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skilled work, I’m thinking.’ Sigurd held the figure up to the ashen moonlight for all to see, and far from seeming disappointed Halldor appeared moved. The significance of his jarl giving him a carving of Týr, the bravest of all the gods, was not lost on him there under the cold shadow of Black Floki’s sword.
    Sigurd stepped forward and handed the thing to Halldor and it seemed the two warriors would embrace. But there was a flash of steel and a low grunt from Halldor as Sigurd pulled theman into him, so that Halldor’s one visible eye bulged horribly. Black Floki flew forward but Olaf stopped him with an arm and a glower as Sigurd closed his hand around Halldor’s so that the man could not drop his sword. Sigurd whispered something to Halldor then and I swear that a smile skimmed over the dying man’s lips like a flat stone across water. He gave a long gasping sigh and his head lolled on to Sigurd’s shoulder and his knees buckled though his jarl held him up until the last whisper of life had flown his corpse. And then it was over and the rest of us were left standing there and I do not mind admitting that there was a lump in my throat the size of a hen’s egg.
    Slowly, Sigurd lowered the warrior’s now still body to the swirling sand and we turned to Floki, who had shrugged free of Olaf and was glaring at Sigurd.
    ‘That was for me to do, Sigurd!’ he spat. ‘He was my kinsman. He expected me to do it.’ His sword was still raised and for a moment I sensed it still hungered for carnage.
    ‘I am his jarl, Floki,’ Sigurd replied, a snarl curling his lips, ‘he was oath-tied to me.’ Sigurd held up the blade which he had sunk into Halldor’s heart. Its bone handle, like the jarl’s hand, was slick with blood and I could see fog rising from it, vanishing into the night. ‘This was my right. Halldor had faced his own death for long enough and as straight-backed as any man could hope to. He did not need to stand there all night, eyeballing the sword that would bite his flesh. It is over.’ Sigurd looked to the rest of us. ‘We will meet Halldor at the high end of the All-Father’s hall, each in our own time.’ He glanced down at the body, at the puffed-up, dead face of one of his Fellowship. ‘It is over,’ he repeated tiredly, the words granite-heavy.
    Floki loosened the cords in his neck and nodded shallowly, sheathing his sword. Then he went over to his cousin’s lifeless body and Svein offered to help him carry it but Floki would not take any help, lifting Halldor alone and hauling him overhis shoulder before taking him off to prepare the corpse for the pyre.
    ‘Back to your beds, ladies,’ Olaf said, hawking and spitting as an end to the whole rancid thing. ‘We’ll be rowing tomorrow if Njörd keeps farting in this direction.’
    ‘And while we’re rowing that whoreson Halldor will already be rinsing his beard with Óðin’s sweetest mead,’ Bram moaned to Svein, who conceded that to be a fair point, as they started back up the beach behind Asgot, Olaf and Cynethryth. Sigurd came over to me, his eyes gleaming dully in the half light.
    ‘Next time I ask you to find something shiny, bring me an arm ring or a handful of silver,’ he said, ‘not an old lump of bone.’
    ‘Yes, lord,’ I said, scratching my beard, but Sigurd was already walking down to the frothing sea to wash away the blood.

CHAPTER THREE

    AT DAWN SIGURD STOOD AT SERPENT ’S STERNPOST AND SAID SOME words about Halldor. Mainly he spoke of his bravery and how well he had died, albeit after suffering the way he had.
    ‘The Norns spun a dark skein for our brother Halldor,’ Sigurd said, to which many murmured agreement, ‘but in the end he died as we all hunger to die, amongst our brothers, with a good sword in our hands. Even the Spinners cannot always cheat us of this right.’
    We made a pyre for Halldor and laid him on it with the things he would need on the other side of Bifröst, the Rainbow-Bridge, and in one