The boy stuck his finger in soot from the night’s fire and wrote a word across the smooth stones of the hearth.
“I cannot read,” she murmured, biting her lip. He clearly wanted to write the word because speaking was difficult, but she couldn’t decipher it.
“D-d-dag-m-mar,” he said, wincing. He used the broom to brush the word away. She wished he hadn’t. She would have liked to study the shapes he’d made.
“Dagmar?”
A nod.
“S-stay?” he asked, pointing where he stood. She didn’t know if he was asking her for permission to remain or if he was asking her if she was going to go.
When she shrugged, he picked up his now-empty bundle.
“Stay,” he demanded, and smiled, heading for the door. His smile touched his eyes and revealed strong white teeth. He was a handsome boy, his dark hair pulled back from a face that would grow leaner and longer with age. He would look like the keeper, but his size and strength already hinted at harsher lines and heavier limbs.
“Stay,” he said again, and seemed pleased with himself that he’d said the word twice without tripping. She didn’t think he meant to address her as if she were a dog, and she nodded, agreeing.
He smiled at her response, and he opened the door and let himself out. She wouldn’t be able to stay, but she didn’t think she was strong enough yet to go. A day or two in the shepherd’s cottage would do her good. Just a day or two, and then she would leave. She needed to retrieve her gold, and if possible, say goodbye to her daughter.
“You collect strays, Dagmar.”
“Yes, Master. I seem to.”
Ivo sighed, but his mouth curled under his beaklike nose. “But the gods send them to you for a purpose.”
“Mayhaps they send them to us, Master,” Dagmar said, his voice mild, his eyes steely.
Ivo’s lips grew tight at Dagmar’s insolence, but his gaze dimmed as though he saw something that existed in another place. For several moments he sat in perfect stillness, and Dagmar waited, his head bowed.
“Mayhaps you are right, Dagmar. There will be more,” Ivo muttered.
“More, Master?”
“More strays, brother. Tell me about the latest one.”
“She is a slave with no master. From Eastlandia. A woman.”
“And why is she here?”
“She came with the king’s caravan . . . or followed them, most likely. She had a babe once, a child. I got the impression the child died. She is lost, Master. And I truly believe she has nowhere to go.”
“She is a woman. We are men. Keepers. She cannot live among us. You know this, Dagmar.”
“Keeper Lem cannot watch the sheep any longer. He is getting old, and it is too much for him. Bayr had taken over his duties, but he has other needs and . . .”
“It is not the best use of his time,” Ivo finished.
“Yes, Master.”
“So Odin, in his wisdom, has sent us someone to watch the sheep. The gods always seem to provide.”
“That is what I was going to suggest, Master. She need not ever enter the temple in order to care for the sheep, and she has been a shepherdess before.”
“What is her name?”
“She calls herself Ghost, Master. Her skin is colorless . . . her hair and eyes too.”
Ivo’s brows shot up as his black lips turned down. “I envisioned a wraith, and the gods sent me a ghost!” he cackled. “Odin is a clever weaver of dreams, is he not?”
“I have shown her the shepherd’s cottage on the western slope, Master. She is weak and tired . . . and filthy. But those things can be remedied.”
“See that she has what she needs. Keeper Gilchrist will allot a stipend for her upkeep and supplies.”
“Thank you, Master.”
“Dagmar?”
“Yes, Master?”
“Is she beautiful?”
Dagmar frowned, startled.
“I don’t know, Master. She is . . . frightening. And dirty. And sad. But . . . she could be beautiful if . . . someone . . . loved her.” Heat rose to Dagmar’s cheeks. He wasn’t sure where his answer had come from, but Ivo studied him as though the answer had not surprised him in the least.
“Just as long as . . . you . . . don’t love her, Keeper.”
Dagmar flushed again. He had no intention of loving her.
10
Bayr came awake with the melody of his mother in his head. Or mayhaps it was not his mother at all, but the queen, who sang lullabies to Alba the way his mother never had. And this melody was discordant and shrill; the queen’s voice was lovely and sweet. He lay in his bed, trying to imagine the woman who had wielded a shield and a sword as well as any man, yet had died giving life to him. Dagmar said she was beautiful and brave, and he tried to imagine how such a woman would look.
The sound came again, but this time Bayr sat up in his bed. It was not a song but a cry, and not a woman’s cry or an infant’s, but the wail of surprise and the muffled thump of attack. He leaped from his bed, climbing up to the window without thought of weapons or even shoes. Nothing moved in the gardens beneath the queen’s tower, and no lights flickered from the windows. There was always light shining from the gable between the nursery and the queen’s quarters. Something was wrong.
He flitted over rooftops and danced from the ramparts to the ground, scaling the wall between the temple and the palace in a matter of seconds. Another cry and a sudden shout, and he was sprinting to the tower where Alba slept. He’d climbed the tower walls before, when the world slept, simply to see if he could. A toehold here, a swinging clasp of a ledge there, up the side with fingers curled and toes clinging, his eyes on the stones above his head and the window he needed to reach.
The queen cried out, Alba wailed, and Bayr’s fingers tightened even as his left foot slipped and regripped. Then he was up and through the window, hurtling himself toward men who would make a woman scream in the night. Once inside, he felt the first man before he saw him, and crouched to miss his slicing blade. Bayr swung his arm upward and slammed his small fist into the thundering heart of the sword-wielding assailant. The man gurgled and Bayr grasped, filling his hands with the man’s clothes and hurtling him over his head out the open window he’d just entered.
The man had dropped his blade. Bayr felt the cool bite of the metal against his bare toes as he slunk forward, trying to see who else crept down the corridor toward him. The sword was too long, too awkward for the length of Bayr’s arms, and he simply stepped over it. He needed his hands free.
Alba cried, and the queen called for help, and he rushed toward their voices. Through the door to the right were the queen’s chambers. To the left, the nursery, an ornate wooden cradle the centerpiece of the room. He’d seen it in his explorations. He could see it now, gilded, a bed fit for a princess. That’s why they were here, the men who crept in the darkness. He’d known they would come. She was too precious to leave alone. She was the jewel of Saylok, the treasure of the clans, and someone had come for her.
Two men rushed him at once, slinking black shapes in the unlit corridor. He brought their heads together, a satisfying thunk that broke their noses and made their legs wobble, lowering them to his height. He did not think or mourn or even cringe at the crunch of bone or the spray of their blood over his face. Fisting his hands in their braids, he swung them around, dragging them across the floor and propelling them out the window to follow the flight of their recently departed companion. And then there were three more, spilling out of the queen’s chamber. One dragged the queen by her hair, a knife at her throat, another held Alba by her feet like a chicken being prepared for slaughter.