During the day they saw two small castles. Kuusta insisted they avoid these, leaving the road and keeping to the woods or hedgerows to pass them.

In the early evening they made camp and Kuusta went out to set rabbit snares. While he was gone, Nils saw a deer, sent an arrow through it, and drank the warm nourishing blood. When Kuusta returned and saw the deer, he became ill at ease, saying the Danish lords forbade their killing by anyone but themselves. When they caught a peasant who had killed a deer, they ordinarily knotted a rope around his neck and pulled him off the ground to kick and jerk and swell in the face until he died. Then they'd leave him there, his toes a few centimeters from the ground, and the magpies or crows would relieve him of his eyes, and in the night wild dogs might come and feast on his guts.

Nonetheless, the deer was dead, and neither man was inclined to let it go to waste. They built a small fire, roasted the heart and liver and tongue, and ate while more meat roasted for the road. Then they put out the fire and rolled up in their sleeping robes.

"Now it's time for questions and answers," Nils said in the darkness, "about the thing you're hunting for."

Kuusta lay silent for a moment. "It's a thing my people had never heard of," he said quietly, "nor yours either, I suspect. As a boy I wanted to see the world, so I left home and traveled. I hired on a Danish ship as an oarsman. We went to Jotmark for lumber and took it to Frisland, where the cattle are fat but there are few trees. We took cattle to Britain then, where Anglic is the native tongue, and got the black stones that burn and took them to Frisland. There I jumped ship and walked south through the land of France, then through the land of Provence to the Southern Sea. In Provence, where there is no king, the lords are always at war with one another, and I took service with one as a mercenary. They use lots of mercenaries, and for that reason the language of their armies is Anglic.

"And in Provence I heard a legend that I believe has its roots in truth, of a magic jewel called the esper crystal. Looking into it, a man is supposed to be able to see and hear things far away or things that haven't happened yet. It's even said that the holder can read the thoughts of others through it."

Then Kuusta lay silent again.

"And what would you do with this crystal if you had it?" asked Nils.

"Get rich, I suppose."

"Have you thought how hard it would be to steal a thing as valuable as that from a person of great wealth and power when that person can see and hear things far away, look into the future, and maybe even read the thoughts of those around him?"

Kuusta lay quiet for some time, smelling the dead fire, but Nils knew he was not asleep. "Yes," Kuusta said finally, "I've thought about it. But I need something to strive for; otherwise, life would have no savor."

"And where do you think this esper crystal might be?"

"I don't know. The story is that once it was in a land east of the Southern Sea. But if it really exists, and if a person travels and watches and listens, he may learn where it is. Something like that must leave evidence."

"I'm not like you," Nils said. "I need nothing to strive for. You were right, in the inn. I'd have been happy to stay with my clan, hunting, raiding, fathering a line of warriors, and watching the seasons follow one another. Taking an arrow in my time or possibly growing old. But it's in my nature to do what is indicated, without worry or pain; so I am also happy to sleep in a Danish oak forest and travel I don't know where. I have no desire for this esper crystal or to get rich. But I'll travel with you for a while and learn from you."

Within a few moments Nils's breath slowed to the shallow cadence of sleep, and in Kuusta's mind the esper crystal shone like a cut gem glowing white, occupying his inner eye, until there was nothing else and he too was asleep.

The early light wakened them and they ate venison again. Kuusta visited his rabbit snares to no avail, while Nils dragged the deer carcass into a thicket. Each put a portion of roast haunch into his pack-enough to last until it would be too foul to eat-and they set off.

Soon they came out of the forest again, and the road was a lane between hedges atrill with birds.

Nils found the land pleasant. His eyes moved about, seeing things, interpreting, as he repeated the Anglic that Kuusta spoke for him.

He interpreted the rapid thudding of hooves, too, but the hedges at that point were a thick lacing of strong, thorny stems confining them to the lane until they could find a break. The horsemen came into sight quickly after the hoofbeats were heard, and Nils and Kuusta stood aside as they rode up, as if to let them pass. The five horsemen pulled up their mounts, however, and looked grimly down at the two travelers. Their green jerkins told Kuusta that these were game wardens of the local lord. Their leader, his knighthood marked by helmet and mail shirt, sat easily, sword drawn, smiling unpleasantly. Leaning forward, he reached a strong brown hand toward Kuusta.

"Your pack, rascal."

Kuusta handed up his pack, and the knight threw it to one of his men. Then he looked long and hard at Nils, who clearly was no ordinary wanderer. "And yours," he added.

Nils shrugged calmly out of his straps, took his shield off the pack, and handed the pack to the waiting hand. Kuusta tensed, suddenly convinced that Nils would jerk the man off his horse and they would die quickly by sword bite instead of slowly by noose. But Nils's hand released the pack and he stood relaxed. The men who opened the packs took out the roast meat and threw packs and venison into the dust of the lane. The knight licked his lips.

"Poachers. Do you know what we do with poachers?" he asked in slow Danish.

Poacher was a new word for Nils, although he took its meaning from context.

"What is a poacher?" he asked.

The knight and his green-clad men grinned. "A poacher is someone who kills the lord's deer," he explained. "Poachers are hung with their feet near the ground, and the dogs eat them."

"I have killed deer all my life," Nils said matter-of-factly. "Large deer called moose, and wild cattle, openly, and it has never been called a crime."

The knight studied Nils. His speech was strange and heavily accented; he was clearly a barbarian outlander of some sort. The knight had rarely seen foreigners before. The barbarian's sword, shield and steel cap were those of a man-at-arms, but his bare feet and torso were marks of a peasant. His manners were bolder than peasant manners, though. His size and brawn were those of a champion, but his young, unmarked face and scarless torso suggested green, unblooded youth.

"What are you?" the knight asked.

"A warrior."

"Of what wars?"

"Of no wars. Until this summer I was still a sword apprentice."

"Like a squire," Kuusta interpreted for the knight. "He is a Swede of the Svea tribe. There, ways are different than yours."

"Does your lord have use of fighting men?" Nils asked.

"If they are good."

"How does he test them?"

"They fight. With an experienced man-at-arms or a knight."

"Would he have use of two more?"

"I'm already of a mind to hang you from a tree as a warning to others who might have a taste for venison," the knight answered. "It is the custom here." He studied them further. "But with one as big as you it does seem a waste. It's possible you might fight well enough to serve his lordship. Certainly you're big enough, and bigger. If you can't, you can always serve as a thrall-or for public execution." He turned to one of his men. "Tie them," he ordered.

The man dismounted agilely with a long leather rope, and Nils and Kuusta submitted, wrists behind backs and loops around their necks. The horses trotted back down the lane then, in the direction they had been going, Nils and Kuusta running awkwardly behind, not daring to stumble. They were muddy with their own sweat and the dust kicked up by the horses, Kuusta cursing quietly but luridly in Finnish.