Eyvind was silent. In his mind he saw Nessa, a slight, graceful figure walking on the shore, turning her head to look at him, her long brown hair tossed like a banner in the west wind. He saw a young warrior’s severed head, fierce-eyed. He saw Ulf’s tortured body hanging in air. He wondered how Somerled would kill him, when the time came.

“Eyvind? Don’t make me do this, I beg you.” Somerled’s voice was shaking. It was the voice of a child who had once said nobody cared.

“I want a fair hearing,” said Eyvind quietly. “If you will not call an assembly, then let me tell the truth as I know it before all the folk of this settlement. Then, since you have appointed yourself sole arbiter, I suppose you will pronounce sentence on me. But I will be heard. I would like my brother to be present, if he can be called back from Hafnarvagr. I would like Lady Margaret to hear what I have to say.”

“It’s not up to you to determine who should be there,” Somerled snapped. “Odin’s bones, Eyvind, you’re such a fool! Why sacrifice yourself for nothing? Curse it, man, I can’t do without you!”

Eyvind managed a smile. “I think, for both of us, there is now no way forward but this,” he said. “You cannot undo what you have wrought here. Even if you stepped on your ship tomorrow, and set sail home to Freyrsfjord, the legacy of your deeds would shadow this place for long years to come, for you have robbed these folk of a whole generation of men. As for me, I can see no other way than to set things out as I understand them, and call on the gods and on the wisdom of ordinary folk to make wrongs right again. That is all I can say, Somerled, except that I am sorry: sorry that it has come to this between us.”

“Please,” said Somerled in a whisper. “Please don’t do this. You don’t know what you’re throwing away.”

The little image of Nessa came again, tiny and perfect, her grave features, her graceful hands putting a pattern of white stones in place, her dark hair shining in lamplight.

“I do know,” Eyvind said quietly. “I know how high the stakes are. And I know I must play to the end.”

TWELVE