Utter silence now. The man who had spoken continued his paring, intent on his left index finger, the knife slicing, slicing. Blood sprang out, the knife cut on down, down to the quick and the bone. The man made no sound and no movement.

A second one of the four spoke, picking up a stone piece from the checkerboard to make his move, a powerful, thick-shouldered man with grizzled hair. “Tell us,” he remarked, his voice carefully unperturbed, deliberately refusing to show unmanly emotion. “How did our old father Ragnar die? For it is not to be surprised at, since he was getting on in years.”

“It all began on the coast of England, where he was wrecked. According to the story I heard, he was caught by the men of King Ella.” Brand changed his voice slightly, as if to match, or to mock, the second Ragnarsson’s studied pretense of imperturbability. “I do not suppose they had much trouble, for, as you say, he was getting on in years. Maybe he offered no resistance.”

The grizzled man still held his draughtsman, his fingers closing on it tighter, tighter. Blood spurted out from under his fingernails, splashed on the board. The man put the piece down, moved it once, twice, lifted the captured draughtsman to the side. “I take, Ivar,” he remarked.

The man he was playing with spoke. He was a man with hair so fair it was almost white, swept back off his pale face and held with a linen headband. He looked at Brand with eyes as colorless as frozen water, under lashes that never blinked.

“What did they do once they had caught him?”

Brand looked carefully into the pale man’s unblinking stare. He shrugged, still elaborately unconcerned.

“They took him to King Ella’s court at Eoforwich. It was no great matter, for they thought him only a common pirate, of no importance. I believe they asked him some questions, had some little sport with him. But then, tiring of him, they decided they might as well put him to death.”

In the dead silence Brand studied his fingernails, conscious that his baiting of the Ragnarssons had almost reached its climax of danger. He shrugged again.

“Well. They gave him to the Christ-priests in the end. I expect he did not seem worthy of death from the warriors.”

A flush shot into the pale man’s cheeks. He seemed to be holding his breath, almost choking. The flush deepened, deepened till his face was scarlet. He began to sway to and fro in his chair, a kind of coughing coming from deep in his throat. His eyes bulged, the scarlet deepened to purple—in the dim light of the hall, almost to black. Slowly the swaying stopped, the man seemed to win some deep internal battle within himself, the coughing died, the face ebbed back to a startling pallor.