Ragned's two ships entered the grey bay without slowing, as though returning to their own landing place.
Steinar stood by the stone wall his people had been building all winter. The wall was low and crooked, with turf packed into the gaps. An old warrior would have laughed at such a fortification. But behind that wall the hearth stayed lit, Eska slept and Nera's sacks were stored. So Steinar watched it more closely than the weapons at the newcomers' belts.
The first ship's sail was new: thick wool, good dye, Hroald's kin mark in the upper corner. Ragned stood at the prow. Brand remained behind him, but watched as though he were the one steering the ship.
Saiva did not go to Steinar. She stood by the hearth with one hand resting on the strings, but did not play. Since that song on the old shore, she had seldom touched the lyre in front of others.
Farin took up an oar like a club. Borri said quietly to him:
"If you strike first, they will be in the right."
"If I don't, they'll still say they are."
"Then at least don't help them."
Ragned was the first ashore. His boot sank into the wet clay beside the place where Eska dried fish. The girl stepped back but did not run. She studied the footprint as though she meant to recognise it later.
Ragned surveyed the walls, the turf roofs, the smoked fish, the dried hides, the boat with its patched side and the low hearth.
"Alive," he said.
The word might have been praise. From Ragned it sounded like annoyance.
Steinar bowed just low enough that Ragned's men would not take his answer for a challenge.
"Rumours of you reached this place before you did, brother. I am already tired of greeting them."
Ragned smirked.
"You still jest when you ought to give thanks. I brought men, grain, iron and Brand himself, so he could call your flight a discovery for the kin."
Brand stepped onto a stone and stood still, making the others wait for his first word.
"Grey Land," Brand said, testing the name. "A cold name. It will serve for the beginning of a song."
Saiva flinched but said nothing.
Steinar answered:
"The beginning has already happened."
Brand looked at the smoke above the turf roofs.
"No. There was hunger, wet wool, fear and talk beside a fire. A song begins when it can be repeated across the sea. No one has claimed the first word yet."
Steinar understood why they had come.
Not for the fish, the walls or even the shore. They wanted the right to be the first to tell of Grey Land.
If Brand sang that Ragned had come and declared Grey Land a possession of Hroald's kin, the old North would accept the song as truth. Steinar would become not the discoverer but the foolish son who had been the first to lose his way. His companions would be called mere servants of the kin, and the winter they had survived would become a wait for their true masters.
Hroald was not here, but Brand spoke in the name of his hall.
Ragned raised a hand, and men began carrying sacks from the ships.
Nera tensed.
The sacks were full: grain, dried meat, spare straps, iron hooks, heavy cloth. After a hungry winter, such a cargo could make people agree to any terms.
"We have not come to plunder," Ragned said. "We have come to put things in order."
"Whose order?"
Ragned pointed to the empty cup at Steinar's belt.
"The kin's cup. The kin's blood. A ship bought with the kin's arm-rings. Even your disgrace belongs to the kin, brother. Without us you would never have passed the first wave."
Someone behind Steinar drew a sharp breath. It was not the swords that frightened his people, but the force of Ragned's familiar arguments.
Brand added more gently:
"You can save face. I will sing that you were the first to see smoke above this land. Ragned will affirm the kin's claim. You will receive a place, and your companions food. No one is obliged to remember the winter exactly as it was."
Steinar looked at the people by the walls.
Borri with his injured arm. Farin with his oar. Nera with her food measure. Modra gripping Eska firmly by the shoulder. Saiva, whose line had cost her a teacher.
He could gain time. All he had to do was declare them his own: my people, my ship, my land.
Steinar remembered another world where people had also liked to repeat: my yard, my reckoning, my people. The more gently those words were spoken, the easier it became not to see the separate person hidden behind the common word 'my'.
Steinar knew that.
And still he said:
"My people survived the winter without your song, Brand. My ship reached this place without Ragned's ship. My land will not become your line while I stand."
The silence fell too quickly.
Ragned's warriors stopped. The old custom recognised a master's claim and so, for a time, allowed Steinar to contend with his brother as an equal.
But Steinar saw Saiva.
She was not looking at Ragned.
She was looking at him.
There was no relief on her face. It was as though she had heard a master call people his property once again.
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