“But let us remember that God’s favor is only granted to the righteous,” Escritor Frode resumed in a ringing voice. “As Grimbrand follows his father and grandfather as the third Duke of Elvritshalla, let us remember that we must all follow him in the ways of the Lord. For only by God’s hand can our people survive and prosper.”

To the queen’s relief, he then led the congregation in the final prayers of the Mansa sea Cuelossan. She reached out for Simon, wanting to feel her husband’s warm, real presence. He jumped a little, perhaps startled to be reminded of what was going on around him, but after a moment folded his large hand around hers.

•   •   •

“It’s bloody strange, if you ask me,” Simon said as they followed the duke’s effigy out to the dock.

“In the old days the Rimmersmen used to burn all their dead,” she explained.

“Yes, and in the old days the Rimmersmen used to kill Erkynlanders as well. Not to mention Sithi and everyone else.”

“Ssshhh! Do you want Grimbrand to hear you?” The duke’s heir walked only a few yards behind them with his wife and children. Behind them came Isgrimnur’s daughters, Signi and Ismay, and their husbands, Valfrid and Tonngerd of Skoggey. Signi was a grandmother herself now, Miri realized. She was overwhelmed once more by the realization of how the years had spun on so swiftly since they had last visited, since Signi had been a pink-cheeked bride and Grimbrand a youth with his first beard. But it had been a long time since anyone had thought him a youth; he had waited long, patient years to take his father’s place. Grimbrand was a good man, and she felt sure Rimmersgard was in trustworthy hands, but it still felt strange beyond understanding to be following the great straw funeral effigy of Elvrit’s ship Sotfengsel, and to know that their friend Isgrimnur was truly gone.

“How did it come to be that we are the old ones now, Simon?”

“Same way it always does.” The sun was coming out now after a gray morning full of snow flurries—snow that had now all turned to puddles of water. Her husband squinted. “People tell you what to do. You do your best, but you don’t always succeed. Then one day, you realize that you’re the one doing the telling.”

“Yes, but nobody is listening. Look at Grimbrand’s son, Isvarr. See how respectful he is? But where is our grandson? I have not seen him since the cathedral, slouching in the back. Morgan should be with us. At the very least, his disappearance is an insult to Isgrimnur’s memory.”

Simon set his teeth. “I don’t want to talk about Morgan. If he’s crept off somewhere with his so-called friends again, I’ll deal with him later. As it is, I’m so angry I’m half-tempted to leave him out on the Frostmarch to find his own way home.”

Miriamele was frustrated with her grandson too, but it was slowly turning to a kind of desperation. No matter what they said or did, the boy seemed to go out of his way to disappoint them. “This is what I meant, husband. How did we become the old people, always furious with the young? It was not like we were so well-behaved when we were of such an age. You were beaten more often than a lazy plowhorse for not doing what you were told.”

Simon made a face. “Shem would never have done to a plowhorse what Rachel used to do to me. With a broomstick! On the backs of my legs!”

“Ssshhhh!” said Miriamele, surprised into laughter despite the solemn occasion. “Not so loud. I daresay you had it coming.”

“Says the girl who ran away from the Hayholt against her father’s wishes, then from Naglimund against her uncle’s, and then from our camp against everybody’s wishes—even mine.”

“You didn’t try to stop me, you liar. You invited yourself along.”

“I wanted to protect you. Even then . . .” His face suddenly changed, the lines of his brow deepening. “Even then I loved you more than anything, Miri.”

She was touched but also saddened. “I know. And we have made a good life, haven’t we? When it is our turn to be trundled off to Swertclif, we won’t have any regrets, will we?”

He frowned. “How could we not have regrets? Is there nothing left you want to do?”

“I don’t know, my love. Sometimes I wonder whether the ideas I had when I was young weren’t just foolishness. The things that seemed so clear then . . . well, they aren’t nearly so clear now.”

Simon looked up to see the effigy ship being lowered to the water. “We’re here. I still think it’s damnably strange to make a puppet out of straw and burn it.”

“Don’t curse. Everybody has their customs.”

“But the Rimmersfolk hate the sea.”

“Because it has swallowed their home,” she said. “And no matter what it has done, you can’t defeat an ocean.” They stopped and waited for the rest of the procession to come to a halt.

When the boat was floating at the edge of the wide Gratuvask and the straw figure that represented Isgrimnur’s body had been laden with funeral gifts, a black-robed priest walked up the bank to offer the torch to Simon and Miriamele. As agreed, they declined, directing him to pass it to Grimbrand instead. The duke’s son, his wide frame and greyshot black beard making him look eerily like the man they were all mourning, walked carefully down the muddy bank to the edge of the water, and with a prayer no one else could hear, tossed the torch into the boat. The priests then pushed the flimsy craft out into the water.

“His ship, to the sea!” cried Escritor Frode. “His soul, to the sky!”

The straw boat caught quickly, and the effigy of the duke soon vanished in flames. As the burning boat drifted out into the current, for a moment it seemed that a piece of the setting sun had fallen into the great river.

My father, my uncle Josua, Camaris, Isgrimnur—nearly all our elders are gone, Miriamele thought. They have left us a world, but have they left us enough wisdom to protect it?

A wind swept down from the mountains and sent a scatter of sparks from the burning straw glittering across the river’s back, to fall at last hissing into the water.

“Ah, ah, you forgot to toast St. Gutfrida.” Sir Astrian was laughing so hard he could hardly speak. “Fill another one for the prince!” A few of the Northmen in the alehouse were laughing and catcalling too, but others looked a little less than pleased to have the day of the duke’s funeral turned into a drinking and toasting contest. Morgan was annoyed in turn by their disapproval. Hadn’t they already toasted the late duke with great thoroughness? Weren’t the Rimmersmen supposed to be such great folk for drink? How could anyone have a funeral and not bend an elbow?

Astrian took a new ale bowl and scooped up a healthy helping, sloshing some on the table as he did so. Olveris looked at the puddle, his long face sad. “You are wasting perfectly good drink.”

“No, I am sharing it with the gods of the north.” Astrian folded Morgan’s hands around the wooden bowl. “Do it properly this time, Highness.”

“But they are Aedonites here,” said Morgan, staring at the liquid sloshing back and forth in his unsteady hands. “Aren’t they? Yes, they are. The old gods are . . . old.”

“Not as old as Porto!” crowed Astrian.

At the sound of his name, the ancient soldier groaned and lifted his head from the pillow of his arm. He peered, slit-eyed, at the prince. “Highness, what are you doing here? We thought you were with your family.”

“Oh, be quiet, Porto, you old broomstick,” said Astrian. “He’s been here for an hour.”

“A man can only be sad so long,” Morgan declared. In truth, it had been that bore of an Elvritshalla courtier who had driven him away from the funeral feast, Thane Somebody-Or-Other. The old fool had visited the Hayholt once years ago, and, braced with this experience, had spent far too long forcing his patchy memories of Prince John Josua on John Josua’s son. In an attempt to silence him, Morgan had even said, “I scarcely remember my father,”—a terrible lie, but it had only sent the courtier into further windy wheezing about the wisdom and nobility of the late and lamented John Josua, and the tragedy of his early death, to the point where Morgan had felt his only choice was either to knock the man’s head off or escape to a suitably quiet place and try to forget the yammering fool completely.