‘Depends what you want.’
‘A little talk,’ the hazelnut replied, already clambering onto the bench. ‘I’m a stranger here.’
‘You don’t say.’
His clothes were as foreign as his accent: heavy folds of threadbare wool heaped on his shoulders, hanging almost to his feet, quite unlike the tunic and breeks of most men in the north. When he sat, Erlan noticed a sprout of white hair across the back of his head.
‘I won’t say no to an ale, young man,’ said the stranger amiably to Leikr. The boy shrugged and poured him a cup.
‘I’ve not heard that accent before,’ said Erlan. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Some way to the south.’
‘Frankia?’
‘No, no.’ The man chuckled. ‘Much further. To the south-east, if we are being precise. Beyond the Great Rivers. Beyond even the Friendly Sea.’
‘The Friendly Sea? Never heard of it.’
‘Some in the north call it the Black Sea, I think. Though why I cannot say since it is as blue as any other.’ The small eyes twinkled with amusement. His little head jerked towards Osvald’s high table. ‘If your lord is to be believed, you sound like an interesting man.’
‘I wouldn’t take what he says too seriously.’
‘And an outsider here like me.’
Erlan shrugged and drank some more.
‘The other kingdom he spoke of – where is it?’
‘Due west from here, across the East Sea. The land of the Sveärs. I was once sworn to their king.’
‘Yet even there you were a stranger.’ A statement, not a question.
Erlan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Perhaps.’
‘It is a lonely fate. To always be a stranger.’
‘Something you would know?’
‘Ha! Of that I do know a little, yes.’ He smiled. ‘But in truth, I was never fully alone.’
Erlan sighed. It seemed the man liked to speak in half-riddles. ‘What’s your name, friend?’
‘Vassili. And yours?’
‘Erlan.’
The man folded his hands before him and leaned a little closer. ‘No. It is not.’
The nape of Erlan’s neck prickled. ‘What do you mean it’s not?’
‘Erlan is not your given name. What is your true name?’
Erlan grimaced, feeling the chafe of his oldest and most precious oath. But he would not speak of his past. Not to this nor any man. ‘You tell me.’
‘Every outlander comes from somewhere. A place where he is known, where he is someone’s son.’ Vassili smiled. ‘Even. . . a chosen son?’
Erlan jerked back from the table, startling Aska whose muzzle still rested in his lap. ‘Who the Hel are you? Do you know me?’
‘No,’ Vassili replied, still calm. ‘Not in the way you think. I know only what I see.’
‘It’s no business of yours to see anything.’
‘I cannot help what I am shown.’
Erlan took a sullen swig and peered into the bottom of his cup. Chosen son. That was the meaning of his first name, Hakan. The name his father had given him. But Hakan is dead. Erlan walked in his shoes now.
‘Why are you so reluctant to speak of your past? Have you so much to hide?’
‘I swore I would not speak of it.’
‘My friend, the one from whom you hide most is yourself. But there is one who sees all that is in you.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve bound yourself with these words of yours.’ He paused and cocked his little head, as if listening to something. ‘And yet this is not the greatest curse in you. There is another.’
‘What curse?’ scoffed Adalrik. ‘What’re you on about, old man?’ He tapped his head at his brother. Leikr laughed, although with more nervousness than mirth.
The stranger ignored them. Instead he stared at Erlan.
‘What do you mean, another?’
‘Your lord spoke of a journey into the depths below. What did you find down there?’
Erlan’s restless glance shifted between the boys then back to the bald man. ‘Things you wouldn’t believe. . . I wouldn’t expect you to.’
‘Oh, I believe in things of the darkness. Just as I do those of the light. Tell me.’
‘I saw men who had become less than men. The darkness had made monsters of them.’
‘And?’
‘And their lord. He called himself the Witch King. A Watcher. Azazel. . .’ He murmured the name, as if speaking it too loudly might summon him there. ‘I killed him.’
Without warning, Vassili snatched Erlan’s wrist, his grip like iron tongs. ‘Dear God! You drank his blood, didn’t you?’ His eyes were round as shields.
Erlan looked at him carefully. This man couldn’t know that. No one could. ‘What if I did?’ he said softly.
‘It was the blood of demons.’
Leikr sucked a startled breath.
‘What?’ Erlan shook his head, suddenly confused.
‘Listen to me, friend. And hear me.’ Vassili leaned in. ‘Unless you drink the blood of the king of kings, you shall be a slave to that other, who called himself a king. You shall walk the Earth, cursed to wander. Hear me. Only the blood of the king of kings will set you free.’
A voice rang out from the high platform. ‘Where is the holy man? Where is this priest from the south?’ It was Osvald’s. Evidently he was finished with his thrall and looking for new distraction. ‘Up here! You bring a message. Well, now’s your time to speak. Damn him – where is the fellow?’
Vassili’s eyes darted to the platform and back to Erlan. ‘Seek him in the south. Do you understand me?’ But Erlan was as perplexed as ever. ‘Seek him there. And you will find him.’
‘Aha – there you are!’ Osvald at last caught sight of Vassili in their gloomy corner. ‘Come up here! It’s ill manners to keep your host waiting!’
‘My time has come.’ The twinkle returned to Vassili’s eyes. ‘God be with you.’
‘God?’ Erlan muttered after him. ‘What god?’
Vassili had been speaking a long while before Erlan truly heard him. But gradually the man’s words filtered into his troubled mind.
The little man carried a message from another – from his lord, he said, with a name far stranger even than his own. But this lord of his sounded like none that Erlan had ever known. He
