Felix glanced at Knut. “When we sailed from Ulfricsfjord, there were no women on Freyja, and no children,” he said. “Coming back, there was only the one woman. I cannot tell you how she came to be on board. He says she is his wife. I do not think that can be true.”

Johnny held up a hand, signaling for Felix to wait until Kalev had completed the translation before he went on. Hearing it, Knut gave a derisive laugh.

“This is complete nonsense, a fabrication!” he exclaimed. “I told you this man is full of wild stories. He is jealous, like many others. What man would not wish for such a fine woman to warm his bed at night? No doubt the rest of his tale is equally foolish. There were wives on board, four or five of them. They traveled in the hold, with the cargo. All perished in the sinking of Freyja.” After a moment, he added, “He makes a mockery of my loss.”

As Kalev finished translating this, Felix got up abruptly, swaying on his feet. “How dare you lie about this?” he demanded, then gulped in a rasping breath. He was strung so tight I could feel the vibrations of his anger. I thought he might hurl himself across the chamber at Knut and perform his own act of violence. “With so many dead, with so many lost, after what we did, how can you have room in your mind for anything but the need to go back, to save those we abandoned, to make good what little part of this we can—”

“Steady, son,” murmured Gull, putting his hand on Felix’s arm.

I summoned a tone I had heard Ciarán use on certain occasions with argumentative novices. “Sit down, Felix,” I said. “Breathe slowly, as if you were preparing for a divination. It’s time for this story to come out. Tell it calmly, as a druid might.”

Felix drew a deep, shuddering breath and subsided onto the bench beside Gull. The chamber became utterly silent. “We set off for the Orcades,” he said. “We were following an established trade path, or so Paul told me—he knew more about such things than I. The plan was to skirt the coast of Erin, then thread a way between Dalriada and the isles before heading northeast. Freyja went by sail when the winds allowed. The oarsmen did the work at other times. At night we trailed a sea anchor. Each man prayed to his own god, that between dusk and dawn we would not drift too far from our true course. From the seasoned seafarer to the boy on his first adventure, each feared to wake and find himself in unknown waters. It is a potent terror to turn and turn again and see measureless ocean on every side, and not a sign of land.