Her eyes burned at him. “Hear me. I’ve been delving into the past, finding things out, holding my own secret meetings. Some forty years ago, thieves broke into the king’s treasure house. Its warden, one Glum, had been slack about keeping watch. Hadding hanged him for that, old and honorable though he was. A son of Glum’s had died a while earlier, soon after his wife, but left a son of his own, hight Styr, whom Glum was raising. Because of what the king did to his grandfather, Styr grew up poor, a worker for others wherever he could find work, never able to wed, his name besmirched, nothing left to him but hatred. The thought that he might avenge himself has kindled him as lightning kindles a parched woodland. Little he cares what becomes of him afterward.

“I think his stroke will be more deft if he knows he can bolt out the door, and afterward meet somebody who’ll give him some silver and lead him to someplace where he’s not known.” She grinned. “That somebody may, instead, kill him. Or he may be cut down straightway after the deed. We can think about that. What matters is that Hadding will be dead.”

“No,” croaked Gudorm. “No.” But already he knew she would win.

XXXII

That spring, on his way to the Skaw to lie in wait for Tosti, King Hadding had stopped at Keldorgard. “No, we’ll not need a levy for this,” he told Gudorm. “You’ll be of more use here, working your land and keeping my peace.”

In the morning, before he left, Ulfhild drew him aside and asked if they could talk alone. They walked along the rail fence of a paddock where mists steamed off the dew that glistened on the young grass and cows stood rust-red above it, the sound of their cropping loud in the quietness. “Father,” she asked, “when will you come here again and abide a while?”

Hadding shrugged. “How can I tell? If none of our outposts catches the illdoer, I mean to hunt for him as long as need be. And even if we take him soon, I’ve my rounds of the kingdom to make. There’s much for me to see to.”

“But how seldom you see your kindred.”

Her head drooped. He heard the sadness in her voice. “Do you want for something? Everything here looks well-off to me.”

“I feel myself sundered from you, father.”

He stopped in midstride. “Now that’s a surprise. Ever were you willful, Ulfhild. I thought you’d be happy to move to a home of your own.” After a bit he frowned and added slowly, “And of late Gudorm has somehow grown cold toward me. I know not why. But when we meet, his words are curt. I hear how he’s been riding around sounding men out about some.