room serving as the jarl’s office, where the tax records, trade ledgers and all official documents from Stairon were kept. It seemed to Einar that his father wanted to discuss with his eldest son what to do about the ship moored in the imperial harbour. His mother was probably with Athil and did not yet know what had happened, for which the imperial authorities should be grateful. Were it not for that, the judgement of the gods would no longer be needed. As for the rest of his older siblings, they had probably gathered in the twins’ room, as it was the largest. And that was where Einar decided to go, assuming his brothers would soon start looking for him. He wasn’t far off the mark, and as he entered Kari and Leif’s room, he nearly bumped into Surt.
‘There you are,’ Surt breathed. ‘At least we won’t have to search all over the house and the neighbourhood for you.’
‘I told you that…’
‘…he’d come to us himself?’, the twins asked, sitting on the sofa placed in the middle of the room.
‘Was it…’
‘…anything to…’
‘…get worked up about?’
‘Okay, you were right. There was nothing to get worked up about.’ Surt rolled his eyes without turning to face the twins. ‘Now come in.’ Without waiting for Einar’s reaction, his older brother grabbed him by the arm, practically dragged him inside and sat him down between Kari and Leif. ‘And tell us what’s happened since this morning.’ Surt pulled up an armchair and placed it between Toinen and the door, effectively blocking his escape route.
Einar glanced at his brothers and noticed the tension on their faces, though they were trying to hide it. It was rare for the brothers to be so worried about situations like this. More often than not, however, if there was any sort of fight in the harbour, it was a brawl that quickly turned into an interesting story over dinner. Young Toinen sighed softly and, slowly and in great detail, recounted everything that had happened since that morning.
