Nobody asked Eyvind about this ride, and he did not speak of it. It was surely wiser to think the best of folk until the truth, whatever it was, became plain. If he spoke of his misgivings, to Eirik for instance, all he’d be doing was spreading rumors. Besides, he’d be going home to Norway soon, and they could work this out for themselves. Eirik might decide to make the trip again next spring, when Ulf would expect his ships to sail back with a cargo of timber and the other things he needed, but Eyvind would not be part of that voyage. It shouldn’t be hard to convince the Jarl. He must simply acquit himself so well in this season’s viking that he became quite indispensable.

It was around this time that Eyvind began to hear another kind of talk that disquieted him. Eirik knew of it, too; he commented that he could not for the life of him imagine where such notions came from, but his tone suggested he knew all too well. It was put about in Hafnarvagr that Ulf was missing an opportunity, with the islanders much weakened by the sickness. Instead of setting his folk on errands of mercy, people said, a real leader would seize the advantage and establish control while he could. There was fine land for the taking, perhaps even treasure hidden away in Engus’s stronghold on the brough. Eyvind heard this sort of thing more than once, and reminded one fellow who said it that Ulf had given his word; there was a treaty. And someone commented that a treaty was only as good as the man who swore it. Everyone knew Ulf was about to put aside the old gods and let Brother Tadhg baptize him as a Christian. Where did that leave the rest of them? If enemies came, Ulf would not be prepared to take up arms, not if he followed a god of peace and forgiveness. If Ulf demanded that his people follow his example, the shoe would indeed be on the other foot. What was to stop Engus’s barbarians from coming in the night and killing them all? And if the natives didn’t account for them, Odin surely would, once he learned they’d turned their backs on him. Either way, they were doomed. When Eyvind pointed out that this was nonsense, somebody grumbled that if Ulf’s own warriors couldn’t see what was coming, they’d only have themselves to blame when they were cut to ribbons in their sleep. Treaty or no treaty, you couldn’t trust folk who lived in such an outlandish place, full of monstrous stones and underground chambers with who knew what lurking in them.

Tomorrow, thought Eyvind. Tomorrow, or the next day, or the next we will be gone, and I need never return here. And it seemed to him Thor’s voice grew stronger in his ear, and his heart beat more steadily, as if the drum were not so far beneath the surface. Come then, my loyal son. Come home and wield your axe for me once more.