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invisible to them. I can ride right down the street and no one will see me.” He heard the note of triumph enter his voice. Well, why not? It was astonishing. “I’m to go onto the southerners’ ship—there’s a ramp out, by law, it is open for inspection—and go straight down into the hold.”
    “With a horse?”
    He nodded. “They have animals. There’s a ramp down, too.”
    “And then?”
    “Stay there till they leave, and get off at their next port of call. Ferrieres, probably.”
    He could see she was staring straight at him. “Invisible? With a horse? On a ship?”
    He nodded again.
    She began to laugh. Bern felt himself flushing again. “You find this amusing? Your own volur’s power? Women’s magic?”
    She was trying to collect herself, a hand to her mouth. “Tell me,” she asked, finally, “if you can’t be seen, how am I looking at you?”
    Bern’s heart knocked hard against his ribs. He rubbed a hand across his forehead. Found that he couldn’t speak for a moment.
    “You, ah, are one of them. Part of, ah, the seithr? ”
    She took a step towards him. He saw her shake her head within the hooded robe. She wasn’t laughing now. “Bern Thorkellson, I see you because you aren’t under any spell. You will be taken as soon as you enter the town. Captured like a child. She lied to you.”
    He took a deep breath. Looked up at the sky. Ghost moon, early spring stars. His hands were trembling, holding the horse’s reins.
    “Why would … she said she hated Halldr as much as I did!”
    “That’s true. He was no friend to us. Thinshank’s dead, though. She can use the goodwill of whoever becomes governor now. Her capturing you—and they will be told before midday that she put you under a spell and forced you to ride back to them—is a way to achieve that, isn’t it?”
    He didn’t feel guarded any more.
    “We need food and labour out here,” she went on calmly. “We need the fear and assistance of the town, both. All volurs require this, wherever they are. Youbecome her way of starting again after the long quarrel with Halldr. Your coming here tonight was a gift to her.”
    He thought of the woman above him in the bed, lit only by the fire.
    “In more ways than one,” the girl added, as if reading his thoughts.
    “She has no power, no seithr? ”
    “I didn’t say that. Although I don’t think she does.”
    “There’s no magic? Nothing to make a man invisible?”
    She laughed again. “If one spearman can’t hit a target when he throws, do you decide that spears are useless?” It was too dark to make out any expression on her face. He realized something.
    “You hate her,” he said. “That’s why you are here. Because … because she had the snake bite you!”
    He could see she was surprised, hesitating for the first time. “I don’t love her, no,” she agreed. “But I wouldn’t be here because of that.”
    “Why then?” Bern asked, a little desperately.
    Again a pause. He wished, now, that there were light. He still hadn’t seen her face.
    She said, “We are kin, Bern Thorkellson. I’m here because of that.”
    “What?” He was stunned.
    “Your sister married my brother, on the mainland.”
    “Siv married … ?”
    “No, Athira wedded my brother Gevin.”
    He felt abruptly angry, couldn’t have said why. “That doesn’t make us kin, woman.”
    Even in darkness he could see that he had wounded her.
    The horse moved again, whickered, impatient with standing.
    The woman said, “I am a long way from home. Your family is the closest I have on this island, I suppose. Forgive me for presuming.”
    His family was landless, his father exiled. He was a servant, compelled to sleep in a barn on straw for two more years.
    “What presumption?” Bern said roughly. “That isn’t what I meant.” He wasn’t sure what he’d meant.
    There was a silence. He was thinking hard. “You were sent to the volur? They reported you had a gift?”
    The hood moved up and down.