Lack of family appeared to be an explanation for theft here, ibn Bakir thought wryly. That seemed to be what Ofnir was conveying. He knew someone back home who would find this diverting over a glass of good wine.

"So he took the horse? Where? Into the woods?" Ibn Bakir gestured at the pines beyond the fields.

Ofnir shrugged. He pointed out into the square. Ibn Bakir saw that men were now mounting horses there—not always smoothly—and riding towards the open town gate and the plank bridge across the ditch. Others ran or walked beside them. He heard shouts. Anger, yes, but also something else: zest, liveliness. The promise of sport.

"He will soon found," Ofnir said, in what passed here in the northlands for Asharite.

Ibn Bakir nodded. He watched two men gallop past. One screamed suddenly as he passed and swung his axe in vicious, whistling circles over his head, for no evident reason.

"What will they do to him?" he asked, not caring very much. Ofnir snorted. Spoke quickly in Erling to the others, evidently repeating the question.

There was a burst of laughter. One of them, in an effusion of good humour, punched ibn Bakir on the shoulder.

The merchant, regaining his balance, rubbing at his numbed arm, realized that he'd asked a naive question.

Blood-eagle death, maybe," said Ofnir, flashing yellow teeth in a wide grin, making a complex two-handed gesture the southern merchant was abruptly pleased not to understand. "You see? her you see?"

Firaz ibn Bakir, a long way from home, shook his head.

+

He could blame his father, and curse him, even go to the women at the compound outside the walls and pay to have them evoke seithr. The volur might then send a night-spirit to possess his father, wherever he was. But there was something cowardly about that, and a warrior could not be a coward and still go to the gods when he died. Besides which, he had no money.