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return, with dogs and children jumping about making noise, with Nessa failing to hold back her tears, and Eyvind himself doing his best to hug everyone at once while burdened with axe, sword and large pack of belongings. He was not a man who asked others to fetch and carry for him, not even now he bore such authority in the islands. When he had married Nessa, he had allied himself to the last royal princess of the Folk. This had conferred a status above that of ordinary men, and Eyvind had built on it by dedicating himself to the establishment of a lasting peace between the two races that had once been bitter enemies—the Norse invaders and the Folk who had inhabited the islands since ancient times. It was due more to Eyvind than anyone that the two now lived so amicably side by side, and indeed together. It was almost possible to forget that it had all begun in blood and terror. As for Nessa herself, she had never lost the respect due to her as both priestess and leader of her tribe, a rallying point in times of terrible trial. Now Eanna was priestess, Nessa no longer enacted the mysteries nor withdrew to the places of ritual. She had her husband, her four healthy daughters, her household and her community, and played a part in councils and negotiations, as befitted her special status. For all that, there was a sorrow in it. Eanna had been the first child for Eyvind and Nessa. The next had been a son, and the sea had taken Kinart before he’d seen five years in the world. After him there were only girls: Creidhe herself, then Brona and Ingigerd. That was not as it should have been; not as the ancestors foretold it.
    Despite their near-royal status in the islands, Creidhe’s family dwelt in a compound that was more farm than palace, a sprawling set of low stone buildings surrounded by walled infields, somewhat east of the tidal island known as the Whaleback. The Whaleback had once been the center of power in the Light Isles. Nessa had lived there; her uncle had been a great king. When the Norsemen first sailed out of the east, Margaret and Nessa and Eyvind had been not much older than Creidhe was now. That voyage of discovery across the sea from Rogaland to the sheltered waterways of the Light Isles had begun as a search for a life of peace and prosperity. It had turned, in the space of one bloody year, into a bitter, destructive conflict that had come to an end only after most of Nessa’s folk had been cruelly slain. It was Eyvind and Nessa, Norse warrior and priestess of the Folk, who had won that peace: the two of them side by side.
    What different lives they had had, Creidhe thought, watching her mother and father as they stole a quiet moment together. Nessa brushed Eyvind’s cheek with her fingers; he touched his lips to her hair. The way they looked at each other brought tears to Creidhe’s eyes. Their youth had been full of adventure: journeys, battles, struggle and achievement. Looking at them now, she could hardly imagine that. One did not see one’s own parents as heroes, even if that was exactly what they were. One simply saw them as always there, an essential part of one’s existence. Where would one be without that?
    She had to ask them. But not yet. Supper first. There were men and women who lived in the household: housecarls, Eyvind called them, in the manner of his homeland. These were capable folk who seemed almost part of the family. The women had become used to Creidhe taking charge in the kitchen, especially when she wished to prepare a special meal for her father. Today someone had been fishing, and there was fresh cod; Creidhe sent Brona out to the garden for leeks, and fetched garlic and onions herself. Small Ingigerd was soon persuaded that cutting vegetables and stirring sauces and grinding herbs would be tremendous fun, and it was possible for Nessa and Eyvind to retreat to the inner room for some time alone. Creidhe told her sisters a story as she prepared the fish. It