Elvar stood at the back of their group and waited quietly as Agnar spoke to the captain, going through the same process as he had a dozen times already, showing her the harbour rights, handing her some coin, pointing to Berak.
She looked at the chained man, then nodded. She barked an order to one of her warriors, a young lad holding a spear, who turned and led them into the fortress.
They passed through wide streets rowed either side with longhouses, some of the garrison homes for Jarl St?rr’s hird, his oathsworn retinue of drengrs, then turned into another street where blacksmiths’ forges belched smoke and the pounding of hammers rang in their ears. A courtyard opened wide before them: the mead hall of Snakavik, with wide steps and wooden pillars leading up to its deeply carved doors. A row of stables lined one edge of the courtyard, horses whinnying. Warriors stood at the top of the steps, before the doors, gleaming in polished brynjas and helms, bright spears in their fists.
The lad leading them hurried up the stairs and spoke to the warriors, one of them disappearing through the doors.
“You will wait here,” the lad instructed Agnar as he climbed the steps and they all stuttered to a halt. Elvar looked around and saw the warriors regarding them with cool stares, most eyes drawn to Berak, who stood with his head down, long hair wet and hanging, casting his face in shadows.
Elvar’s woollen hood sagged as the mist-like rain soaked into it, the courtyard shifting into darkness. Torches and braziers were lit, whipped by the wind.
The doors creaked and a warrior gestured for them to follow.
Agnar led them up the steps and into Jarl St?rr’s mead hall. Elvar passed beneath the archway and entered a high-vaulted chamber, crows roosting in the shadowed rafters. Long rows of tables and benches led towards the far end of the hall where Jarl St?rr’s high table was set. Behind that there was a dais, a single chair sitting upon it, and set a little behind that, what looked like a marble-carved head, huge as a boulder, tall as any man. The image of a man was carved upon it, with a high forehead, a broad, wide nose and thick lips. Its eyes were closed, dark veins running through the marble, which seemed to glow in the torchlight.
Agnar and his crew followed an escort of warriors, other warriors falling in around them, more warriors stationed around the periphery, where torches flickered on walls. Hearth fires burned down the centre of the hall, thralls turning carcasses of boar and deer on iron spits, fat dripping and sizzling in the flames as the evening’s meal for Jarl St?rr’s freedmen and oathsworn was prepared.
A door at the far end of the hall opened and figures entered the room. A tall man led them, slim, clothed in a tunic of dark-blue wool, tablet weave around the neck and hems, a silver-buckled belt about his waist, a fine-wrought seax suspended upon it. A silver chain hung around his neck, a serpent’s fang hanging from it, and a thick silver arm ring was coiled around his bicep, a serpent eating its tail. His hair was dark, touches of silver in it, pulled tight and tied at his neck, his beard neat, one braid running through it, bound at its tip with a silver ring. Heavy brows hung lidded over his eyes, shadowing them, his nose thin and sharp.
Jarl St?rr.
He sat in the chair on the dais, other figures spilling through the door behind him, settling around him. Men and women, twelve, fourteen, all tall and broad, their necks and shoulders bunched with muscle beneath their tunics, thick-browed and glowering. Their hair was braided with gold and silver wire, the men’s beards groomed and gleaming with oil. All of them wore pendants on thick chains around their necks, bear claws of iron hanging from them. Axes hung from their belts.
And all of them wore a thrall-collar.
They settled around Jarl St?rr like hounds, some sitting at his feet, others stepping off the dais to prowl the space between the dais and high table, others leaning against walls, slipping into the shadows.
Three others stepped through the doorway on to the dais: two younger men and a woman. The men were both dark-haired and thick-browed, making dark shadows of their eyes, their noses thin, marking them out as close kin of Jarl St?rr.
The woman was blonde-haired, tall and proud, older than the two men. A necklace of bones draped around her neck, tattoos of runes thick upon the backs of her hands and disappearing into the sleeves of her yellow wool tunic.
The three of them stood at Jarl St?rr’s shoulder.
The warriors leading Agnar drew to a halt as they reached the space between the mead benches and the high table, stepping aside to let Agnar face the jarl.
“Welcome, Agnar Broksson, chief of the Battle-Grim,” Jarl St?rr said. His eyes flickered over those behind Agnar, touching upon Elvar and passing over her, resting upon the bowed head of Berak, then returning to Agnar.