"They cannot surrender ships. They can lose a fight. Honour requires they deal fairly then. They will. This is Jormsvik." "That difference matters enough?"

Thorkell nodded. "Always has."

"Good," said Brynn, after a moment, smiling. "Good. I fight him. If he will do it."

Looking back, Alun remembered that four people said No at the same moment, and he was one of them.

But the voice that continued, when the others stopped in surprise, was a woman's. "No!" she said again.

Alun turned, they all did. On the side slope, quite close in fact, on horseback, were the lady wife and the daughter of Brynn ap Hywll. He saw Rhiannon, saw her looking at him, and his heart thumped, a barrage of memories and images falling like arrows from the bright sky.

It was the mother who had spoken. Brynn was gazing at her. She shifted her mount to come forward among them.

"I told you to stay at home," he said, mildly enough.

"I know you did, my lord. Chastise me after. But hear me first. The challenge is proper. I heard what he said. But it is not yours this time."

"It has to be mine. Enid, they came to kill me."

"And must not be allowed the pleasure. My dear, you are the summit and glory of all men living."

"I like the sound of that," said Brynn ap Hywll.

"I imagine you do," said the lady Enid. "You are vain. It is a sin. You are also, I grieve to tell you, old and short-winded, and fat."

"I am not fat! I am—"

"You are, and your left knee is aching as we speak, and your back is stiff each day by this hour."

"He's old too! That one-eyed captain carries his years—"

"He's a raider, my lord." It was Thorkell. "I know the name. He is still a fighting man, my lord. What she says is truth."

"Are you here to shame me, wife? Are you saying I cannot defeat—?"

"My love. Three princes and their sons stood aside for you twenty-five years ago."

"I see no reason why—"

"Do not leave me," said Enid. "Not this way."

Alun heard birdsong. The doings of men here, the wrack and storm of them, hardly mattering at all. It was a summer's day. The birds would be here when this was over, one way or another. Brynn was gazing at his wife. She dismounted, without assistance, and knelt on the grass before her husband. Brynn cleared his throat.

It was Athelbert who broke the stillness. He twitched his reins and moved towards the Erlings, down the slope a little way. "Hear me. We are told that you cannot surrender the ships. You must understand you are going to die, if so. A challenge is now offered you. Choose a man, we do the same. If you are victorious, you will be permitted to sail from here."

"And if we lose?"

They were going to accept. Alun knew it, before they'd even heard the terms. It was in the quickened voice of the one-eyed captain. These were mercenaries, bought to fight, not berserkirs lusting after death. He was feeling something strange, a circling of time.

Three princes and their sons. His father had been one of those sons, twenty-five years ago. Alun's age, very nearly. Brynn had been, too. What was unfolding here felt as if it were part of a skein spun back to that strand in Llywerth.

Athelbert was speaking again. "You forfeit two ships, your weapons, including those on the ships, and ten hostages as surety, to be released in the spring. Not a surrender. A challenge lost."

"How do we get home without weapons? If we meet anyone at all—"

"Then you had best win, hadn't you? And hope you don't encounter my father's ships. Accept now, or fight us here."

"Accepted," said Brand Leofson, even faster than Alun had thought he would.

Alun's heart was beating hard now. It had come. He was thinking of Dai, of course. Ragnarson was dead, but there was an Erling raider below them with a sword. The skein was spun. He drew a steadying breath. His turn to twitch reins, move his horse forward towards the destiny that had been shaped for him at the end of spring.

"I'll do it," said Thorkell Einarson.

Alun pulled up his horse, looked quickly back.

"I know you will," said Brynn, very softly. "I suppose that's why Jad led you here."

Alun opened his mouth to protest, found he had no words. Reached for them, urgently. Thorkell was looking at him, an unexpected expression in his eyes.

"Think of your father," he said. And then, turning away, "Prince Athelbert, have I leave to use the sword you gave me in the wood?"

Athelbert nodded, did not speak. Alun wondered if he looked as young as the Anglcyn did just now. He felt that way, a child again, allowed passage among the men, like the ten-year-old who had joined them with the farmers from the west.

Thorkell swung down from his horse.

"Not a hammer?" Brynn asked, brisk now.

"Not in single combat. This is a good blade."

"Will you suffer a Cyngael helm?"

"If it doesn't split because of cheap workmanship."

Brynn ap Hywll didn't return the smile. "It's my own." He took it off, handed it across.

"I am honoured," said the other man. He put it on.

"Armour?"

Thorkell looked down the slope. "We're both in leather. Leave it be." He turned to the woman, still kneeling on the grass. "I thank you for my life, my lady. I have not lived a life deserving of gifts."

"After this, you will have," said Brynn, gruffly. His wife looked at the red-bearded Erling, made no reply. Brynn added, "You see his eye? How to use that? Kill him for me."

Thorkell looked at him. Shook his head ruefully. "The world does strange things to a man if he lives long enough."

"I suppose," said Brynn. "Because you are fighting for us? For me?"

Thorkell nodded. "I loved him. Nothing was ever the same, after he died."

Alun looked at Athelbert, who was looking back at him. Neither said a word. The birds were singing, all around them.

"Who fights for you?" shouted the big Erling down the slope. He had dismounted and come up alone, halfway to where they were. He'd put on his helmet.

"I do," said Thorkell. He started down. A murmur rose from below, when they saw it was an Erling.

Alun saw that Enid was wiping at tears with the back of one hand. Rhiannon had come up beside her mother. He still didn't have his own heart's beating under anything like control. Think of your father.

How had he known to say that?

Bern watched his father coming down. He had been staring in disbelief from the moment they saw the Cyngael. Thorkell was easy to see, he always had been, half a head taller than most men, with the red banner of his beard.

So the son had known, without hearing a word spoken but watching the telltale gestures of the men above them, that it had been Thorkell who had spoken of single combat when battle had been upon them. So many of the stories told and sung—all the way back to Siferth and Ingeld in the snow—were of single combat. Glory and death: what brighter way to find either of them?

He'd heard others beside him, calculating swiftly, trying to decide if there were Cyngael hidden behind the slopes either side, and if so, how many. Bern had no sense of such things, could only register what he'd heard: they could win this fight, it was judged, but would take losses, especially if there were arrows among those in reserve.

And they wouldn't leave these lands. They had understood that from the moment the Anglcyn prince—impossibly here among them—said what he did.

Bern had had those premonitions of disaster, on the longship coming here and all the way through the black hills east. It seemed he might have more claim to foresight than he'd ever thought. Not the best time to discover that.

Then the Anglcyn prince came forward a second time and offered the challenge. It would be easy to hate that voice, that man, Bern thought. Terse muttering beside him, experienced men: if they gave up their weapons they might as well be naked, one said, heading back through a hostile land, then trying to get home, rowing into the wind, desperately vulnerable to anyone they met, with Aeldred's ships waiting for them. Without weapons, they couldn't winter over, either.