There was no obvious successor to Horn, just as there hadn’t been when he and my father fought. The difference was that no one really wanted the job this time. No man, that is.But before the tribe could even think of these things, there was the business of the departing dead to see to.We took Horn’s body on a wooden stretcher to the circle of rock fingers on the hill above the bay, known as Bird Rock. Everyone went, as is the law. Even Gudrun managed to walk up the hill—her first journey outside the village since her accident.Mouse walked next to me. I remember she was silent, so silent. Perhaps I should have realized then that something serious had changed in her. Something had happened to her when Ragnald had . . . what? I’m still not sure what he did to her, but he had changed her somehow.She had never been loud, but now she was quieter than ever. If it had been possible, I would have said she was even quieter than when she first came to us. But I did not realize this fully, my mind empty; I felt little.
