Ragned returned two days later with silver, someone else's goats and two wounded men. His return was greeted more loudly than the saving of the grain: by ancient custom, blood deserved a song, while food did not.
Brand sang of the raid before the night was out.
In the song, Ragned was as swift as a hurled spear. The men at the hearth struck the tables with their palms. Even the wounded smiled: once their pain entered a song, it became easier to bear.
Steinar listened from the lower end of the table and counted not the blows on the wood, but sacks, goats, men and debts. The spoils fell short of what Ragned had promised, but even that was enough to make the hall merry. One wounded man would never row again. The other would lose an eye. By spring no one would remember them, unless one of them died in a way that earned him a place in a new song.
After the song, Hroald summoned Steinar to the hearth.
The hall rejoiced before the jarl had even spoken: everyone understood that Steinar was about to be judged.
Ragned stood beside his father. Someone else's blood still darkened his sleeve. Brand sat below them, his lyre resting on his knees. Saiva was in the far row, where the apprentices repeated other men's refrains. She did not look at Steinar. It would have been better if she had looked at him with hatred.
Hroald spoke calmly.
"The hall laughed at the cup I gave you. Then you bought a rotten hull and gathered men around you who had nothing to lose. Now everyone says you have chosen your own path."
"I never told anyone that," Steinar said.
"That is your trouble. Others speak for you."
Ragned smiled.
"Give him a sword, Father. Let him speak for himself for once."
One of Ragned's young warriors was brought to the hearth. He was not the strongest in the retinue, but beside him Steinar looked ridiculous. A fresh graze showed red on the young man's cheek; his pleased smile made it clear that he expected to earn himself a line in the song with little risk.
"A duel to first blood," Hroald said. "Wash away your disgrace or prove that you deserved it. Either outcome will satisfy me."
The men leaned forwards, waiting for his answer.
Steinar looked at the swords by the wall, then at the empty cup before him. Brand had ordered it placed on the table in advance, so the spectators would know at once whom they were meant to laugh at.
If he fought and lost, Brand would have a fine line about the coward who had tried to become a man too late.
If he fought and won, Brand would have another: about the Empty Cup who had finally understood that dignity was bought with blood.
Either way, the song would remain the same.
Only the way Brand showed Steinar in it would change.
He raised the empty cup.
"I have an ancient right."
Hroald narrowed his eyes.
"What right?"
"A man who buys a ship with his own silver, without the aid of his kin, may sail overseas before the spring thing. If he returns with spoils, the thing will decide what share he is to receive. If he does not return, the songs will decide for themselves whether he was a fool or accursed."
The hall filled with noise.
Ragned stopped smiling.
Hroald looked at his son for a long time, and for the first time that evening there was weariness rather than anger in his gaze. He understood where Steinar was leading him. It could not have been otherwise: a simpleton would never have lived to grow a white beard at the head of the kin.
"You are asking leave to sail instead of fighting the duel?"
"I am asking for the right not to spill blood on your floor when I know Brand will twist what happened either way."
It was almost insolence. Almost.
Brand touched a string with one finger.
"Let him go," the skald said. "A song loves both those who return and those who remain beyond the sea."
Now Hroald smiled. Not at his son. At Brand.
"Very well. You may take the hull you bought. But you will have no warriors of the kin, no weapons, no sailcloth and no provisions from my household. Whoever goes with you will forfeit my protection."
Steinar bowed.
"That is enough."
Ragned stepped closer.
"You will find no men."
"Then the ship will be lighter."
The hall laughed, but differently this time. Steinar had not won. He had merely refused the duel they were trying to drive him into. The men had expected to see him beaten, and now they did not know how to laugh at him.
By morning, the yard was talking of flight.
That was useful.
While the warriors discussed his cowardice, Steinar sought out those Hroald would not try to keep, because he saw no use in them. Borri came first, though he spent the rest of the day insisting that he only wanted to see how quickly the boy ruined himself. Farin appeared by the water with two rowers. They had no share in any ship, which meant the jarl did not consider their loss worth counting. Nera brought a sack of salt and three bundles of dried fish, and said that without her they would poison themselves with their own cooking before they ever reached the sea. Modra led Eska by the sleeve as though the girl were a stolen spoon.
"She is not coming," Steinar said.
Eska bared her teeth.
"I have already taken a place."
"Where?"
She pointed to the hold.
"A small one."
Modra spread her hands.
"Try taking that small place away from her, jarl's son. I will watch and keep myself warm."
Saiva came last, without her lyre.
"No," Steinar said before she could open her mouth.
"I have not asked for anything yet."
"You want to come."
"I want to hear the sea without Brand's songs."
"Brand will cast you out of the hall for good."
"He has already begun."
Steinar's fingers tightened on the rim of the cup.
"There is little food aboard."
"Count me as one mouth too many," Saiva said. "Then there is nothing to forbid: no one holds back those who are not wanted."
He understood her calculation. Hroald could forbid a singer to sail. But Saiva had already been stripped of her place at the hearth, so the jarl could pretend he was losing nothing.
"You are too clever to be merely one mouth too many."
"And you lie too badly for a coward."
From behind the hull, Borri said hoarsely:
"If you have finished nipping at each other with words, someone fetch the pitch. This ship will not patch itself."
They worked all day.
Towards evening, Ketil Salt came with a mild smile and offered a good sail in exchange for a share of the future spoils. Steinar refused. Ketil merely smiled: he plainly expected need to force Steinar to agree later.
That night the merchant's best small sail vanished and appeared on Ragned's ship.
Ragned came to the shore himself. He carried a bundle of old cloth in his hands.
"Do not say I never helped my brother," he said.
He threw the cloth onto the snow.
It was a torn sail: grey, heavy, stained with salt and edged with old red thread. Borri knelt and touched the cloth with two fingers.
"A burial mark," he said quietly.
Ragned heard him and smiled more broadly.
"Found it among the belongings of men who never returned from the western waters. I thought it would suit you."
Farin took one step back.
Eska stopped chewing her dried fish.
Saiva looked at the sail as though she could already hear the song Brand would make of that gift.
Steinar bent down, picked up the cloth and shook it out. Salt scattered onto the snow in tiny white grains.
The cloth smelled of sea salt and mould; beneath them lingered the faintly sweet scent of old death.
"Thank you," Steinar said.
Ragned frowned.
Steinar handed the cloth to Borri.
"The dead no longer need it. We shall see whether it can serve the living."
The old craftsman smiled slowly, without mirth. Difficult work seemed to rouse him rather than frighten him.
Ragned stepped closer and lowered his voice.
"You will not be the one who returns, brother. Only word of you."
Steinar looked at the black water.
"Then word will return faster. You will not have long to wait."
Ragned left, trailing footprints through the wet snow.
In the morning, the whole of the Old North came to watch the Empty Cup leave. Not to see him off. Only to watch.
Hroald stood by the upper path. Beside him, Brand held his lyre but did not play. Steinar had no doubt that the skald would compose the song of his death before evening.
Steinar raised the empty cup and set it beside the mast, not as a sacred object, but as a reminder that at home everything had already been decided for him.
Borri secured the burial sail.
Farin took up an oar.
Nera checked the salt.
Modra settled Eska in the hold and told her that if she stole anything useful, she herself would be thrown into the water, but if she stole anything useless, she should show it to Modra first.
Saiva sat nearer the prow, without her lyre. Her fingers moved from habit, as though plucking strings.
When the ship drew away from the shore, Hroald's smoke-filled hall remained above them, with its songs and names. Among them, no place had been found for Steinar.
The Old North let him go only because everyone expected nothing but word of his death to return.
And for the first time in many winters, Steinar felt almost light. He had not yet found freedom, but beside him sailed others like himself: people for whom no place had been found in someone else's song.
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