A third lad was scratching the dog behind the ears, talking to it almost as a child would who had not just witnessed so much of death and loss, so much of hatred and cruelty. And the sun was shining; through all the song of anguish, it had cast its light across these green meadows, these strange, lichen-crusted stones, these fair bays and shining waterways in sweet, impartial benison. The season passed, the tide turned. There were children here, children who would one day be young men and women with the same beauty and fire and goodness in their spirits as Nessa, and her young kinsman, Kinart, who now lay here at rest on the hard earth. Shadow pranced forward, planting her feet on Eyvind’s shoulders and washing his damaged face with her long, wet tongue. The children laughed, and Eyvind felt a powerful grin stretching his swollen lips. Odin’s bones, this tooth really did have to come out.

“To work, now,” he told them, rising to his feet with some difficulty. “We must finish and get back before the tide comes up. You’ll all have to help me.”

Later, a howe would be made in the old manner, of layered stones, and the dead laid to rest within. That would need far greater strength than he could summon now, for all his complement of willing small helpers. But it was important to shield the fallen from the ravages of wind and weather, the careless attention of the passing gulls. The earth would swallow them in its time; that was only as it should be. A simple mound could be laid over them now, a gentle enough blanket to warm their long sleep. All could help with that, all save that one young woman who rocked in place, and would not let go. Her man remained unburied as the shovels rose and fell, as the lads dug, as the girls carried earth with their hands, and the women gathered stones to lay around the edges, to place in spiral and circle, in pattern of blessing and protection. Before it was quite done, they coaxed his fractured body from her clutching arms and laid him by his comrades, and Eyvind spread the soil as softly as he could over the staring eyes and pain-twisted mouth. Who had he been? A fisherman, a shepherd, a young father? He had been loved, that much was sure. When it was done, the woman lay on the ground, her hands thrusting themselves into the earth, her fingers twisting, gripping, and her cry went on, a thin, harsh keening. She would not move, even though the tide had turned and it was time to go.