Glory, Bern decided, was going to be hard to come by now.
He thought quickly, keeping his breathing shallow and slow. Skallson's party had gone east from the ships. A waste of time, some had thought—and the same had been said about Bern and Ecca going into Esferth, once they had learned about the fair. But if they were to leave here—and it seemed evident they were—without anything taken at all, at least learn something before they went, it had been decided.
Salvage pride, a flagon's worth, by carrying home report of Aeldred's lands. They might be mocked a little less by their fellows for returning empty-handed, swords unreddened, no tales to tell. A wasted journey at raiding season's end. His own first raid.
Right now, Bern thought, mockery might be the best they could hope for, not the worst. There were worse things than fire-side jibes in winter. If that bonfire was an alert, it most likely meant Guthrum Skallson's party had been found. And from the fury in the Anglcyn voices (still heading away from him, Ingavin be thanked) something had happened.
And then he remembered that Ivarr had been with Skallson's party. Bern shivered in the water, couldn't help it. You shivered like that when a spirit passed, someone newly dead, and angry. In that same instant he heard a soft splashing as someone entered the stream.
Bern drew his dagger and prepared himself to die: in water again, third time now. Third time was said to mark power, sacred to Nikar the Huntress, wife to Thünir. Three times was a gateway. He had expected death in the night waters off Rabady. And again in the dawn surf outside Jormsvik. He tried to accept it once more, now. An ending waited for all men, no one knew his fate, everything lay in how you went to your dying. He gripped his blade.
"Stay where you are," he heard.
The voice low, terse, barely audible. Utterly and entirely known all the days of his life.
"Spare me the knife," it went on softly. "I've been stabbed at already tonight. And keep silent or they will find and kill you here," his father added, moving, unerringly, towards where Bern was hidden, submerged to his shoulders, invisible in darkness.
Unless you knew he was here. Not a mystery, then, this part at least. He'd gone straight into the stream from the place on the bank where his father had left him. Not magic, not some impossible night vision, brilliant raider's instinct.
"I didn't think they'd offer me wine," he murmured. No greeting offered. Thorkell hadn't greeted him.
His father grunted, coming up. "How's your head?" "Hurts. Want your neck chain back?"
"I'd have kept it if I wanted it. You made a mistake in that alley. You know the saga: Have thine eyes about you / in hall or darkness. Be wary ever / be watching always."
Bern said nothing. Felt his face redden.
"Two horses?" Thorkell asked calmly.
His father's dark bulk was beside him, Thorkell's voice close to his ear. The two of them together in a stream at night in Anglcyn lands. How was this so? What had the gods decided? And how did men take hold of their own lives when this could happen? He realized his heart was thumping, hated that.
"Two horses," he replied, keeping his voice steady. "Where's Ecca?"
Small hesitation. "That what he was calling himself?"
Was calling. "Right," Bern said bitterly. "Of course. He's dead. You know, the same poet says: No good ever, whatever be thought / was mead or ale to any man. Are you drunk?"
The backhanded blow caught him on the side of the head.
"By Ingavin's blind eye, show respect. I got you out of a walled city. Think on it. I went to warn him, he drew a blade to kill when I used his real name. I made a mistake. Is your horse a good one?"
A mistake. One could weep, or laugh. Killing the second man on the isle had been the mistake, Bern wanted to say. He was still trying to wrap his mind around what was happening here. "My horse is Gyllir," he said. Struggled to keep anything out of his voice his father might read as youthful pride.
Thorkell grunted again. "Halldr's? He didn't come after you?" "Halldr's dead. The horse was for his burning."
That silenced his father, for a moment, at least. Bern wondered if he was thinking of his wife, who had become Halldr's, and was widowed now, alone and unprotected on Rabady.
"There's a tale to that, I imagine," was all Thorkell said.
His voice had not changed at all. Why should it change, though all the world Bern knew had been altered entirely? "Leave Stefa's mount," his father said. "They'll need a horse to find, after they get his body."
Stefa. With an effort Bern kept his hand from going to his head. The stars had swung again with the blow. His father was a strong man.
"They'll see the signs of two horses where we hid them," Bern said. "Won't work."
"It will. I'll find his horse and bring it out. Go now, though, and quickly—some fool killed Burgred of Denferth tonight. Aeldred's riding out himself, I think."
"What?" said Bern, his jaw dropping. "The earl? Why didn't they—?"
"Take him for ransom? You tell me. You're the mercenary. He'd have been worth your raid and more."
But that answer, in fact, he knew. "Ivarr," he said. "Ragnarson's paying us."
"Ingavin's blind eye! I knew it," his father rasped. His old oath, remembered from childhood, familiar as smells and the shape of hands. Thorkell swore again, spat into the stream. He stood waist-deep in the water, thinking. Then: "Listen. That one's going to want you to go west. Don't go. It isn't a raid for Jormsvik."
"West? What's west of here? Just…" And then, as his father said nothing, Bern finally thought it through. He swallowed, cleared his throat. "Blood," he whispered. "Vengeance? For his grandfather? And that's why he—"
"That's why he bought your ships and men, whatever else he told you, and that's why he wouldn't want a hostage. He wants to go after the Cyngael. But with ransom paid for an earl you'd turn and go home. He was with the shore party, wasn't he?"
Bern nodded. It was sliding into place.
"I'll wager you land we don't own any more they'll find Burgred with an arrow in him."
"He said the burh was still unwalled, that Esferth would be almost empty."
Thorkell grunted, spat downstream again. "Empty? During a fair? Serpent-sly, that one. Poisons his arrows."
"How do you know that?"
No answer. It occurred to Bern that he'd never spoken in this way with his father in his life. Nothing remotely resembling this terse conversation. He didn't have time, no time at all, to unwind his own held-in rage, the bitterness for lives marred. Thorkell still hadn't asked about his wife. Or Gyllir. Or how Bern had come to be in Jormsvik.
Fireflies darting around them. Bern heard bullfrogs and crickets. No human voices, though; they'd gone north towards the walls and tents. And would be coming out, back this way, heading for the coast. King Aeldred leading them, his father had said.
Guthrum's party was on foot, would be running for the ships right now. If they weren't dead. He had no idea where they'd been when they…
"Where are your horses?"
"Just west, in the woods."
"In those woods?" Thorkell's voice rose for the first time. "Are there others?"
"I'll hit you again. Show respect. That's a spirit wood. No Anglcyn or Cyngael will enter it. Stefa ought to have known, if you didn't."
"Well," said Bern, attempting defiance, "maybe he did know. If they don't go in, it's a good place for our mounts, isn't it?"
His father said nothing. Bern swallowed. He cleared his throat. "He only went in a few steps, tethered them, got out right away."