Saiva began without the lyre. Unaccompanied, her hoarse voice sounded freer: Brand could no longer silence her merely by cutting the strings.
"The first was a man whose name was stolen before we were born."
The people did not understand at once how to repeat so strange a beginning. The first was not a jarl, an eldest son, a victor or even a celebrated fallen warrior, but a nameless oarsman.
Saiva told of him plainly.
"He sat on the lower bench and knew the water better than the proud warriors. He saved the ship of Hroald's great-grandfather. His name did not reach us because the survivors were afraid of what they owed him."
Modra placed the shard of the cup in the centre of the circle.
"For now, let him be called the First Oarsman," she said. "Not in place of his name, but until we find the true one."
Brand flinched, but not at the beauty of the name. The temporary byname honestly admitted the loss and did not pretend that the gap in memory had already been filled.
Saiva turned to the grey funeral sail, folded by the shelter after it had been mended. The red thread along its edge now looked not like Ragned's mockery, but like a message from the dead.
"People of the Grey Sail," Saiva said. "We do not yet know your names, but your cloth has returned. You asked to be named by the water, not reduced to the word 'lost'. Until the true names are found, we shall remember you as those who went before us and asked that the sea not be left as the only witness."
Ragned was the first to look away. Not from remorse: he was the one who had thrown the cloth to Steinar in mockery, and now the dead had been named before anyone had managed to glorify him.
Saiva continued:
"Asmund, Steinar's cousin, held the edge of the shield and fell. To remember him, there is no need to silence the children saved from the barn."
Steinar closed his eyes.
The pain did not vanish, and the new words did not make right all that had happened. But for the first time, the memory of Asmund was not set against the children who had been saved.
Nera said:
"Auli hauled the salt."
Saiva repeated:
"Auli hauled the salt while the celebrated warriors carried spears."
Farin raised his voice.
"Farin held the oar and read the current."
Saiva repeated his words without adding anything.
"Farin held the oar and read the current."
Borri struck the plank with his fist.
"Borri heard that the keel was no good."
"Borri heard the keel crack and still brought the ship to shore."
Eska raised the new carving.
"Eska saw the hand."
"Eska saw the mark of a hand where the grown men noticed only wood."
Ingvi of the black tooth coughed:
"Ingvi did not drown because Lagga held him by the hair."
Lagga snorted through her tears.
"Lagga held Ingvi by the hair because there was nothing between his ears to hold on to."
The people laughed.
The laughter did not spoil the song, but made it live.
Harek, still pale, said:
"Harek hid the carved tablet beneath a hide."
Saiva repeated that too.
Skardi with the frostbitten ear stood for a long time, as though the song were water he could not bring himself to enter.
Then he said:
"Skardi held the wall and thought there was no point feeding an outsider's mouth."
No one laughed.
Saiva repeated:
"Skardi held the wall, argued over the measure and still did not take Farin's bread from him."
Farin turned his head towards him.
Skardi did not apologise – men like him seldom knew how. He merely gave a short nod, acknowledging not friendship, but that Farin had been right.
The same young shield-bearer with grain dust on his sleeve stepped out from among Ragned's men.
Ragned shot him a sharp look, but the young man had already spoken:
"I brought grain and thought I was the one feeding you. This morning I ate your fish."
Saiva accepted that too:
"He brought grain from across the sea, and in the morning ate fish caught here during the winter. Now there is a debt on both sides."
Then the man with the crooked thumb stepped out from behind Ragned's men.
Now everyone saw his hand.
"My name is Turi," he said. "I was the one who cut the loop on the cup."
Ketil hissed:
"Be quiet."
Turi did not look at him.
"I thought I was cutting no more than a strap. Then I understood: I wanted the skald to answer for what I had done. What is done cannot be put right. But at least now everyone knows whose hands are dirty."
Saiva repeated:
"Turi cut the loop on the cup and admitted it himself. Now the theft can no longer be hidden behind the word 'found'."
Brand stood motionless.
But Steinar saw his fingers loosen around the broken string.
The song did not hide some people behind others. It bound them together like a net.
And then Steinar understood why the memory of his former life had not released him even now. There, people's names were entered on lists, but the lists said nothing about the people themselves. Here, the list of names had become a song without adorning the truth. If a person was named in it, so was the deed they had done – good or bad.
This song held the coarse, the comical and the bitter. It did not promise everyone equal glory, but remembered who had done what and who had seen it. Who had kept the fire alive. Who had divided the salt. Who had stolen and later returned. Who had been afraid. Who had stayed. Who had admitted they were wrong.
Steinar waited for Saiva to name Brand.
She did.
"Brand Song-Carver preserved the old mode and helped us live to see this day. But he carved everything unwanted out of the songs so diligently that we saw how many living people had been left beyond their edge."
The people went still.
Brand raised his head.
Steinar understood: this mattered more than any victorious blow. Brand had not been cut out of the song, nor had they treated him as he had treated others. They named both what he had preserved and what he had done wrong.
At last Saiva turned to Steinar.
"Steinar Empty Cup once fled and paid for it with his name. So when new trouble came, he stayed and helped the people survive the winter. In this song he is not first, and so he deserves to remain in it."
Steinar's throat tightened. Ragned chose to answer for him.
He drew his sword.
"Enough!"
The old blade slid easily from its sheath. The steel rang as it did in the battle songs.
"Those who follow me, stand beside me! Those who have chosen Empty Cup, stand opposite and die for his empty song!"
He waited for someone to move.
The warriors of the old North looked at Brand.
Brand looked at the shard of the cup.
Steinar's people did not move.
Farin did not move.
Eska did not move.
Nera raised the wooden measure with which she had divided the food all winter.
Borri laid his palm on the board of shares.
Saiva did not break off the song.
Ragned's sword had grown neither shorter nor blunter. It was simply the first time no one stood beside him willing to count it as law.
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