‘That’s why we chose you. Why you chose yourself. You can push yourself to win without spectators or boasting, suffer defeat in obscurity, endure whatever you have to in public.’

‘Sir.’

‘Because that’s what it means to be a spy.’

Carl reached up to touch his ship - his magnificent, powerful, lovely ship - ready for her to take him inside in their moment of triumph.

A very private triumph.

Now, over two decades later, he felt the same resonating thrill as he walked along a polished black glass floor and came out into a vast natural cavern. A bubble of triple quickglass layers separated him from the empty vault; that was a good thing.

When she burst into being, a thunderclap of displaced air crashed among the rocks, and then she was hanging there: black, scarlet-edged and powerful. Such a tremendous ship.

I’ve missed you.

It was impossible to tell which of them originated the thought.

‘At last.’

The quickglass shield dissolved; and then he was rushing to her, unable to hold back, needing both the intimate communion and the chance to immerse himself in mu-space, for a too-brief time.

TEN

EARTH, 777 AD

Dawn was a tattered cloak across the sky, grey and torn with nascent thunderclouds. Beneath Stígr’s body, the chill ground sucked warmth from him, as if underworld spirits of deep Niflheim drank from his lifeforce. Unpleasant wakefulness goaded him into standing.

A skeletal, leafless tree stood nearby. From its bonelike branches, two dark ravens watched. At the familiar sight, his empty left eye-socket, beneath the patch, crawled and itched.

‘You are a stranger here.’ A woman’s voice came from some distance behind him. ‘Are you alone?’

Something shifted as he turned. A quick peripheral glance showed him the expected: a tree unoccupied, bare of corvine watchers. Then he was regarding a grey-haired woman whose cloak was wrapped around her body, against the wind.

‘My name is Stígr,’ he told her. ‘Poet and wanderer, is what I am.’

‘Then you’ll visit our stead, and grant us an epic, if you will.’

Her tone was peaceful, and it took a few seconds to perceive the source of her security: two warriors in shadow, spears in hand.

‘I am called Alfsigr,’ the woman continued. ‘And these are two of my sons, Alvíss and Meili.’

Stígr touched the brim of his soft hat as he bowed.

‘My honour, sirs.’

Poets were supposed to see more deeply into the world, to catch sight of things that others missed. If that were true, then how could three people so easily walk up on him? He was fortunate that they were friendly.

Staff in hand, he walked with them to the village. His face was smiling, for part of him enjoyed meeting new people, and lived for the warmth of making friends; yet he felt a haunted tension around his single eye, courtesy of his other half, the part that responded to darkness when it called.

Inside the main hall, by firelight, he divested himself of hat, stave and cloak. From some of the villagers, a hiss sounded. A one-eyed wanderer: that resonated with the old tales in a way that could be disturbing.

‘I am Stígr,’ he said. ‘And I am a very ordinary poet, I’m afraid.’

‘Is he Othinn?’ whispered a child’s voice.

Stígr was able to chuckle, and then he clasped his hands together before the flames, casting a birdlike shadow on the wall.

‘I do have a raven. You see?’

The little boy groaned, and several adults laughed.

‘Perhaps your verse is better than your shadowplay, good poet.’ A heavy-shouldered man, his beard hanging in twin braids, grinned at Stígr. ‘In any case, avail yourself of mead and solid food.’

‘My thanks, chieftain.’

‘I’m Gulbrandr. A spinner of tales is always welcome, though we have young Hildr here’ - he pointed to a girl of perhaps seven - ‘who creates many a fanciful yarn to explain her unfinished chores.’

Stígr bowed to her, and men and women laughed again. This was a friendly hall.

If only they knew what I really am.

But he was weak, and would accept their openness, and pray to whatever part of the light remained that he would spare them, that he would not be called upon to wreak evil in this place.

Someone placed a horn cup in his hand, and filled it from a leather bag with sweet, heavy mead. Roast meat was emitting a wonderful odour.

Then he noticed the large collection of weapons by the threshold, and bundles of supplies tied with leather cords.

‘There’s a Thing occurring soon,’ murmured Gulbrandr. ‘Perhaps you know of it. Many chieftains will be there, even the Rus.’

‘I . . . did not know, sir. Do you gather for a reason?’

‘As chieftains,’ Gulbrandr said ambiguously, ‘it is our clans’ welfare we consider above all.’

Stígr looked around the hall, at the easy gestures and smiles, hearing the murmur of jokes and ironic boasting, and from one corner the sound of young warriors battling with riddles instead of arms.

‘Yours is a fine clan, with marvellous people,’ he said.

Several days’ journey away (as an ordinary wanderer might travel), in a single men’s hall, a large warrior farted without waking up. Beside Ulfr, Brandr stirred, ears twitching once: the warhound could come alert in an eyeblink, as Ulfr knew from experience, but tonight there was no need. Ulfr himself was keeping watch, though not from choice: he simply could not sleep.

In his mind’s eye, reflections from the spirit world were clear: poor Jarl’s bloodied features, his dead stare accusing, against a backdrop of Niflheim, the black realm of Hel.

Almost as bad was his memory of Eira’s expression, her knowing that Jarl’s death was a mercy, but unable to forgive him for it. He felt so weary.

‘It wasn’t you,’ said Jarl.

The dead spirit’s voice was clear, perhaps because Ulfr’s eyes had drooped shut.

‘You died at my hand, warrior.’

‘You ended what another started.’

Had there been ensorcelment? Or had some temporary madness controlled the others for a time?

‘I’m sorry, my friend.’

‘Not all the dark ones are in Svartalfheim, good Ulfr. Some wander the Middle World and wreak their foulness.’

‘Tell me of the—’

But he started awake then, and the hall was filled with ordinary shadows that did not speak, while the only sound was snoring - from warhounds as well as men - and then another long, plaintive fart that on some other night would have made him chuckle.

Stígr sang his saga, choosing the spine-tingling tale of Fenrir’s binding, beginning with a description of the dark god Loki, Father of Lies - evil and good, trickster and warrior, shape-shifter and gender-changer, so disturbing to ordinary men and women - and Loki’s three monstrous children: Hel, destined to rule the shades in Niflheim, realm of the dead; the loathsome serpent Jormungand; and the master-wolf Fenrir, destined to kill Óthinn the All-Father during the final days.

Fenrir, the gods bound by trickery with unbreakable cords, in what was supposed to be a demonstration of the wolf’s vast strength. To guarantee his own safety, Fenrir agreed to the binding only if one of the gods, the bright Aesir or Vanir, placed a hand in his, Fenrir’s mouth.

The war-god Tyr, bravest of the brave, put his right hand - his sword-hand - between Fenrir’s fangs, knowing that at the moment of binding those jaws would chomp down on his wrist and sever the hand forever.

As Stígr sang of Tyr’s handsomeness and courage, he noticed a young woman with red hair and fire-bright eyes who regarded him with absorption. He subtly altered his voice, directing the greater warmth of his tones toward her.