The man Haldor sent to the inn with information about a ship told Eilaf that to cross straight to Sweden was impossible. We would have to sail to Denmark first and thence travel onward to our homeland. I liked this bluff Dane, named Niels. He toiled as a leather worker for a business run by his wife-brother. Seeing Eilaf carried a hand-seax thrust behind his belt without a sheath, he measured the blade with his thumb from joint to nail and promised to make him one.
“I’ll bring you something too, young man,” he said with a grin, while he ruffled my hair.
Niels’s gift turned out to be a pouch for my belt. Well crafted with neat stitching, it bore a stylised raven’s head on the flap. I use it to this day, although it bears signs of age. Inside, within one of the three compartments, nestled
