text: 'And you are sure it is him?' Hrani asked, leaning over the cauldron to get a nose full of the steaming contents. Carrots and parsnips. Turnips, onions, hare and squirrel. Kjartan was eyeing the broth like one who has not eaten a proper meal for days. The man had too much pride to say he was hungry, or to expect the jarl's hospitality given how things stood.
  
  'It's him, lord,' Kjartan said.
  
  Not that Hrani was Kjartan's jarl, since Kjartan, who had been Jarl Randver's man, had left Hinderå at the end of last summer to seek his fortune to the east in Svealand.
  
  'Tell me again why you left, Kjartan Auðunarson,' Jarl Hrani said.
  
  Kjartan tore his eyes from the broth and fixed them on Hrani. 'My lad died in the ship battle against Jarl Harald,' he said. 'His mother . . . well, she wouldn't speak to me after that. Blamed me. Said I should've kept the lad safe. But what does a woman know of it?' His long drooping moustaches quivered, the only sign of the rage within. 'What does she know of the blood chaos? When it is raining spears and arrows. When axes are everywhere, cutting flesh the way lightning tears the night sky.'
  
  Hrani gave no answer.
  
  Kjartan shrugged. 'Gerutha would have nothing to do with me after that. I packed my sea chest and left.'
  
  Still no apology from the man. Hrani sniffed the broth again, wondering if the good news which Kjartan had brought him made up for the offence he had given by leaving in the first place. A hirðman who knew Kjartan well had told Hrani that Kjartan had not wanted to swear the oath to him simply because he was Randver's son, that Hrani would first have to prove himself worthy of the jarl torc. The turd.
  
  Prove myself to this flighty prick? Hrani thought now, slurping the hot liquid from a spoon. 'Salt,' he said to the woman who was standing nearby waiting for the jarl's verdict. 'More salt and it will be ready.' This got some enthusiastic rumbles from those of his hearthmen who were gathering in Örn-garð for food and ale, skald song and women. The door thumped open again and a gust licked into the hall far enough to get the hearth flames flapping like a loose sail. More men came in, rubbing their hands and skinning themselves of their furs and hats, the low hum of their voices filling the place.
  
  'But now you are back again,' Hrani said, staring at Kjartan, 'like a fox sneaking back to its den.'
  
  'Hardly sneaking, lord,' Kjartan said, gesturing to the spot upon which he was standing. 'I have travelled far to tell you what I know, when I could have stayed in Svealand earning silver for my sword-work.'
  
  'Still, you think you will make more silver because you can tell me where to find Haraldarson and his flea-bitten pack,' Hrani said.
  
  Kjartan said nothing, and nothing was not a denial.
  
  'Lord, it is possible that someone else will kill them before you get the chance. They are stuck in that borg and this Jarl Guthrum will have his whole war host, what's left of it, surrounding the place by now.'
  
  'And Alrik, what sort of a man is he?'
  
  'He can fight. But he's too careful.'
  
  'Well, that could be a good thing for us,' Hrani said to himself. Gods help this Alrik to hold that borg until he could get there, wherever there was. For Hrani wanted Sigurd dead but by his own sword, not some Svearman's as Jarl Guthrum's men flooded into the fort in a wave of steel and butchery.
  
  'I'll take you to him, lord,' Kjartan said. 'Now if you want.'
  
  He would as well, Hrani thought, with the cold still in his fingers, the filth of the journey on his clothes and the hunger griping in his belly.
  
  'You will swear to me first,' Hrani said. A statement and question both. Truth be told he knew there were still other men who needed convincing about his right to wear the silver ring at his neck.
  
  'I'll swear,' Kjartan said with a nod.
  
  'Eat then, Kjartan Auðunarson. You are welcome in my hall,' Hrani said, proving that he was a generous man.
  
  Kjartan nodded again and walked off to find a bench to sit at, and Hrani watched him go. Watched him sit and demand ale from a thrall, huffing warm air into his cupped hands. And Hrani happened to recall that Kjartan was sitting in the place he had favoured when he had served Hrani's father.
  
  Let them eat well and drink well, he thought, and tomorrow we will load War-Rider with all that we will need for a long sailing.
  
  The ship itself was ready, for he always kept her scrubbed and coated in resin and painted, even in winter when other jarls had their ships hauled up in their nausts waiting for spring. Perhaps some of the strakes could use some new caulking. And the ballast would need reorganizing once the cargo sank her a little deeper in the water. But he'd had the women make him a new sail with leather and hide criss-crossing the wool to help it keep its shape, and this sail sat neatly rolled by the wall behind his high seat, ready to be carried down to the wharf. He had enough wind-dried cod to last till Ragnarök, enough ale to put Thór himself under the table drunk, plenty of good rope, and at least half the oars were almost new, still pale and spruce-scented. So it would not take long. He would pack his ship with his best men, his hearthmen. His Sword-Norse. They would raise the new sail, which would stink of the tallow which was its proof against sea spray and rain. And they would go to Svealand to kill Sigurd Haraldarson and his friends.