Padric sat in the longhouse, thoughts more troubled than before. A cold, steady rain fell throughout the day and he remained shut in with Heggle, pondering her disturbing words. Could the Red Caps still possess the body of a man almost a thousand years old? In the stories, the Gaunt Prince knew terrible spells, but what malevolence could preserve a corpse centuries beyond when it should rightfully have turned to dust? It was not within Padric’s understanding. His father was a farmer, a good, hard-working man of the soil, and his mother, a gentle spirit of deep patience eclipsed only by a silent inner strength. Such people could not be connected to all of this madness.

Torcan sought Kederic’s wife, some long lost heir to the men the goblins had crowned. The thought that Padric’s mother had once been wed to a warlord from Sasana was laughable. That she could also be the inheritor of some dread Magic was unthinkable. She was not Kederic’s wife. Did that mean she was not Padric’s mother?

No! He refused to believe that. Let Slouch Hat and Torcan and this toothless sow say what they want, but he would not dishonor the only family and love he had known in this merciless world. Whatever his origins, he was not a puppet of the past, and he would prove it if it meant his life.

That night, his honor guard came knocking and brought him to the mead hall that Torcan had made his personal quarters. Padric paused at the entrance, gazing at the crude cage of lashed wood that hung from a pole not far from the hall. Two Red Caps stood nearby, their torches spitting angrily in the wet wind from the sea, granting flickering glimpses of the cage’s lone occupant.

Kederic Winetongue huddled against the wet and the cold, his hair and beard drenched and greasy. He hunkered at the bottom of the cage, trying to crawl into himself for warmth, sodden and shivering. Padric heard him issue a series of damp, choking coughs and stood for a long time watching, but the Thegn never looked up to meet his eyes.

Inside the hall, the thick smells of wet dogs, unwashed men and strong mead filled Padric’s nostrils, settling in the back of his throat. Around the central fire, men and goblins drank and laughed with one another, throwing dice and knives with equal recklessness, while the serving women made their way around with heavy jugs, refilling horns and trying to avoid the rough attention of both Fae and mortal. Torcan Swinehelm sat in the high seat on a platform at the rear of the hall, surrounded by the brutish captains of the raider ships. Each of these men was broad and burly, wearing cruelty as easily as the many rings on their fingers, laughter bellowing out from behind beards of yellow, red and black.