“Eyvind?” Jarl Magnus was gazing across to the Whaleback, his eyes perturbed, his mouth unusually grim. His tone, however, had nothing of censure in it. “Tell me what happened here. Tell me all of it. What is it that Somerled has done, and what must come next?”

Eyvind stared up at him, quite taken aback. The Jarl was asking him what to do? Him, Eyvind, who had always been better with his big axe than with his wits?

“This can wait,” Eirik snapped. “He’s not up to it, my lord—”

“No,” Eyvind said. “No, it cannot wait. My lord, there has been a great wrong done here, and we have a chance to make amends, I think. Please hear me out.”

Now Grim was bringing up the other horse; with Eirik’s help, and a considerable amount of pain, Eyvind managed to scramble up. When he looked back to the shore, the women were moving away, shawls now drawn tight around shoulders or over heads, children shepherded close to their skirts. One of the lads gave a half wave in Eyvind’s direction. Eyvind raised a hand in response, and was rewarded with a brief, dazzling grin.

“You’ve changed, Wolfskin,” Magnus observed gravely as they rode away. “Changed so that I would scarcely know you. Still, you’re the same lad: fixed straight ahead, true of purpose. Come then, let’s have this tale. I see something here that astonishes and saddens me; something that’s a great deal deeper than it appears on the surface. Tell us about it, Eyvind. What is it we must do here?”

FIFTEEN

This time he woke slowly. Sensations returned one by one as the cloak of slumber dropped away from him: the pallet soft beneath his aching back, the blankets warm around him, the chamber dim, though there was light seeping in around the fringes of the door hanging, a quality of light that suggested late afternoon and a slow fading to dusk. His jaw still hurt. A cautious exploration with the tongue told him his shattered tooth was gone, and a neat wad of tight-wrapped wool had been plugged in its place. His mouth tasted of some foul herbal concoction. Vaguely, he thought he remembered Rona’s face, very stern, as she ordered him to swallow her draft. There had been two dogs by her side, like and like. Guard was alive, then: another small miracle. Drink, the old woman had commanded, and he had not needed the language to understand, or to obey. Whatever she had given him, it had flattened him promptly; it seemed he had slept all afternoon.