Working for Thorvin had given Shef no chance at all to pursue his quest. Hund had been taken off almost immediately to the booth of Ingulf the Leech, also a priest of the Way, but one dedicated to Ithun the Healer, some distance away. After that the two had not seen each other. Shef was left to the routine duties of a smith’s assistant, made more trying by being confined to the enclosure of Thor: the forge itself, near it a small sleeping tent and an outhouse with a deep-dug latrine, the whole surrounded by the cords and the quickbeam berries, which Thorvin called rowan. “Don’t step outside the cords,” Thorvin had told him. “Inside you are under the peace and protection of Thor, and killing you would bring down vengeance on the killers. Outside”—he shrugged—“Muirtach would think himself happy to find you wandering around on your own.” Inside the precinct Shef had stayed.

It was the following morning when Hund came.

“I have seen her. I saw her this morning,” he whispered as he slipped into place beside the squatting Shef. For once Shef was alone. Thorvin had gone off to see about their turn for baking bread in the communal ovens. He had left Shef grinding wheat kernels into flour in the hand quern.

Shef jumped to his feet, spilling flour and unground kernels all over the beaten earth. “Who? You mean—Godive! Where? How? Is she—”

“Sit down, I beg,” Hund started to scrape hurriedly at the spilt mess. “We must look normal. There are always people watching in this place. Please listen. The bad news is this: She is the woman of Ivar Ragnarsson, the one they call the Boneless. But she has not been harmed. She is alive and well. I know because as a leech, Ingulf gets everywhere. Now he has seen what I can do, he often takes me with him. A few days ago he was called to see the Boneless One. They would not let me enter—there is a strong guard round all their tents—but while I was waiting outside for him I saw her pass. There could be no mistake. She was not five yards off, though she did not see me.”

“How did she look?” asked Shef, painful memory of his mother and Truda forcing itself forward.

“She was laughing. She looked—happy.” Both youths fell silent. From all that both had heard there was something ominous in anyone feeling or seeming happy anywhere within the range of Ivar Ragnarsson’s power.

“But listen, Shef. She is in terrible danger. She does not understand. She thinks that because Ivar is courteous and speaks well and does not use her immediately as a whore, then she is safe. But there is something wrong with Ivar, maybe in his body, maybe in his head. He has ways of easing it. Maybe, one day, Godive will be one of them.