They walked across the causeway in grim procession, dry-eyed, three bearing each a young man’s head cradled like some priceless treasure in her arms. Eyvind came behind, head bowed, and after him the old women made their own slow progress, with infants on backs and here and there a tiny, stumbling boy or girl clutching their hands. When they were halfway over, a cry rose into the salt air, a wailing ululation of grief that bristled the hair on his head and set a chill in his blood. Another voice rang out, and another, until the very rocks vibrated with it, and the gulls fell silent before its force. Thus chanting, they crossed to the green field of the Whaleback and formed a ragged circle around the broken bodies of their men. It became apparent to Eyvind, then, that the most difficult part of the morning’s work was not his, but theirs. With a song that rose from deepest pain, from a loss beyond the measure of tears, the women of the Whaleback mended the sundered forms of son, husband, father as best they could, setting the ancient hymn of grief spiraling up, up into the pale sky and out across the rock shelves and the waters of the western sea, as if their sorrow might carry to world’s end and beyond.

Eyvind stood quiet. Beside him, one of the lads was doing his best to put a brave face on it, but his lip was trembling ominously. Perhaps that was his brother, not so very much older, who lay before him empty-eyed, the neck of his tunic dark with old blood. Eyvind put a hand on the lad’s shoulder; a moment later, small fingers crept into his, and the boy gave a sniff, and set his jaw firmly.