As soon as they reached the second island both men crawled to the side away from the bridge, slithered round behind another of the many tiny spurs jutting out from the shore, stood up and bolted once more into the cover of the trees, breathing hard. The cold of the ice had bitten through their layers of wool and leather. They put their weapons down carefully, pulled off the sheepskin mittens Brand had given them, blew on frozen hands. Carefully Shef eased a leather bottle from its belt-sling, pulled out its stopper.
“Winter ale,” he muttered. “The last of it.”
Each took a long pull. “Tastes like ale,” muttered Karli, “but it doesn’t feel like it. You can feel your gullet glowing as it goes down, no matter how cold it is. Shame we can’t make this stuff where we come from.”
Shef nodded, thinking again for a moment of water freezing on ale, of steam leaping from a hot blade. No time to pursue that thought.
“Drottningholm’s the next island,” he said. “We know the king isn’t there, and that no men are allowed to sleep overnight on it. One more crossing…”
“And we’re like two cocks in the hen-roost,” completed Karli.
“At least we can see what the queen wants from us.”
I know what she wants from you, thought Karli, but kept silent. Slowly, they worked their way round the shore of the second island.
The bridge this time was easy to spot, but well away from the point where they caught their first sight of Drottningsholm. They stood in the trees, looking across and calculating the odds. They were on the western point of another small bay, Drottningsholm perhaps a furlong off. The eastern point was another furlong away, and the bridge ran from its tip to the further island.
“Just as easy to start from here as go over near the bridge,” said Shef. “And we won’t need to crawl. We’re far enough away so no-one will see us from the guard-post, and we’ll be getting further away all the time.”
“All right,” said Karli. “I guess if the ice was going to break, it would have broken by now. We’ve seen no holes in it. It hasn’t creaked or anything.”
Shef gripped his shoulder, took his spear in both hands, and set out across the flat, black, windswept expanse.
“All right, where is he?” Brand stood in the doorway of the fetid communal hut, glowering down at the eight Englishmen facing him. He had been drinking worriedly in a tavern in the port of Kaupang with Guthmund and their crews, when he had been called away by news that the Way-priests’ conclave had ended. After a brief interview with Thorvin he had headed straight for the quarters Shef shared with Karli, now treated as his body-servant. Found both missing, and headed on to the catapulteers’ hut.
Faced with an angry man nearer seven feet high than six, the ex-slaves reverted to servile custom. With imperceptible shuffles they moved into a tight group with at its front Osmod and Cwicca, the burliest and most self-confident of them. Their faces took on a look of stony ignorance.
“Where’s who?” said Osmod, playing for time.
Brand’s enormous fists opened and closed. “Where—is—your—master—Shef?”
“Don’t know,” said Cwicca. “Ain’t he in his quarters?”
Brand took a step forward, murder in his eye, paused as he saw Osmod, once captain of the halberdiers, cast a quick glance towards a rack of weapons. He turned, marched out, slamming the door.
Outside Hund, Shef’s childhood friend, now a faithful priest of Ithun, stood patiently in the crusty snow. “They won’t talk to me,” Brand snarled. “You’re English. They know you’re his friend. See if you can find out what’s up.”
Hund stepped into the hut. A murmur of voices, all talking English in the thick Norfolk dialect common to them all. Finally Hund appeared, beckoned Brand once more into the hut.
“They say they don’t know for sure,” he translated. “But putting one thing and another together, they’re fairly sure he got a message of some sort. They suspect that he has gone to visit the queen Ragnhild at Drottningsholm. He has taken Karli with him.”