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It’s your own life you are living, not Somerled’s.”
    â€œSpare me your philosophy!” Thorvald snapped. “Give me facts. Why did my father kill Ulf? Is it true that he single-handedly wiped out most of the islanders before Eyvind stopped him?”
    â€œYou wish me to answer before your friend arrives home? These are big questions, Thorvald.”
    â€œPlease.” It took some effort to get this word out; still, he saw understanding in the priest’s gray eyes, and heard compassion in his voice. It was expedient to take a deep breath and attempt calm if he were to have a chance of getting the answers he needed.
    â€œOnly Somerled could tell you why he killed his brother,” Tadhg said. “There seemed obvious reasons: the lust for power, jealousy, frustration that there was no real role for him here. His feelings for your mother, perhaps. There were older reasons, which he brought with him from Rogaland, matters of the distant past. You’d need to ask Eyvind about those.”
    â€œEyvind? Why?”
    â€œThe two of them were close friends: blood brothers. It was in a sense of responsibility for Somerled’s ill deeds that Eyvind banished him. He could have killed him. Instead he chose a way that gave his friend a second chance. It was a wise and generous decision.”
    â€œA second chance! A chance to sail over the edge of the world and perish.”
    â€œThat is one possibility,” agreed Tadhg evenly.
    â€œYou think there are others? Tell me!”
    â€œI will, Thorvald. One answer at a time. Somerled brought a weight of trouble with him when he came here with his brother’s expedition. Ulf was a friend of mine; we spoke much during his all too brief season as chieftain here. For all Somerled was his own brother, Ulf feared him greatly. It was not on his invitation that Somerled came here, but at the behest of the Jarl back home. Ulf was under pressure to agree, since the Jarl had financed his venture. The result was catastrophic. Somerled did terrible things as leader here. He was a clever man, subtle, ingenious. He was also completely ruthless. It seemed to me he had no awareness at all of the suffering of others; it was as if some essential part of a man’s understanding were closed to him, and always had been. It is troubling to consider that, had it not been for Eyvind’s intervention, and Nessa’s, he would have remained king here, and none of the island folk would have survived. Your father believed the Norse people to be superior in every way, and far better fitted to rule. He saw no place here for folk he believed to be primitive, weak and ineffectual. He’d have wiped them out entirely. Somerled never understood them; he never understood the islands. He’d have killed Nessa; she was too influential to be left alive. Eyvind, too. At one point both the Wolfskin and myself were imprisoned and on the verge of execution. Somerled did not take kindly to hearing the truth if it happened not to suit his own purposes.”
    There seemed to be nothing for Thorvald to say. He had asked for answers, after all. Too bad if it hurt to hear them, when he had believed nothing could hurt much after what his mother had told him.
    â€œKing,” he said finally, his tone hollow.
    â€œIndeed. That was his lifelong ambition, so Eyvind told me. For a short while, he achieved it. The cost was high.”
    Thorvald felt a bitter laugh escaping from his throat. “Hah! Just think, if he’d stayed on here, I might have been king after him. King Thorvald. Very amusing, that. And Eanna would never have been born, nor Creidhe, nor the others. Thank the gods he was sent away. As ruler here I probably would have turned out just like him.”
    â€œWe must concern ourselves with the path that was taken, not the one abandoned,” Tadhg said, using an iron hook to lift the kettle’s lid and see if the water was boiling. “You want to