And Ulf repeated the vow, pleasing Engus’s men mightily by using the tongue of the Folk. He did not yet understand this language, but was learning as quickly as he could, seeing the advantage of it. A flock of small birds flew overhead at the moment he spoke, circling once before they headed westward, and this was generally considered a good omen. A cheer went up from the men, and Engus came around to clasp Ulf by the shoulder, a smile transforming his bearded face. The agreement was made.

The barley was ripening toward harvest time, a fine crop this year. Ulf’s people were busy constructing their new dwelling houses, building stone walls, fashioning thatched roofs, coming to terms with the fact that they were staying. Those who were bound home for Rogaland were tending to the ships, getting them ready for another voyage. They had moved the vessels to a bay in the south, finding that place more suited to the mending and rebuilding work required. The local fisherfolk had been generous in the provision of accommodation and supplies. Brother Tadhg took his small satchel and his book of stories and returned to Holy Island, and he took Ulf with him to see the settlement the brothers had made in that unlikely place. Seals formed an escort as his frail craft bobbed away through the tide race.

With scythe and sickle, rake and pitchfork, the Folk began the harvest under fair skies. They had gathered perhaps half of the ripe grain before the sickness came. It crept up on them as subtly as a midsummer dusk, starting as a tickling cough, a dripping nose, a slight fever. First one man had it and recovered, then his brother took sick and worsened. Before seven days were gone he was laid in his grave, stone dead. It began to pass between them like a sudden fire, taking man, woman, and child without discrimination. It was like no plague the Folk had ever seen before, swift and deadly. Many remedies were tried; none worked. The harvest was abandoned, for within one cycle of the moon there were only two occupations for a man or woman not already dead or dying: tending the sick, and digging graves.

Amongst the newcomers, few succumbed and none died. Ulf’s wife, Lady Margaret, set her people to helping as best she could. But there was little that could be done in the face of such a scourge, and they had their own folk to tend to. Engus himself remained healthy; his son, Kinart, was briefly ill, but rallied soon. Others of the king’s household were not so lucky. Engus sent his men forth among the people to offer what aid they could; his men sickened and died. The farmhouses were shuttered. Within, lonely survivors wept in shadowed rooms. In the fields, sons buried their fathers; by cold hearths, mothers keened for lost children. Ulf’s men rescued the barley left standing in the fields and stored it away before rain came. That was a small mercy. He used his hunting dogs to seek out wandering stock, but they could not be everywhere. Sheep fell into gullies and starved; eagles stole autumn lambs.