The fresh carving from the Green Shore lay on a flat stone by the common fire.
People came one by one to examine the tablet. Some looked at the water sign, others at the leaf or the hand with its fingers spread. Nera sniffed the bark and said that in the west there grew a forest no northern axe had yet touched. Borri ran a thumbnail over the resin and frowned: good timber filled him with admiration and anger at once, because there was none like it in the Grey Land.
Ragned saw something else in the tablet: new ships, tall masts, dry walls and a song to come, in which his name would be the first heard beside a rich shore.
"We leave at dawn," he said.
Steinar did not even ask where.
"No."
The word came out calmer than he felt.
Ragned turned slowly. Behind him, the men of the old North were already smiling. All night they had waited for the Empty Cup to be forced once more to choose between a duel and retreat.
"You forbid me to put to sea?"
"I forbid you to approach people as though nothing grew on their shore but unclaimed forest."
"You don't know that people live there."
Eska, holding the carving in both hands, said:
"The hand sign did not carve itself."
For the first time, Ragned looked at her not as a child but as an obstacle.
"Children hear too much when grown men let them stand nearby."
Steinar stepped between him and Eska.
"She stands here by right of her share."
Brand said nothing.
Then he went over to Saiva.
He drew her three paces aside, towards the wet nets between the stones. Steinar could see their faces, but could not hear everything.
"Come back," he said.
Saiva did not even raise her hands to the strings.
"Where?"
"To the song that will outlive this mud. I will name you the first woman skald of the Grey Land. Not an apprentice or a shadow by my hearth, but the first voice of the new shore."
She studied him more closely.
The offer seemed generous, but Brand gave nothing freely.
"And what must I do?"
"Choose whose names to preserve. Do not sing of everyone who brought in fish, every scratch a child received or every oarsman's fear. Name those who uphold the kin, the land and the winter camp. Let the living remember the living."
Saiva was silent for a long time.
Steinar felt that her silence wounded him more deeply than her refusal would wound Brand. The offer was real: Brand was restoring to Saiva not his favour, but the right he had taken from her to begin a song herself.
At last Saiva said:
"It isn't my voice you want to buy. You want me to keep silent about those you decide not to name."
"It is the ability to choose that makes a person a skald."
"Then I am a poor skald."
Brand nodded.
"No. That is precisely why I came to you, and not to those who sing louder."
She was the first to turn away.
Saiva had refused, but the offer mattered too much for Steinar to feel victorious.
Ketil Salt, who had found himself a place beside Ragned's sacks, gave a strained laugh.
"Perhaps they are savages without speech. Perhaps it is a fisherman's mark, not a name. While we stand here wagging our tongues, another kin is already taking the forest."
Steinar answered:
"That is why you must not be the first to tell of a new shore, Ketil. You sell it before you even learn who walks upon it."
Ketil reddened.
Ragned stepped closer.
"You are afraid again. You feared swords in the shield ring, and now you fear trees. How many times must you go without glory before you understand? Everything goes to the man who comes first and takes it."
The mention of the shield ring struck Steinar.
He remembered the snow on the old field, Asmund at the edge of the shields and the black smoke from the barn. Then he heard a short old line in his memory: Steinar fled, Asmund fell.
He could already imagine Brand adding a new line: Steinar feared, Ragned took the shore.
He could declare that he would be the first to go to the Green Shore himself, but would deal more gently than Ragned and protect its people. It sounded kinder than an open threat, yet it would still make Steinar a conqueror and master of someone else's land.
Saiva stood beside her lyre and, after yesterday, no longer prompted him with her eyes.
Steinar said:
"Let the old song call me a coward for the second time. I will not begin my acquaintance with someone else's shore by drawing a sword."
Ragned smiled.
"Then you will not go at all."
Two of his men seized Farin.
It all happened quickly: the warriors had long been waiting for the signal. Farin managed to strike one with his shoulder, but did not draw his knife. They bound him not as a dangerous enemy, but as a slave whose ownership was yet to be disputed: his hands were tied in front of him and the rope wound around his waist, so the captive could be led away in full view of everyone.
A third warrior reached for Eska.
Steinar took a step, but Ragned's spears were already raised.
Eska did not scream. She pressed the carving to her chest and said:
"I am not yours."
Ragned answered:
"That is exactly what we shall decide."
Brand closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and did not stop the warriors.
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