Until evening the two camps remained side by side, watching each other warily.
Ragned's men pitched their tents by the water, where the ground was flatter and their rich stores of cloth, iron and dry straps could be seen more clearly. Steinar's people remained by the turf walls. A narrow strip of common shore ran between the two camps.
Brand did not sing.
That was worse than a song.
He walked, listened and asked names, but did not repeat them aloud. He inspected the dried fish, Farin's low nets and the plank Borri had repaired. Sometimes he nodded, as though he had already decided to mention what he saw in a song. When he did not, people grew uneasy: they knew a skald could make everyone forget even a useful deed.
Eska followed him at a distance of three paces.
Modra hissed:
"Stop following at his heels."
"I'm not," Eska answered. "I'm watching what he fails to notice."
Steinar heard and did not interfere. The girl had her own way of living among adults: she watched their hands, the knots at their belts and the faint movements beneath the edges of their cloaks. From such small things Eska understood what a person meant to do.
By evening Ragned demanded a dispute beside the great fire.
The old custom required witnesses. Neither side had yet managed to impose its rules, so everyone came to the dispute.
Ragned spoke first.
"My brother reached this place. I will not deny him the right to speak for that. But the kin cannot be scattered to the wind like dry grass. If a younger son takes his father's cup and leads people across the sea, his good fortune remains the good fortune of the kin. If his people want to eat our grain, let them acknowledge the kin's rule."
Farin said quietly:
"We did not eat Ragned's grain in winter."
Steinar answered more loudly, to keep Farin from becoming a target:
"You brought grain now, Ragned. For that you will receive a place by the fire and a measure according to Nera's reckoning. No more."
Ragned smiled.
"An old woman will decide how much a jarl's son may eat?"
Nera raised the wooden measure.
"If the jarl's son wants to live until the next ice, yes."
A low ripple of laughter passed through Steinar's people. Ragned's men laid their hands on their sword hilts.
Brand finally spoke:
"Amusing. Very good. But tomorrow, when we decide who owns the land and the people, there will be little room for jests. They need a master who answers for those he brought."
He was looking at Steinar.
So was Saiva.
Steinar understood that the choice had narrowed to two bad answers.
If he said, they are not mine, Ragned would immediately call them wanderers, runaways and defenceless prey. If he said, they are mine, he would give Brand the word with which the skald could later declare them Steinar's property.
Steinar decided to protect the people from Ragned first, even if he later had to disavow his own words.
"I answer for my people."
Saiva lowered her eyes.
Brand almost smiled.
"There. Now there is something to build a song upon."
Steinar added:
"And anyone who touches them without my word begins a dispute with me."
Ragned laughed.
"At last. I missed the brother who at least sometimes speaks like a man."
After that, Ragned's men did not pass inside the turf walls. The sacks were stacked separately and placed under Nera's reckoning. No one seized Farin, and no one dared call Eska prey.
The respite came at a high price.
Later, when the fires had burned low, Saiva came to Steinar by the stones. In her hand she held a strip of leather bearing four words cut from her first private song: 'Did not abandon his yard.'
Steinar recognised the words at once.
"Why did you carry this with you?"
"So I would not believe Brand when he says you were not there that night."
She placed the strip in his palm.
"Keep it yourself now."
"Saiva."
"Do not explain. I understand why you said 'my'. But people who are called someone else's property aloud do not always believe they will be released afterwards."
"If I had not said it…"
"I know."
The worst of it was that Saiva understood him and still gave the song back.
Steinar wanted to explain why he needed the mask, why Ragned understood only the language of a master and how that filthy 'my' had saved Farin and Eska today.
But he could tell from Saiva's eyes that she knew his arguments and did not dispute them. Even so, she could not accept the word he had used.
"In the old hall there was always someone who called a person a thing for a time, supposedly to protect them from something worse," she said.
She went back to the fire.
Steinar remained with the strip of leather in his hand.
Dawn was still many hours away.
He barely slept. The wind rustled against the turf wall. Below, by Ragned's ships, the guards spoke quietly to one another. Modra coughed beside the hearth. Somewhere leather gave a thin creak.
Steinar opened his eyes at once.
The empty cup had lain beneath his cloak, tied to his belt with an old loop. He thrust his hand under the fur.
The loop remained in place, but it had been cut. The cup was gone.
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