“Still, you should have come earlier.”
“I was lying among the corpses for half a day, till some clever warrior noticed they had all gone cold and I hadn’t. And when I came round and decided that this was really the worst wound I had, you were busy with more difficult tasks. Is it true you pulled old Bjor’s entrails out, stitched them together and pushed them back in again?”
Ingulf nodded, pulling with sudden decision at a bone splinter with a pair of tweezers. “They tell me he calls himself ‘Grind-Bjor’ now, because he swears he saw the gates of Hell itself.”
Thorvin sighed gustily, and pushed a tankard closer to Brand’s left hand. “Very well. You have punished me enough with your chatter. Tell me, then. Is there any chance?”
Brand’s face was paling now, but he answered with the same even tone. “I don’t think so. You know how it is with Ivar.”
“I know,” said Thorvin.
“That makes it hard for him to be sensible over some things. I do not say ‘forgive’—we are none of us Christians to pass over an injury or an insult. But he will not even listen, or think about where his interest lies. The boy took his woman. Took a woman that Ivar—had plans for. If that fool Muirtach had brought her back, then maybe—But even then I don’t think so. Because the girl went willingly. That means the boy did something Ivar could not. He must have blood.”
“There has to be something that would make him change his mind, accept compensation.”
Ingulf was stitching now, needle rising high over his right shoulder as he pierced and pulled, pierced and pulled again.
Thorvin placed his hand on the silver hammer that hung on his chest. “I swear, this may be the greatest service you or I may ever do for the Way, Brand. You know there are some among us who have the Sight?”
“I have heard you talk of it,” admitted Brand.
“They travel into the realms of the Mighty, of the gods themselves, and return, to report what they saw. Some think these are just visions, no better than dreams, a kind of poetry only.
“But they see the same things. Or sometimes they do. More often it is as if they all saw different parts of the same thing, as there might be many reports of the battle the other night, and some would say the English had the best of it, and some would say we did, and yet all would be telling the truth and all would have been at the same place. If they confirm each other, that means it must be true.”
Brand grunted. Perhaps in disbelief, perhaps in pain.
“We are sure that there is a world out there, and that people can go into it. Well, something very odd happened only yesterday. Farman came to see me, Farman who is priest of Frey in this Army as I am priest of Thor, or Ingulf of Ithun. He has been in the Otherworld many times, as I have not. He says—he says he was in the Great Hall itself, the place where the gods meet to decide the affairs of the nine worlds. He was down on the floor, a tiny creature, like a mouse in the wainscoting of one of our own halls. He saw the gods in conclave.
“And he saw my apprentice Shef. He is in no doubt. He had seen him at the forge; he saw him in the vision. He was dressed oddly, like a hunter in our own forests in Rogaland or Halogaland, and he stood badly, like one who has been—crippled. But there was no mistaking the face. And the Father of gods and men himself—he spoke to him. If Shef can remember what he said…
“It is rare,” Thorvin concluded, “for any wanderer in the Otherworld to see another one. It is rare for the gods to speak to or notice a wanderer. For both to happen…
“And there is another thing. Whoever gave that boy a name did not know what he was doing. It is a dog’s name now. But that was not always so. You have heard of Skiold?”