It was the seventeenth day of February, 1432, and the wind still carried a bite that had nothing to do with the frost. Remy had been called to a tavern within the city on account of a drunken rabble. The guards, though practical men with little patience for theatrics, had said the fellow had beaten more than his share and they wished for the matter to be settled before anyone else was hurt. And that he was a nobleman and they can't do much about it and could only ask him. It was fascinating to Remy how they approached them with this, as if he was truly righteous to agree, so he rode his destrier Morgan to the tavern.

  The tavern squatted low beneath a cluster of eaves, its smoke-stained timbers thick with the odor of ale and oil. Voices spilled from the open doorway, rough as a fist. A circle of men parted as Remy entered, their faces lit by guttering candlelight and curiosity. In the center of that spoiled warmth a tall man stood roaring in a language Remy knew as well, Elfdalian, a rough, old northern tongue. The man wore bear fur over chainmail, his head half-shaved with the remaining hair braided into a wolf’s tail.

  The Norseman’s voice rolled over the room. “Cowards all! Cowards!” he thundered. Men spat, men shrank back. He had the look of one who expected fear.

  Remy dismounted and handed Morgan’s reins to a stable boy with a curt nod. The horse obeyed when Remy gave it a fixed glare. He stepped forward. The man’s eyes snapped toward him and, for a half-second, flicked over the armor before he barked a curse in Elfdalian. Remy replied in the same tongue, not in anger but in the same currency as insult.

  “Your mother had seven fathers and seven husbands,” Remy said, the remark delivered with that slight, sardonic ease he favored.

  The Norseman blinked, surprised, then laughed himself, more from the surprise that a stranger could speak his language than from the insult. He barked a question about Remy’s learning, and Remy answered, as he always did, that he learned what the road taught him.

  The man, Jan Einar Thorsen, he said, strode forward, axe already in hand.

  There was an insolent glint in his eye.

  Remy looked at him steadily and, when the moment was right, said. “Ek skora tik til hólmgangs.”

  Jan’s eyes widened, then a grin spread across his face. He accepted.

  The tavern became a ring. Men cleared chairs with rough hands and cursed the cold, making room for the bout. The guard who had first warned Remy watched with a soldier’s interest. Remy unfastened his sword and drew it from the scabbard with the quiet authority of someone who had practiced the motion until his hand knew the steel by memory. The axe in Jan’s grip caught the candlelight and threw it back in jagged sparks.

  Jan hurled the axe. It made a short, drunken arc, it was less a throw than a boast. Remy’s left hand snapped out. He caught the haft cleanly, fingers closed around rough wood, feeling the bark and the grain, the axe sailed out of Jan’s reach and thudded against the far wall.

  Jan lunged with a long, wild sweep of his sword. Remy ducked the arc. He moved fast. His pommel struck an abrupt, hard kiss against Jan’s ribs. Jan twisted to cut at the throat, his eyes full of drunken malice. Remy’s foot found the gap he’d left, and with a motion quick and precise, he shot a blade forward to strike the back of the man’s knee. The steel found its mark and the limb buckled. Jan’s body went half to ground, scrambling for purchase but giving space to the next sequence.

  Remy had already half-sworded his blade then pressed it against Jan’s thigh for leverage, and used the scabbard-covered sword as a lever. He drove Jan down with a controlled shove. The drunk rolled, trying to grasp a new angle. Remy sidestepped, shoulder-checked him with a shove that carried the weight of the man’s armor and Remy’s own. The tavern smells crowded his nostrils, ale, bile, smoke, and Jan vomited where he fell, bile and ale mixing into the straw and dirt. Jan spat and, furious and unsteady, raised his sword two-handed to cleave Remy’s neck.

  Remy pinched his sword between arm and body, his left hand snapped up, seizing Jan’s wrist. The tavern held its collective breath. Remy’s right fist drove into the same tendinous spot then followed with a backhand that was not showery but functional. The strike found flesh above the ear and jaw. Jan’s eyes crossed, his grip loosened, and the sword clattered from his fingers to the floor with a metallic ring.

  The blow was final. Jan slumped, conscious one heartbeat later and then not at all. His form lay splayed on the dirt and straw, mouth open, breath shallow. The room erupted, some with cheers, some with curses. A few of Jan’s companions lunged forward with fists and curses, but the guards had seen enough and stepped in, hauling men away by collars. Remy put his boot briefly on Jan’s shoulder to ensure he was not playing dead. When the guard approached, Remy ordered them to take the man’s arms and his mount and bring both to the palace.

  The goodwife, an elderly woman who ran the tavern and had the kind of voice that could scold a priest, came forward, tears running in laughter and relief.

  “You saved us a beating and worse,” she said, gratitude caught in her throat.

  The rest of the patrons made crude offers, but Remy waved them down.

  Some tried to kick the Jan down, but he stopped them.

  “Leave it,” he said. “Do not make another man’s shame a sport.”

  The guard obeyed, binding Jan’s wrists with rough twine. They argued about his treatment. Jan’s men protested, but the drunken cohort had lost its stomach for more trouble when faced with Remy’s dull glare.

  Remy stood and flexed his hands. He felt the aftertaste of exertion, a slow heat beneath the skin and the cold that had crept in as his body cooled.

  He gave a glance to the stable boy and the waiting destrier. Morgan stamped, annoyed at the stable boy, nostrils puffing in white breath.

  “Bring him to a cell,” Remy told the guard in the blunt voice he kept for commands. “His horse too. The palace will decide what he merits.”

  The men hoisted Jan up and, with more insult than care, tumbled him toward the door. The tavern watched them go, some clapped, some spat on the floor, some looked away as if ashamed at their own appetite for violence.

  Remy turned and walked slowly back to Morgan. The stable boy handed him the reins. Remy gave him a coin for the trouble.

  He rode back to the palace at a measured pace, not fast but not slow. The snow had begun to fall again in fat flakes, blotting the world in soft white. At the palace gate he handed the reins to a waiting groom and watched as the guard led Jan away.

  Inside the great hall, he shed his cloak and gloves near the hearth. He walked to the small basin where a servant offered him water to wash. He let the water run over his knuckles, letting the blood and the grime run away.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Jehan awaited him in the courtyard, eyes narrowed with that look she reserved for either worry or annoyance. She had watched from a doorway when it was safe to do so, closer to the doorway than any fool would have dared. “Was it necessary to bring him here?” she asked without preamble.

  Remy caught her gaze and allowed himself the faintest smile. “Yes.” He paused, the word heavy with more meanings than she might see. “He will live. The guards will decide the rest.”

  She nodded, relieving the worry from her shoulders.

  When the Norseman woke, Remy visited him. The cell was cold, its air stale with damp straw and the iron scent of rust. A thin blade of sunlight cut through the narrow slit of a window, laying a white stripe across the man’s cheek. That cheek was swollen from the blow Remy gave. Seeing Remy, the Norseman stirred, squinting as if to place a face to the memory of pain.

  Remy expected curses, the bitterness of humiliation, but instead the man smiled, an unsteady, almost boyish grin. He looked at Remy as if greeting an old friend.

  “Cleared your head?” Remy said.

  “Aye, Lordling,” the Norseman rasped, his voice roughened by sleep and liquor. “In my years, I’ve never felt a blow as sure as that! Haha, I did not think the men of Christendom would still have a Lordling like you.”

  “Out with it,” Remy said, wrapping himself in his blue cloak. It was more from habit than from cold. His breath misted faintly as he spoke, while also noticing the silver cross on the man’s chest. “You are a Christian?”

  “I am,” the man replied, straightening his shoulders despite the manacles that held his wrists together. “Why do you ask?”

  “Then what do you want from me?” Remy asked, his tone calm, measured, without any ornament of emotion.

  The Norseman tilted his head, studying him as if weighing a choice. “I hear that you are looking for men to go to Miklag?rd. We came here looking for employment.”

  Without the drunkenness, the man spoke clearly, his northern accent less a snarl and each word deliberate. His eyes were a pale, cold blue, but behind them was a certain light that Remy recognized, the hunger, not for drink or comfort, but for meaning.

  “Your name was Jan Einar Thorsen?” Remy asked. “You are a nobleman?”

  Jan nodded. “I am, though I am the third son. My elder brothers hold the land and the hall. I aim to get employment, gather riches, and go back home with it.” He grinned, his teeth uneven but bright.

  Remy looked him over. The man’s bearing betrayed breeding despite the roughness of travel. His shoulders were broad and scarred, his hands thick and calloused. “Then you should know,” Remy said, “that I aim to go on a pilgrimage. I do not need bodyguards.”

  Jan Einar laughed softly, the sound like gravel in a pail. “That would be foolish,” he said. “You go to Turk-infested lands and do not bring extra steel? I admit you are of strong arms, but that is just plain foolish.”

  Remy said nothing. It was foolish, yes, but he had his reasons. The fewer men around him, the less attention he drew. He could move freely that way. Men with swords drew eyes and a lone pilgrim drew none. And yet, with Jehan around, the situation was already precarious enough. He thought of the logistics, rations, pay, horses, egos. The moment they became his companions, their lives would be tied to his. To lead them would mean to bear their deaths as well. There was merit in company, but there was also burden, and Remy had carried enough burdens for several lifetimes. Though that could change, with the promise of the Archbishop.

  Jan leaned forward, resting his bound hands on his knees. “Truthfully,” he said, “I want to be employed because they say you can speak many tongues. Not only are you a man worth fighting beside, you are a healer. I’d fight with a man who can patch me up when I’m beaten.”

  Remy gave a faint smile, one corner of his mouth lifting. “It seems that the guards are talkative.”

  “They are,” Jan said with a bark of laughter. “They praise you a lot. They talk of how you’ve ruthlessly trained the squires and soldiers, how you’ve shown them discipline and skill they’d never seen before. Half-awed, half-feared, but very respected.”

  “Is that so?” Remy said flatly, his voice neither pleased nor displeased.

  Jan nodded, grinning through the bruises. “Aye. They speak of you like one speaks of a saint or a specter. A man who fights like ten, heals like a monk, and speaks like a scholar.”

  Remy’s eyes flicked toward the door of the cell, where the light fell across the floor. “Still,” he said, “I do not see the need to accept your offer. If you’ve learned that there was a call for those who are willing to go to the Holy Land, then why would I need you?”

  Jan tilted his head. “How about we make an arrangement?”

  Remy waited, saying nothing.

  “I will follow you to the Holy Land,” Jan said, voice steady now. “My men and I will act as your escort, and you will not pay us a single coin.”

  Remy studied him. The man spoke earnestly, but there was calculation in it too. Free service was never free.

  “You are expecting a lot of trouble,” Remy said quietly. “When that trouble finds you, it will also find me. Why would I want that?”

  Jan chuckled, shaking his head. “You are rather cowardly for a man who can throw knights and Norsemen into the dirt with ease.”

  Remy’s eyes met his, calm and cold. “Don’t mistake my caution for cowardice,” he said. “I can see that you want to make use of me, and I choose not to let you do it.”

  For a heartbeat, silence filled the cell. The candle between them flickered. Somewhere beyond the walls, a church bell tolled the hour, the sound slow and deep, echoing down the corridors of the palace.

  Jan’s grin widened. “Well,” he said finally, “I tried.” He leaned back, his shoulders brushing against the stone. “Just think about it, Lordling. If you change your mind, you’ll find no better steel between here and the Bosporus.”

  Remy regarded him for a long moment with a measured, silent, impassive gaze. There was something in Jan’s tone that reminded him of a dozen men he had met before. Warriors, mercenaries, pilgrims without shrines, each looking for redemption by another name.

  He turned toward the doorway, his cloak whispering softly against the straw. “I will think about it,” he said.

  Jan’s laughter followed him out, low and full of life.

  Outside, the corridors were lit dimly by oil lamps, their smoke curling into the vaulted ceiling. The winter morning beyond the stained windows was still pale, a sky the color of pewter. Remy paused, adjusting his gloves, and looked once toward the narrow slit of light that marked the cell he had just left.

  He thought of Jan’s words, of strength, of faith, of foolish courage. Of the strange, persistent will that lived in men who had nothing to lose. It was the same fire that burned in the hearts of soldiers on the eve of battle, of monks who walked barefoot into the desert, of sailors who sought the edge of the world. It was a dangerous light, beautiful and destructive in equal measure.

  Remy walked slowly toward the courtyard. The sound of his boots on the flagstones echoed faintly. The palace had begun to stir, the clatter of servants, the low murmur of priests in the chapel, the faint whinny of horses beyond the gate.

  Jehan was there, as she often was in the mornings, tending to Morgan’s tack. The destrier stood patiently under her hands, its black coat gleaming faintly in the cold light. She looked up when Remy approached.

  “The Norseman?” she asked.

  “Awake,” he said.

  “And?”

  “He speaks plainly when sober.”

  Jehan brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Will you take him?”

  Remy glanced at her, then at the sky. “No,” he said after a moment. “Maybe.”

  Jehan nodded. She did not press. She understood, as few did, that Remy’s refusals were never final, merely postponed until reason outweighed instinct.