The sun was up, but he couldn't see it, suddenly. There was a long white wave. He named Ingavin and Thünir, and went to them.
+
Expressionless, though with his heart beating fast, Brogan the miller stood by the stream and watched his king and warriors kill the Erlings in the meadow.
Fifteen or twenty of them. No hostages, none spared. There was no ferocity or passion in the dispatch of the raiders. They were just… dealt with. For more than a hundred years the Anglcyn had lived in terror of these raiders from the sea in their dragon-ships. Now the Erlings were being killed like so many ragged outlaws.
He decided, just then, that he liked King Aeldred after all. And watching the arrows fly, he came also to a reconsideration of his views on the subject of archery. Beside him, Modig stood gripping his spade, his mouth hanging open.
The fyrd turned to ride south. As they did, one rider peeled off from the others and came over towards the mill and stream where the two men were. Brogan felt a flicker of apprehension, made himself be calm. These were his defenders, his king.
"You live here?" the mounted man snapped, reining his mount on the other side of the river. "You are the miller?"
Brogan touched a hand to his forehead and nodded. "Yes, my lord."
"Find villagers, farmers, whatever you can. Have these bodies burned before sundown. You yourself are in charge of collecting weapons and armour. Keep them in the mill. There are eighteen Erlings. All were armed in the usual ways. We have a good idea of what should be here when we come back. If anyone steals, there will be executions. We won't stop to ask questions. Understood?"
Brogan nodded again, and swallowed hard.
"Make certain the others here do."
The rider wheeled and set off, galloping now, to catch up with the fyrd. Brogan watched him go, a graceful figure in morning light. In the meadow, not far away, lay a number of dead men. Eighteen, the rider had said. His burden now. He cursed himself for coming out to watch. Spat into the stream. It was going to be very hard to stop poor men from stealing knives or rings. Surely the fyrd wouldn't begrudge—or be able to track—a stray torc or necklace, would they?
It occurred to him that he and Modig might be able to gather most of the arms and store them before anyone else
No, that wouldn't work. The women would be here soon, for their flour. They would see what had happened. It was impossible to miss: Brogan saw birds already gathering where the bodies lay. He grimaced. This was going to be difficult. He suffered a reversion of his thoughts about king and fyrd. The lords were trouble, whenever they came, whenever they noticed you. He ought to have stayed inside. He was turning to Modig, to tell him to make a start, at least, but found his right arm gripped fiercely by his servant.
Modig pointed. Brogan saw a man emerge from the stream to their left—a pale, small figure for an Erling, he would say, later—and begin to run south. He was well behind the fyrd, which was almost out of sight. Certainly they were too far away for any call or cry to summon them back to take this last Erling, who'd kept himself hidden, apart from the rest. They'd have to let him go, Brogan thought. Not that he'd get far, alone.
Modig made a sound deep in his chest. He plunged into the stream, splashing through it, then began running, spade in hand. "Stop!" cried Brogan. "Don't be a fool!"
The Erling was moving fast, but so was young Modig, chasing him. Far away, the dust of the king's men could be seen. Brogan watched the two running men till they were out of sight.
Later that morning he assembled the villagers to gather the weapons and armour—and the rings and arm torcs and belts and boots and brooches and necklaces—of the Erlings. The children ran about, chasing away the birds. Brogan made it very clear, talking more than anyone could remember, that the fyrd was coming back, and that death had been promised to anyone known to have taken anything.
The presence of eighteen dead raiders, the shock of them, meant that no one did try to palm or pocket a thing, so far as Brogan could tell. They carried the gear in relays across the water to the mill, piled it in his smaller storeroom. Brogan locked the door, hung the key on his belt.
He picked out only two rings for himself, and a golden torc in the shape of a dragon devouring its own tail. Added three other pieces of jewellery after, when most of the others had gone to bring wood and the two who had stayed behind with him, as guards, were drowsing under the willow by the stream. It was a warm day. Across the water boys were throwing stones at birds and wild dogs near the eighteen dead men.
It was two of the boys who found the body of Modig, the son of Ord, shortly after midday, a little distance to the south. His ears and nose had been hacked off, and his tongue. That last, Brogan the miller thought, was a sad and vicious thing. He was angry. He'd found a perfect servant, finally, and the young fool had gone and gotten himself killed.
Life was an ambush, Brogan thought bitterly, a series of them. Over and over till you died.
Later in the day the villagers began streaming back with armloads and carts of wood, and the cleric. Their women came, too, and all but the youngest children. This was a great event, something unimaginable, never to be forgotten. The king had been here himself, had saved them from Erling raiders, slain them all, right beside the millstream. Their millstream. A tale for the colder nights to come and the long years. Babies not yet born would hear this story, be led to the place where it had happened.
The new cleric spoke under the open sky, invoking Jad's power and mercy, then they lit the pyre, using wood that had been gathered for winter hearths, and they burned the Erlings in the field where they'd died.
After, they dug a grave and buried Modig by the stream and prayed that he might go home to the god, in light.
+
In a mist before dawn, some distance west, Bern Thorkellson dismounted to relieve himself in a gully. His first halt since leaving his father outside Esferth.
He had spent what remained of the night riding very fast, trying to take his mind from that impossible encounter. What was it the gods were doing with their mortal children? You took a horse across black, frozen waters and lived, fought your way into Jormsvik, went on a raid in Anglcyn lands… and were rescued by your father. Twice.
Your accursed father, whose murders were the reason for all of this. For everything that had happened. And he simply showed up where you were—on the other side of the sea—and knocked you out in an alley and somehow carried you outside the walls and then came back to warn you, and order you on your way. It was all… hugely difficult. Bern could not have said that much about the world seemed clear to him that night.
He had just finished retying his trousers when a man and woman sat up from a hollow in the ground and stared at him, a handful of paces away.
This, at least, was clear enough.
They stood. It was still quite dark, mist around them, rising off the fields. Their clothing and hair were disordered; it was evident what they'd been doing. The same thing young men and women did in meadows all over the world on a summer night. Bern had done it on the isle, in better days.
He drew his sword. "Lie down again," he said quietly. His own language, but they'd understand him. "And no one is hurt."
"You're an Erling!" the young man said, too loudly. "What are you doing here with a blade?"
"My own business. Attend to yours. Lie down again with her."
"Rot that," said the man, who was broad-shouldered, long-limbed. "My father's the reeve here. Strangers declare themselves when they come by."