The air was suffused with the smell of damp thatch and rotting timbers. Instead of rushes as we tended to use in England, I noticed the floor was covered with a loose scattering of woodchips and moss, which clearly hadn’t been replaced in some time, if the mouse-droppings everywhere were anything to judge by.‘His fortress is far to the north of here, among what are known as the Suthreyjar,’ Magnus said, satisfied now that we hadn’t come to taunt him, and having accepted my offer of silver.‘The Suthreyjar?’ I asked.‘The islands that lie off the coast of northern Britain,’ Snorri offered by way of explanation. ‘They used to be under the control of the jarls of Orkaneya and the kings of Mann, but now they are havens for pirates, the dominions of petty warlords. Those are dangerous seas that surround them, and yet that’s the way one must travel to reach Ysland and the frozen lands beyond.’‘Haakon is one of those pirates,’ Magnus said, and there was spite in his voice.
