“Are you sure you want to do this?” Nessa asked him gently.

“I owe him this, at least, since we are brothers of a kind,” he said. “The chance to speak to me, to explain, perhaps. What comes after will not be for me to determine. Each of us stands accused. Each must face some judgment, and a penalty. And each shares responsibility for the other’s offense, I think. That’s how it is with brothers. Will you wait here for me? You must rest; I don’t like to see you so pale and weary.”

“I’m well enough. Go on, then.” She stood on tiptoes, and kissed him softly on his swollen lips, a breath of spring, a whisper of promise. “Go now, Eyvi. I’ll be waiting when you come back.”

Here there were no shackles, no iron grilles. Even the looming presence of Erlend and Holgar, sword and axe at the ready, was no more than Eyvind had encountered when he had faced his friend as a recaptured fugitive. But this well-armed presence did not protect the king now. Instead, it rendered him a prisoner in his own domain.

There was a brief altercation. Eyvind saw the awkwardness in their eyes and heard the hesitation in their voices. Everything had turned around. They had misjudged a comrade. Such an error sat uneasily in a Wolfskin’s code of loyalty.

“Let me in,” Eyvind said. “And leave the two of us together awhile.”

“Alone? That’s against orders—”

“Whose orders? Come on, Erlend. I’m completely unarmed. Somerled is in no danger from me, nor I from him. Stand right here by the doorway, if you will. I’ll scream for help if I get into trouble, I promise.”

Holgar suppressed a snort.

“All the same—” Erlend began, frowning.

“You owe me a favor,” Eyvind said quietly. “Come, give me your hand; you, too, Holgar. We must move on from this, all of us. Good. I won’t be long.”

Somerled was writing. He sat at the small table, an oil lamp to one side, a piece of parchment spread before him. He frowned in concentration as the neat, black script flowed across the pristine surface. His shirt was immaculately clean; above the collar there was a strip of linen tied around his neck. As Eyvind came in he glanced up, his eyes unreadable. The quill ceased its disciplined movement; he laid it down carefully on the table.

“Eyvind.” The tone gave nothing away.

“You wanted to see me.” Eyvind came forward into the glow of the lamplight. “I’m not sure what to say to you, save to let you know that if you had touched her, I would have killed you. There is no oath in the world that would have stopped me.”