“Yes. Still, that might not be a cause for blood-vengeance. Ingulf and I have done a lot of favors during this last day and a night. There are many chieftains who would be dead or crippled for life if it had not been for us. You know, he will even stitch together entrails, and sometimes the man will live, if he is strong enough to stand the pain and there is no poison inside the body.”

Shef looked more attentively at the stains on his friend’s tunic.

“You are trying to beg me off? From Ivar?”

“Yes.”

“You and Ingulf? But what do I matter to him?”

Hund dipped a lump of hard bread in the remaining water and passed it over.

“It’s Thorvin. He says it is business of the Way. He says you have to be saved. I don’t know why, but he is totally set on it. Someone spoke to him yesterday and he came running over to see us at once. Have you done something I don’t know about?”

Shef lay back in his bonds. “A lot of things, Hund. But I’m sure of one thing. Nothing is going to get me away from Ivar. I took his woman. How can I pay boot for that?”

“When bale is highest, boot is nighest.” Hund filled the crock with water once again from a skin, placed a handful of bread beside it on the ground, and passed over the length of dirty homespun he had been carrying over his arm. “Food is short in the camp, and half the blankets are being used for shrouds. That’s all I can find for now. Make it last. If you want to pay boot—see what the king can do.”

Hund jerked a chin toward the corner of the pen, beyond where the dying warriors had sat, called something to the watching guards, rose, and left.

The king, thought Shef. What boot will Ivar take for him?

“Is there any hope?” hissed Thorvin across the table.

Killer-Brand looked at him with mild surprise. “What sort of language is that from a priest of the Way? Hope? Hope is the spittle that runs from the jaws of Fenris Wolf, chained till the day of Ragnarök. If we start only doing things because we think there may be some hope—why, we will end up no better than Christians, singing hymns to their God because they think he may give them a better bargain after death. You are forgetting yourself, Thorvin.”