“What does Cathal say?” I could not help asking.

“Once I have Gull’s answer,” said Kalev, “I will find out.”

Soon after, Gull arrived, bearing the inevitable pot of broth. While I heated it, the men lifted Ardal from the bed, wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and installed him in a chair by the fire. As if she had merely waited until this disruption should be over, Fang yapped outside the door, and when I let her in she ran straight to Ardal and leapt onto his knee. I saw him wince as she landed, but when I would have lifted her down, Ardal put out a hand to stop me. “Nann,” he murmured, or something like it. No.

The men were talking about Knut and the challenge. “I suppose I could give him a bit of advice,” Gull said. His voice was as calm as if he’d been asked to help with planting a row of carrots, but his shoulders had straightened as Kalev had put the request to him. I wondered if people forgot that he had once been a warrior of superb skills and dauntless courage. Did they still tell the tale of how he had rescued Bran from incarceration? “I like Knut’s spirit. I like a man who can summon good humor even after such a disaster has befallen him. Though challenging Cathal was perhaps taking things too far. On the other hand, I do wonder if what you’re suggesting is quite fair.”

“You can’t believe this will give Knut the advantage,” Evan said as he whisked the blankets from the bed and threw them into a corner.

“Hardly,” said his father, who had fetched a container of aromatic dried leaves. Scents of lavender, peppermint and chamomile arose as he sprinkled them over the straw-filled mattress. “He’s got seven days practice with the new swords, we’re not offering him the training the other men are getting, and his ordeal in the shipwreck must have weakened him, not to speak of the fact that he hasn’t so much as touched a weapon since he got here. If he’d challenged one of the Connacht men I might be tempted to lay a wager, odds on the Norseman. But Cathal? It’d take a miracle. Between us, we might prepare him to the point where he won’t embarrass himself utterly. I mention fairness because . . . well, I don’t suppose this is what Johnny would expect us to do.”

Kalev smiled. “I think it is exactly what he would expect us to do. Now that you have agreed, Gull, I will tell both Johnny and Cathal what we plan.”