The Rule. Jack Colman

darted around the deserted hilltop. ‘Do you have somewhere we can speak?’ he asked.

      Olaf smiled, and swept an arm out to his side. ‘This sodden earth is my bed, the leaky sky my blanket, and what little we have to discuss we can do on this very spot. The wind is strong today, but even a voice as treacherous as yours will not carry as far as your father’s town.’

      Hákon scowled, but made no reply. He glanced around behind his shoulder, and then slid from the saddle with a splash. Short, Olaf remembered, narrow-shouldered. And yet strangely arrogant.

      The visitor did not appear willing to speak, so Olaf made a show of leaning out to one side and studying the rear of Hákon’s horse. ‘You didn’t bring your little pack pony with you,’ he observed.

      ‘I need some more time,’ Hákon replied. ‘My brothers are yet to return.’ He was staring away at the ground to his left, barely parting his lips. Some men might have pleaded the words, but this one looked like he was sulking.

      ‘I had noticed,’ Olaf confirmed. He paused, and ran a thoughtful tongue along his teeth. ‘You said five days.’

      ‘They must have been delayed. They’re not used to being at sea.’

      ‘They’re not delayed,’ Olaf told him. ‘They’re gone. They’ll have fled while they had the chance.’

      ‘You don’t know them,’ Hákon responded, somewhat haughtily. ‘They will come back.’

      A single cloth bag was tied to the horse’s saddle. Olaf pointed at it. ‘What’s that?’

      Hákon gave a moody shrug, embarrassed. ‘A small offering, to make amends for the delay.’

      ‘Fetch it here.’

      While Hákon untied the bag, Olaf glanced up at the huddling clouds. He wore loose brown trousers, grubbied up to the knees with mud, and a coal-black cloak that billowed around him in the wind. Both garments were heavy with damp, and his boots were so sodden that they wheezed like old men every time he placed his feet. On their first night in the hills, he and his men had sat around laughing beside blazing fires. But the rain had fallen near enough constantly ever since, and the thin mountain soil was too rocky and windswept to host any natural shelter.

      Hákon crunched across the gravel and held the bag at arm’s length. Olaf took it and rifled through. It contained one roll of cloth, two of unspun wool, and a small wooden casket not much bigger than his fist.

      ‘What’s in the container?’

      Hákon cleared his throat. ‘Salt.’

      ‘Salt,’ Olaf repeated. He stared down into the bag, the cold wind flapping his wet cloak against his face, and if he’d been alone he might even have chuckled at the lunacy concocted when pride and growing age were thrown together.

      After thirty-eight long winters, Olaf Gudrødsson ought to have been sat in his longhall in Geirstad, listening to the crackle of a brawling fire and gazing into a good cup of ale. His battles were fought, his name well known; except here, it would seem. Yet the boy had stirred something within him, he was big enough to admit that. Was it jealousy? A desire to show the upstart how a real man did a job? Or even fear? When a man wakes up content, without ambition, he sometimes fears that the Gods will deem his life has run its course, especially when confronted with one so young and full of vigour. In truth, Olaf sensed that he might never really know the reason why. Why, when his young half-brother Hálfdanr had ridden through his gates and said that he was looking for an ally to help extend his kingdom of Agóir westwards, Olaf had risen from the comfort of his chair and, a few days later, found himself marching through the drizzle at the head of the army.