“Tell me what you’ve learned,” he ordered his shieldmaiden, a captain of his guard, Thori realized.
“We found Gunnar’s body three days ago, my Lord. Skinned from neck to ankle, but his flesh was left untouched. Myvalafollowed his life’s essence to Egil’s house.”
“What did you find there?”
“I had my guards search his house, the warehouses too.”
“Egil’s trading ventures are well known to me.”
Thori couldn’t help but look up at Njord again. If the accused was familiar to him, it made the whole trial much more complicated, and Thori knew many chieftains who’d hold theirhand over their friends, the wealthy and the influential. But somehow, he couldn’t imagine Njord behaving like this.
“It took a while, but we found what we were looking for,” the guard continued. “A purse made from human skin, my lord. Still bloody, with runes carved into the flesh. When we tested it,”—she swallowed hard—“golden coins appeared inside as if from nowhere. Fresh-minted and shining.”
Murmurs rippled through the crowd, but Njord’s voice cut through them like a blade.
“Show it to me.”
She gestured to one of her guards, and the man stepped forward to offer Njord a wooden box. And Njord, madman that he was, reached inside to pull the hideous evidence into the open. Thori’s stomach turned at the sight.
“A coin purse that never empties,” Njord said flatly, fixing the accused with a glare. “I recognize the spell. Did you make this?”
“Well, he was a simple fisher. He owed me money, too,” Egil said. “I made sure that nobody was going to miss him. He leaves no family behind!”
“Why would I care about your excuses?”
“And theseiðrworks, my Lord! It could make us all rich!”
“Silence!”
The single word rang through the hall with such authority that even Thori flinched. Njord rose from his throne, and suddenly he seemed less like a man and more like the force of nature he was: storm and sea and unstoppable tide.
“You murdered a free man for profit,” Njord said. “And you dared to practiceblótseiðrin my domain!”
He stepped down from the dais, and the absence of his touch felt like a loss.
“There is only one punishment for such crimes.”
“Please, my Lord, I can—”
“Death.” Njord talked over the doomed man as if he hadn’t spoken at all. “Death by water, as befits one of your kind.”
Egil’s enraged roar echoed off the walls as the guards seized him.
“Put him in the drowning cage. The tide will claim him in the evening.”
Drowning cage? What was Njord talking about?
He must have made some sound, because Njord’s attention snapped to him. For a heartbeat, their eyes met, then Njord returned to his throne as if nothing had happened.
“Bring the next case,” he commanded.
But Thori barely heard the rest of the proceedings. His mind was fixed on the image of an iron cage in front of the fortress’ walls, on the sound of rising water, on the horrible possibility that this fate might await him too. Was this why Njord had brought him here? To let him see what happened to those who crossed the Lord of Nóatún?
When Njord’s hand settled on his shoulder again, Thori couldn’t suppress his flinch.
“Easy,” Njord murmured, his thumb stroking across Thori’s nape. “The threat is dealt with.”
By the time the last petitioner was heard, Thori’s nerves were strung taut as a bowstring. When Njord finally dismissed the court, he wanted nothing more than to escape the stares and whispers.
