from the settlement and I no longer had Fang with me. But then, I had not discouraged her from coming with me. It was possible we both wanted the same thing: truth. I must try harder to understand.

“A serpent,” I said, kneeling up and indicating the shape with my hands, next to the pool. “Mouth, bites, like this. Claws, like this.” I forced myself into a bizarre reenactment of the hideous scene—gods, I had seen this; in my first vision of Rodan’s fall I had seen a man taken by a sea monster—and saw instant recognition in Svala’s eyes. Disarmed in an instant, she squatted down next to me, watching in apparent fascination.

Boat. How could I show a boat? Ah—the half-empty water skin. I pushed the stopper in firmly, then floated the skin along the pond, showing with my hands the rowers, the shore to which they were heading. As the cumbersome vessel passed Svala, she reached out to add her own part to the story, using her arm, her hand, her fingers to play the part of the monster. Snap! I take this man for my first bite. Snatch! I take this one now. And now this, and this . . . There was no longer any doubt that we had seen the same vision.

I brought the vessel back to the side of the pond, beached it and left it, rising to my feet. “This place?” I asked her, motioning toward the little scene. “You, I, go this place?”