This particular Erling in Esferth tonight was no peaceful trader from the settled eastern end of this island. Not if he was still a Jormsvik mercenary.

Stefa was alone in the alley now. He might not have been—it was a blessing, perhaps. Thorkell coughed, stepped forward, and spoke the man's name, calmly enough.

Then he twisted violently to his right, banging hard against the rough wall as Stefa wheeled, piss spraying, and thrust for his gut with a swiftly drawn knife.

A man who knew how to fight. And drink. A long afternoon and evening's worth of ale, most likely. Thorkell was entirely sober, and seeing better than Stefa in the dark. It allowed him to avoid the knife, pull his own blade in the same motion, and sheathe it between two ribs of the other man, up towards the heart.

He, too, knew how to fight, as it happened. It didn't leave you, that knowing. Your body might slow down, but you knew what you needed to do. He'd no idea, by now, how many souls he'd sent to whatever their afterworld might be.

He cursed, afterwards, because he was in some pain, having banged his hip against the wall, dodging, and because he hadn't meant to kill the other man until he'd learned a few things. Principally, what Stefa was doing here.

A mistake, to have used the name. The man had reacted like a frightened sentry to a footfall in the dark. He'd probably changed his name when he got into Jormsvik, Thorkell decided, rather too late. He swore again, at himself.

He dragged the dead man farther back into the alley, hearing the rats scuttle and scurry and the sound of some larger animal moving. He'd just finished doing that—and taking Stefa's purse from his belt—when he heard another man at the mouth of the laneway. He stood still in the blackness and saw him enter, also, to relieve himself. There was enough light at the entrance from the torch outside the tavern for him to see that this was the other man he knew.

He said nothing this time, a lesson learned. Waited until this one was busy with what he'd come out to do, and then moved silently forward. He clubbed the second Erling hard on the back of the head with the bone haft of his knife. Caught him as he slumped.

Then Thorkell Einarson stood for some moments, thinking hard, though not especially clearly, supporting the unconscious body of the son he'd left behind when they exiled him.

Eventually he made a decision, because he had to: perhaps not the best one, but he wasn't sure what the best one would be, given that he'd already killed Stefa. He propped Bern against the wall for a moment, braced him with his good shoulder, and tied his trouser drawstrings, to let him be decent, at least. It was too dark to see his son's face clearly. Bern had grown a beard, seemed bigger across the chest.

Ought to have been more careful, his father thought. Should have known his companion had come out before him, have been looking for Stefa, on the alert when he didn't see him. Thorkell shook his head.

In some endeavours, the lessons you needed to learn might come over time and with no greater risk than a master's reprimand. If you were going to raid on the longships, you could die if you learned too slowly.

On the other hand, if he was understanding this rightly, Bern had managed to get himself into Jormsvik, which said something for a lad who had been condemned to a servant's life by what his father had done. He'd taken himself off the isle, and more than that: you had to kill a fighter to join the mercenaries.

He didn't imagine Bern would feel kindly towards him now, or ever. He thought of his wife, then, wondering about her, though not for long: there wasn't much point. A shared life gone, that one, like the wake of a longship when it moved on through the sea. You needed to steer clear of thoughts like that. They were dangerous as the rocks of a lee shore. Heimthra, longing for home, could kill a man from within. He'd seen it happen.

Thorkell hoisted his son's body over his shoulder and headed for the mouth of the alley and the street.

Men passed out all the time near drinking places, everywhere in the world. Woke in grey dawn with rat bites and purses clipped. He had reason to hope the two of them would be seen as a tavern-goer carrying a drunken friend. He was limping with the weight and the pain in his hip. That might help the deception, he thought ruefully.

It didn't, in the event, happen that way. Someone spoke to him as soon as they reached the street.

"Are you going to bring the other one, too? Or is he dead?"

He stopped where he was. A woman's voice. Across the way, from the shadows there. Thorkell stood still, cursing fate and himself: in equal measure, as always.

He looked left and right. No one nearby, no one to have heard her, a small blessing that might save him, and Bern. The tavern's wall torch guttered and smoked in its iron bracket. He heard the steady noise from within. The same sounds from any tavern, everywhere a man might go. But, shouldering the body of his son, hearing a woman address him from the dark, Thorkell Einarson felt a strangeness take hold: as if he'd entered a part of the world that wasn't quite the royal city of Esferth in the Anglcyn lands of King Aeldred—a place for which he could not properly have prepared himself, however experienced he might be.

Given that unsettling thought, and being an Erling and direct by nature, he drew a breath and crossed the roadway straight towards the sound of the voice. When he drew near—she didn't back away from him—he saw who this was, and that stopped him again.

He was silent, looking down at her, trying to make some sense of this. "You shouldn't be here alone," he finally said.

"I have no one to fear in Esferth," said the woman. She was young. She was, in fact, the younger daughter of King Aeldred, in a thin cloak, the hood thrown back to reveal her face to him.

"You could fear me," he said slowly.

She shook her head. "You wouldn't murder me. It would make no sense."

"Men don't always do sensible things," Thorkell said.

She lifted her chin. "So you did kill the other one? The first man?"

Not at all sure why, he nodded his head. "Yes. So you see, I might do the same again."

She ignored that, staring at him. "Who was he?"

He was in such a strange world right now. This entire conversation: Aeldred's daughter, Bern on his shoulder, Stefa dead in the alley. A shipmate once. But for the moment, he told himself, he had one goal and the rest had to follow, if he could make it do so. "He was an Erling mercenary," he said. "From Jormsvik, I am almost certain. Not a trader, pretending to be."

"Jormsvik? Surely not! Would they be so foolish? To try raiding here?"

She knew of them. He hadn't expected that, either, in a girl. He shook his head. "I'd not have thought so. Depends who hired them."

Her composure was extraordinary. "And this one?" she asked, gesturing towards the body he carried. "The one you didn't kill?" She was keeping her voice low, not alerting anyone yet. He held to that, as to a spar.

He was going to need her. If only to have her not call the watch and have him seized. He wasn't a man to kill her where she stood; it was true, and she'd guessed it. Too sure of herself, but not wrong. Thorkell hesitated, then rolled the dice again, with an inward shrug.

"My son," he said. "Though I have no idea why."

"Why he's your son?" He heard amusement, laughed himself, briefly.

"Every man wonders that. But no, why he's here."

"He was with the other?"

"I… believe so." He hesitated, threw dice again. There wasn't much time. "My lady, will you help me get him outside the walls?"

"He's a raider," she said. "He's here to report on what he finds." Which was almost certainly true. She was quick, among everything else.