“Hush.”
They hurried across a broader avenue and stood in the narrow alley waiting for a score of mounted soldiers wearing the stallion of Wayland to pass before they scurried through the sludge to a narrow path between two-storied wood houses. The walls tilted awkwardly, shadowing their path, and the shadows made it almost as dim as twilight as they sidestepped refuse left lying in the cracked mud. Because it was cold, it did not stink, but it would, when spring brought warm weather.
“I’ll never get used to cities,” muttered Ivar.
“It’s not so bad,” said Erkanwulf. “A man’s freer here, where he can get rid of his past. And safer too, inside walls.”
“Only if those who are guarding you are trustworthy.”
His companion chuckled. “True enough. Wait here.” He left Ivar.
The side street debouched into a square at whose center stood a post where men could be tied for whipping. Beyond that lay the barracks; Ivar recognized them from his brief visit to Autun two years back. It was getting dark in truth. An aura of red lined the western sky, what he could discern of it beyond buildings and in the shadow of the clouds. Erkanwulf’s cloaked figure skulking at the barracks door, and vanishing inside, was rather like that of the shades they’d encountered in the forest that awful night last autumn. Ivar shuddered and wrapped his cloak more tightly around his torso as the chill of night crept into his bones. He’d been cold for a long time, and when he stood still he felt it most of all.
No one moved in the deserted square. Now and again dogs barked. Wheels squeaked as a wagon passed down a distant street. Someone coughed, and a moment later a man came out of a house, stopped to look at Ivar, and strode away past the barracks, soon lost as night concealed his tracks. With so many people crammed all into one small space, surely there should be more noise, like the pastures and fields and compound of his father’s estate which had always been busy with coming and going except in the worst winter and spring storms.
He shivered and stamped his feet. They had agreed that if Erkanwulf was gone too long, then Ivar would retreat back to the cottage in the woods, but just as he was beginning to get really anxious the side door to the barracks cracked open and a figure slipped out and hurried across to him. Ivar groped for his short sword and began to draw it, but relaxed as Erkanwulf trotted up, breath steaming.