THE WOLF

[Keeper]

The Vargr

Chapter One: The Cobbler’s Daughter

The rain had stopped an hour before, but the streets around the London docks still glistened beneath the yellow glow of the gas lamps. Water ran in narrow streams along the edges of the cobbles, carrying coal dust, horse dung and the other less pleasant remnants of the city towards the river. The evening tide was coming in on the Thames, and with it came the familiar smell of tar, wet timber, smoke and rotting things that had no business being anywhere near a respectable nose. Beyond the warehouses, a ship's bell sounded twice, followed by the distant creak of rigging and the muffled shouting of men unloading cargo by lantern light.

Max Bygraves pulled his coat tighter around himself as he stepped away from the cobbler's shop. He had stayed longer than he had intended, although he could hardly bring himself to regret it. Ingred had walked him to the door herself, and they had stood beneath the little wooden awning while the last drops of rain fell from its edge. They had talked about nothing particularly important, which was precisely why Max had enjoyed it so much. There had been no discussion of politics, no arguments about the latest scientific marvel, no tedious conversation about business or money. Just Ingred laughing at something he had said, and then smiling at him in a way that had left him feeling considerably braver than he actually was. He had made it almost halfway to the corner before realising he was still smiling, and even then it took him another few steps to persuade himself that he ought to stop looking like an idiot in the middle of the street.

That was when he noticed the sailors.

Four of them were gathered outside a public house opposite, broad-shouldered men in heavy working clothes with the unmistakable appearance of men who spent more time aboard ships than in drawing rooms. One sat on an upturned barrel, another leaned against the wall with his arms folded, while the remaining two drank from mugs and talked loudly in a language Max could not follow. He had heard enough Norwegian spoken by dockworkers to recognise its general sound, though he could never have said which particular part of Norway they came from. Ingred would probably have known. She seemed to know everybody around here, from the captains who brought their ships into port to the old women who sold pies from baskets near the market.

One of the men noticed Max and said something to his companions. Their laughter followed him across the street, and though he could not make out the words, he had a fairly good idea of their subject. He looked straight ahead and continued walking, unwilling to give them the satisfaction of seeing that they had attracted his attention. He had no desire to become acquainted with them, and certainly no wish to discover whether their interest in Ingred extended to deciding who was permitted to visit her.

"Englishman," one called after him.

Max pretended not to hear and increased his pace. Another voice followed, louder this time, and he caught the scrape of boots against the wet cobbles as someone left the shelter of the public house. He glanced towards the road and saw a hansom cab approaching through the mist, its horse picking its way around a shallow puddle. Max raised his hand and stepped towards the kerb, calling out to the driver, but the fellow either failed to see him or decided that stopping was not worth the effort. The cab rattled past, sending a fan of dirty water across the road, and disappeared around the corner.

Max lowered his arm with a sigh. "Bloody marvellous," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else, and turned towards the direction of the next cab stand.

The footsteps behind him had stopped. Before he could turn, a hand closed around his shoulder, gripping the cloth of his coat firmly enough to make the intention clear. Max looked down at the fingers and then slowly faced the man behind him. He was large, with a broad, weather-reddened face and a thick blond beard that remained damp from the rain. There was drink in his eyes, but not so much that he had lost control of himself. Max had encountered enough drunken men to know that the truly troublesome ones were often those who could still think clearly enough to choose their trouble.

"You deaf?" the sailor asked.

"No," Max replied, attempting to keep his voice steady.

"Good." The man gave his coat a small tug, drawing him a little closer. Two of his companions had joined them, one standing just behind the big fellow and the other moving to block the way back towards the public house. Max looked from one face to the next, suddenly conscious of the empty stretch of pavement around them. The nearest pedestrians had taken an interest in shop windows and doorways, while a carter on the opposite side of the road seemed determined to find something fascinating about his horse's harness.

"Look, I don't want any trouble," Max said. "I'm on my way home."

The big sailor grinned, revealing a gap between his front teeth. "Neither do we."

There was something about the way he said it that made Max certain the opposite was true. He considered trying to laugh it off, but the men's expressions gave him little encouragement. Instead, he glanced back towards the cobbler's shop, whose door had closed behind him, and decided that the most sensible course was to leave before somebody did something they might regret.

"If this is about Ingred," he said, "you can speak to her yourself."

The grin faded from the sailor's face. He looked at his companions before returning his attention to Max, as though the young Englishman's answer had confirmed something unpleasant. "You were with her."

"Yes."

"Why?"

Max stared at him, wondering whether the man genuinely required an explanation. "Because I was visiting her."

The other sailors laughed, and the youngest stepped closer. He was leaner than his companions, perhaps nearer Max's own age, but there was a particular unpleasantness in the confidence with which he looked him over. "She likes English boys now?"

"I wouldn't know."

"You were inside a long time."

"Yes."

"Why?"

Max felt his patience beginning to fray. "Because I was visiting her," he repeated, more sharply this time. "I don't see what business it is of yours."

The big sailor gave him a little shove. It was not enough to knock him over or even to cause much pain; it was simply a reminder that the men around him had decided they were entitled to push him about. Max stepped backwards, trying to keep his balance on the slick cobbles, and looked from one man to the next. He had no weapon, no particular skill at fighting, and no reason to believe that the people watching from a distance would intervene if matters became serious. He had spent much of his life believing that a calm answer and a little courtesy could resolve most disagreements. The docklands were proving an inconvenient place to test that theory.

"I'm leaving," he said, turning away.

A hand caught the back of his coat. Max pulled himself free and spun around, more irritated now than frightened. "I said I'm leaving."

The youngest sailor stepped forward before he could move again. The punch came without warning and caught Max across the cheek, turning his head and sending him stumbling sideways into the brick wall of a warehouse. Pain flashed across his face, and for a moment the street seemed to tilt beneath his feet. He caught himself against the wall and tasted blood, raising a hand to his mouth. When he looked at his fingers, the sight of red against the pale skin seemed to make the whole business suddenly real. The sailors were laughing, and the youngest wore the satisfied expression of a man who had been waiting for an excuse.

"That was unnecessary," Max said, straightening as best he could.

"Perhaps," the young man replied, stepping towards him again.

Across the street, the door of the public house opened and several men emerged into the damp evening air. They were working men by the look of them, dressed in heavy coats and boots, their voices carrying the rough mixture of accents common around London's docks. One was a thick-set fellow with a shaved head and a beard that had been allowed to grow almost as enthusiastically as his waistline. Another was younger and leaner, with a narrow face and dark hair beneath a battered cap. The third man was difficult to miss, though not because he was dressed like a gentleman or carried himself with any particular concern for appearances.

He was a big man, broad through the chest and shoulders, with the thick forearms of someone accustomed to lifting things other men needed two hands to move. His dark hair was tied loosely behind his head, and a heavy beard framed a weathered face marked by old scars. A flat woollen cap sat low over his brow, while the sleeves of his plain shirt were rolled above his elbows beneath a dark waistcoat. Black markings covered much of his exposed skin, curling around his wrists and disappearing beneath the cloth, their patterns unfamiliar to anyone who had not spent time among people who still remembered the old ways. His boots were scuffed, his trousers worn at the knees, and his hands looked more suited to a hammer than a silver-handled walking stick.

He stood beneath the public house awning with a glass in his hand, listening to something the bald man beside him was saying. Neither seemed particularly interested in the disturbance across the street until the bald man glanced over and nodded towards the sailors.

"Three against one," he remarked.

The big man followed his gaze. For a moment he watched the scene without any visible reaction, then took a drink and turned back to his companion. "Leave them," he said. "Men fight."

There was no judgement in his voice, only indifference. He had spent enough time around the docks to know that arguments began over cards, women, wages, drink, insults and sometimes nothing more substantial than the direction in which somebody happened to look. If a man made it his business to intervene in every disagreement, he would spend his entire life fighting other people's battles. The bald fellow seemed to agree, for he gave a small shrug and returned to the conversation, while the leaner man beside them finished his drink and looked towards the publican for another.

Across the street, Max was having considerably less luck. He tried to walk away again, but the sailors moved with him, one stepping in front while another came around behind to cut off the route towards the road. The first shoved him hard enough to send him stumbling, and the young man who had struck him caught him by the coat when he tried to regain his footing. Max swung an arm in an awkward attempt to free himself, but the sailor ducked beneath it and drove a fist into his stomach. The blow folded Max forward, forcing the breath from his lungs, and before he could recover, someone seized his shoulder and shoved him backwards onto the cobbles.

He landed heavily, the impact jarring his ribs and leaving him struggling for breath. He could hear the men laughing above him, could see their boots shifting in and out of his blurred field of vision, and for one humiliating moment all he could think about was the fact that Ingred might hear about this. The thought was absurd, given his immediate predicament, but it was there all the same. He tried to push himself upright, only for one of the sailors to grab the back of his coat and haul him halfway to his feet.

"Where's your courage now, Englishman?" the man demanded.

Max tried to wrench himself free, but another shove sent him sprawling again. One of the sailors kicked him in the ribs, and the pain was sharp enough to make him gasp. He curled instinctively around the injured side, one arm protecting his head, while the men stood over him, emboldened by the ease with which they had brought him down.

Outside the public house, the big man had stopped listening to his companions. He watched the sailors for several seconds, his expression difficult to read, then looked at the young man on the ground. The next kick landed against Max's side, and something in the big man's face altered. It was not a sudden flare of rage, nor any dramatic display of outrage at the cruelty of strangers. Rather, he seemed to arrive at a decision that had become too obvious to ignore, as though he had been willing to let the matter pass until the men involved made it impossible to do so.

He handed his glass to the leaner man beside him. "Hold that, Erik."

Erik accepted it without comment, while the bald fellow watched the big man step away from the awning. Neither asked what he intended to do; they had apparently seen the decision made often enough to recognise it. The big man crossed the road without hurrying, his heavy boots striking the cobbles with a steady, unhurried rhythm. He neither shouted at the sailors nor attempted to draw the attention of the surrounding street. He simply walked towards them, as though he had business there and expected the way to clear.

The sailors did not notice him until he was almost upon them. One glanced over his shoulder and fell quiet, his attention caught by the stranger's size and the unhurried certainty of his approach. The others followed his gaze, and the youngest released Max's coat as the big man stopped a few paces away. Up close, the stranger was even more imposing than he had appeared from across the street. His forearms were thick with muscle, his knuckles scarred, and the dark markings on his skin seemed to form deliberate patterns rather than the random tattoos favoured by sailors. He looked from the man standing over Max to the two others, taking his time over each of them, and when he finally spoke his voice was low enough that they had to pay attention.

"Three men against one," he said. "Seems a little unfair."

The sailor nearest him drew himself up, trying to recover the confidence that had deserted him. "He started it."

The big man looked down at Max, who was still on one knee, breathing hard and clutching his ribs. Then he returned his attention to the sailors. "I don't care who started it."

"Then what do you care about?" the man demanded.

The stranger considered the question as though it deserved a serious answer. "Fairness, for one."

A brief silence settled over the group. Behind him, the bald man had crossed the road and now stood several yards away, while Erik remained near the pub with the glass still in his hand. Neither appeared particularly concerned about how matters might develop. The big man rolled one shoulder beneath his coat and regarded the sailors with the patient expression of someone who had already given them an opportunity to make a sensible choice.

"Go home," he said.

The men exchanged glances. They were not accustomed to being ordered about, particularly not by a stranger in front of an audience, and their pride was now at least as much of a problem as their original grievance. The largest of them looked towards his companions, weighing the embarrassment of retreat against the uncertain consequences of standing their ground. Max, meanwhile, managed to get one foot beneath him and slowly rose from the cobbles, keeping a hand pressed against his ribs. He did not know who the stranger was, or why he had chosen to intervene when everyone else had preferred to mind their own business, but the difference between the way the sailors had treated him and the way they now regarded this man was plain enough.

The big man noticed their hesitation and let out a quiet breath through his nose. He seemed less angry than disappointed, as though they were making a simple matter unnecessarily complicated. "I have had a long day," he told them. "I've had a drink, and I was looking forward to another. I have no particular interest in spending my evening teaching three grown men how to behave in the street, so I'm going to ask you one more time to leave the boy alone and go about your business."

The sailor with the broken gap between his teeth stared at him, then glanced at the broad-shouldered man standing behind him. His companions were doing the same calculation, and none of them appeared especially pleased with the likely result. The youngest, however, had not yet learned when pride was best swallowed. He stepped forward and spat onto the cobbles between them.

"You don't own this street," he said.

The big man looked down at the spittle, then back at him. "No," he replied calmly. "Neither do you."

For a moment the two men stood facing one another beneath the gaslight, the noise of the docks carrying on around them as though nothing of consequence were happening. Then the big man sighed, the sound of someone who had hoped for an easier solution and found himself disappointed. He adjusted the brim of his cap and planted his feet more firmly on the wet stones, while his companions quietly moved into positions that would make it difficult for the sailors to turn the encounter into a simple matter of numbers.

Max stepped back towards the wall, still struggling to breathe properly. He had come out of Ingred's house thinking about her smile and the possibility of seeing her again, and now he found himself watching a confrontation he had no hope of controlling. The stranger had offered the sailors a way out, and they had chosen to ignore it. Whatever happened next, Max suspected that the evening was about to become considerably worse for somebody.

He only hoped it would not be him.

[Keeper]

The youngest sailor seemed to take the stranger's refusal to be intimidated as a personal insult. He stood with his shoulders hunched and his hands curled into fists, looking from the broad figure before him to his companions as though expecting one of them to offer a solution that would allow him to retreat without losing face. The oldest of the three muttered something in Norwegian, low and urgent, but whatever advice he offered was dismissed with an angry shake of the head. Pride was a costly thing in the docklands, and a man who had spent enough time drinking among his countrymen could find himself willing to pay almost any price rather than be laughed at for backing down.

"Think you're a bloody lord, do you?" the youngest demanded, stepping closer. "Stand there telling us what to do?"

The big man regarded him with weary patience. "No. A lord would have somebody else deal with you."

His companions laughed, and the sound brought a flush of anger to the sailor's face. He took another step, close enough now that the two men stood almost chest to chest, though the difference in their size made the comparison somewhat absurd. The stranger did not move to meet him, nor did he raise his hands or adopt any recognisable fighting stance. He merely stood with his arms loose at his sides, watching the young man's face as though he were waiting for him to say something worth hearing. That quiet indifference seemed to infuriate the sailor more than any threat might have done, and his right hand disappeared beneath his coat.

The flash of steel beneath the gaslight caught Max's attention before he understood what he was seeing. The sailor brought out a short-bladed knife, its handle dark with age and use, and held it low beside his thigh. His companions fell silent, their earlier confidence suddenly tempered by the appearance of a weapon. Knives were common enough around the docks, but drawing one in a crowded street changed the nature of a disagreement rather dramatically. Even the men who had been willing to watch a beating from a safe distance began to find reasons to move away.

The big man looked at the blade, then at its owner, and something in his expression settled into a cold, unmistakable stillness. He had offered the fellow an easy way out. He had offered it twice, in fact, and had received nothing but insults in return. Now the sailor had decided to make the matter more complicated, and the man standing before him had no intention of allowing a knife to dictate the terms of the encounter.

He closed his eyes.

It was such an unexpected gesture that, for an instant, even the sailor hesitated. The stranger stood with his head slightly bowed, his breathing slow and measured, while the noise of the street seemed to recede behind the sudden concentration of his mind. Beneath the dark markings on his forearms, the runes lay as they had always lain, ink and scar tissue worked into shapes older than the city around him. They were not symbols he needed to draw, nor charms he had to retrieve from a pocket. The work had already been done. What remained was the act of waking it.

Alrik reached inward, past the familiar weight of his own thoughts and the steady rhythm of his heart, towards the reserve of Quintessence he carried within himself. Q was not something he could spend carelessly, nor was it an inexhaustible well from which he might draw whenever the world became inconvenient. It was his own essence, a part of him that had to be replenished with time and rest, and he had learned to treat it with the same practical caution he applied to his money, his tools and the men who depended upon him. But a knife in the hands of a fool was reason enough to spend a little.

He pushed the Q into the rune on his right forearm first, feeding it until the familiar pattern seemed to tighten beneath his skin. Strength answered him with a deep, almost imperceptible warmth, gathering through his arm and shoulder and settling into the muscles of his back. He followed it with the working upon his left, the protective rune accepting its share of his essence and leaving behind a subtle pressure against his skin, like the snug fastening of armour that no eye could see. There was no flash of light, no thunderclap or theatrical display to announce what he had done. The gas lamps continued to burn, the horses continued to clatter along the road, and somewhere nearby a man called for another round of beer. To anyone watching, the stranger had merely closed his eyes for a moment.

Then he opened them again.

The sailor came at him.

He thrust the knife forward with a short, ugly movement, aiming for the belly beneath the stranger's waistcoat. Alrik turned his body just enough to spoil the angle, catching the man's wrist with his left hand while his right closed around the forearm. The blade scraped across the heavy cloth at his side, cutting through the outer layer but failing to find flesh. The sailor's eyes widened as his thrust was arrested with startling ease, and before he could wrench himself free, Alrik twisted his wrist and drove his elbow sharply downwards. The knife clattered onto the cobbles.

At almost the same moment, one of the other sailors darted sideways and struck Max across the face.

The blow caught him squarely on the nose. He had been watching the knife, his attention fixed upon the stranger and the sudden violence unfolding before him, and he never saw the punch coming. His head snapped backwards, and he fell flat onto the wet cobbles, arms flung out to break a fall that had already happened. Pain burst across his face, bringing tears to his eyes, and blood began to run freely from his nose. For a few seconds he lay stunned, staring up at the blurred gaslight and wondering why the whole street appeared to have tilted sideways.

Alrik saw him fall.

The change in the big man's face was slight, but those nearest him would have noticed it had they been watching closely. The last trace of weary patience disappeared, leaving something far less accommodating in its place. He released the first sailor's wrist with a shove that sent the man staggering into the side of the warehouse, then turned towards the fellow who had struck Max. The second sailor had barely begun to draw his arm back when Alrik crossed the distance between them and caught him by the front of his coat.

"That," Alrik said, his voice low enough that the words were meant for the man alone, "was a stupid thing to do."

He drove his forehead into the sailor's face.

The impact was sickeningly solid. The man's nose broke with a wet crack, and he collapsed backwards, clutching his face as blood spilled between his fingers. Alrik let him fall rather than waste the effort of lowering him, turning as the third sailor rushed in from the side with a roar of anger. The fellow swung a heavy fist towards his head, but Alrik stepped inside the blow and caught him around the upper body. His enhanced strength gave him a brutal advantage at such close quarters. He lifted, turned and drove the man into the warehouse wall hard enough to shake dust from the mortar, then struck him once in the stomach as he sagged forwards. The sailor folded around the blow and slid down the bricks, wheezing and clutching at his middle.

The man who had first drawn the knife had recovered enough to make another attempt. He snatched at Alrik's shoulder from behind, hoping to drag him backwards, but the larger man turned with the grip and caught him by the throat of his coat. A sharp pull brought the sailor off balance, and Alrik's knee rose into his abdomen before he could regain his footing. The man doubled over, gasping, and Alrik seized the back of his neck and drove him face-first onto the nearest stack of empty wooden crates. The timber broke beneath his weight, sending splinters and loose boards across the pavement, and the sailor dropped among them in a heap.

The whole affair had taken only seconds.

The three Norwegians were now scattered across the street, one groaning against the warehouse wall, another curled on the ground with his hands pressed to his broken nose, and the third sprawled among the shattered crates. None appeared inclined to rise in any hurry. Alrik stood over them, breathing a little harder than before, his hands loose at his sides. The runes on his forearms had done their work, lending strength to his blows and taking the sting from the glancing cut across his coat, though the Q he had spent was already a cost he could feel. He flexed his fingers once, testing for damage, then glanced down at the knife lying in the gutter.

He picked it up by the handle and examined the blade with the same dispassionate attention he might have given a poorly made tool. It was cheap steel, badly maintained, and not worth the trouble of keeping. He tossed it into the gutter, where it landed with a soft clatter among the rainwater and horse muck.

"Three men," he muttered, looking from one fallen sailor to the next. "And a knife. You'd think one of you might have had the sense to go home."

The bald man who had followed him across the street gave a low chuckle, though he kept his eyes on the sailors in case any of them had retained enough courage to make another attempt. Erik had finally set the abandoned glass on a windowsill and was approaching with the measured stride of a man who had expected this outcome from the moment the stranger left the pub. Neither companion seemed particularly surprised by what had happened, though the youngest sailor's decision to draw a blade had evidently pushed the evening beyond what either had anticipated.

Alrik turned towards Max, who was struggling to sit up against the wall. The young man had one hand pressed beneath his nose, and his eyes watered as he tried to make sense of the blood covering his fingers. He looked from Alrik to the fallen sailors, then back again, plainly uncertain whether the danger had passed or merely changed its shape.

"Easy," Alrik said, crouching beside him. "Don't get up too quickly. Let me see."

Max obeyed, more from shock than any conscious decision to trust the stranger. Alrik gently moved his hand aside and inspected the damage, turning the young man's face towards the light. The nose was already swelling, and the blood showed no sign of stopping, but there was no obvious deformity beyond what might be expected from a solid punch. Alrik took a clean-ish handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and folded it before pressing it into Max's hand.

"Hold that against your nose. Keep your head forward, not back. You swallow enough blood and you'll spend the next hour being sick, which won't improve your evening."

Max stared at him, then gave a small, pained nod and did as he was told. "Thank you," he managed, the words muffled by the cloth.

Alrik looked at the three sailors again. One was beginning to stir, making a miserable sound as he tried to roll onto his side, and the big man regarded him with the stern expression of a father who had caught a child doing something particularly foolish. "Stay down," he advised. "You've had quite enough excitement for one night."

The sailor stayed down.

Only then did Alrik turn back to Max, taking in the young man's respectable coat, the blood on his face and the stubborn effort with which he was trying to compose himself. He seemed rather too well dressed for the docks and rather too polite for the company he had found himself in. Alrik wondered briefly what business had brought him here, but he had learned long ago that a man was entitled to keep his affairs to himself until he chose otherwise.

"Can you stand?" he asked.

"I think so."

"Thinking isn't the same as doing. Try it slowly."

Max planted a hand against the wall and pushed himself upright, wincing as the movement pulled at his ribs. He swayed for a moment, and Alrik caught his elbow before he could fall again. Once he was steady, the young man looked towards the sailors, who had begun to gather themselves with considerably less enthusiasm than they had shown earlier.

"Are they—" Max began, then stopped, seemingly unable to decide how to phrase the question.

"Alive?" Alrik supplied. "Unfortunately for them, yes."

Despite the pain in his face, Max gave a short, involuntary laugh, which turned immediately into a wince. Alrik shook his head and guided him away from the broken crates, leaving his companions to keep watch over the men on the ground. The street had begun to find its voice again. A few onlookers returned to their business, a carter urged his horse past the gathering, and the publican appeared in his doorway to assess the damage to his evening's trade.

Alrik adjusted his flat cap and looked towards the corner where the cabs passed. "Come on, then. Let's get you out of the rain before those fools discover they've still got enough pride left to make another mistake."

Max followed, still pressing the handkerchief to his face. He had come out of Ingred's house thinking about her smile and the possibility of seeing her again, and he had ended the evening bleeding on the cobbles with three Norwegian sailors nursing injuries they would probably remember for the rest of their lives. He had no idea who the large stranger was, or why he had chosen to intervene when everyone else had preferred to mind their own business. But as they walked away from the warehouse wall, with the stranger's two companions falling in beside them and the sounds of the docks closing around them once more, Max began to suspect that the beating he had received might turn out to be the least surprising part of his evening.

[Keeper]

Chapter One: The Cobbler’s Daughter

Continued

By the time they had reached the end of the street, Max had begun to appreciate just how much a nose could hurt. Every few steps sent a fresh throb through the centre of his face, and the handkerchief Alrik had given him was becoming unpleasantly damp. He tried to breathe through his mouth, which left him feeling rather like a fish hauled from the river, and he was beginning to suspect that his evening's conversation with Ingred would be remembered less for its romantic promise than for the quantity of blood he had managed to spill upon the London pavement.
His rescuer walked beside him with an easy, unhurried stride, apparently unconcerned by the encounter they had just left behind. The man's two companions had remained to see that the sailors did not attempt anything foolish while they recovered, and Max had caught only a few words of their conversation before the distance and the noise of the street swallowed them. Whatever else might be said of the stranger, he appeared to command a certain measure of loyalty from his associates. They had followed his lead without question, and he had left them behind with the same confidence one might show in leaving a trusted man to mind a shop.
"You should have gone when they first called after you," the stranger remarked.
Max glanced at him, then regretted the movement when it tugged at his swollen cheek. "I was trying to."
"Trying isn't always enough."
"No," Max agreed, dabbing his nose again. "I've begun to discover that."
The big man gave a low grunt that might have been amusement. They walked on for a few moments, passing a row of narrow-fronted shops, a shuttered chandlery and a public house whose open windows released a warm fug of beer, pipe smoke and loud conversation into the damp evening. Max wondered whether he ought to ask his rescuer's name, but he could not quite find a natural way to do it. The man had rescued him from three sailors, broken up the fight with alarming efficiency and now appeared to be escorting him somewhere without having offered so much as an introduction. It was an unusual way to make an acquaintance, even by the standards of the docks.
"You'll want to clean yourself up," the stranger said at last, nodding towards the blood on Max's handkerchief. "There's a basin where we're going. You can have a look at that nose properly, and if it needs setting, we'll see what can be done."
Max looked at him with renewed interest. "You know how to set a broken nose?"
"I know how to tell whether one needs setting."
"Ah. That's rather different."
"Usually."
There was something in the man's dry delivery that made Max smile despite himself, though he quickly thought better of it. The stranger noticed the expression and shook his head as if he had already decided that the young fellow was going to be trouble of a different sort.
They had gone perhaps a hundred yards when the man turned from the main thoroughfare into a narrow passage between two brick buildings. A single gas lamp hung above a recessed doorway, its light catching the ironwork of a heavy side door set into the wall. Beyond it, Max could see the dim outline of a yard crowded with stacked timber, barrels and several large crates bearing shipping marks from ports he recognised. The place had the look of an ordinary commercial warehouse, the sort that dealt in goods arriving from ships and disappearing into the city before anyone thought to ask where they had gone. A painted sign above the main entrance, partly obscured by soot, advertised storage and general merchandise, while the smell of wood shavings, coal smoke and oil drifted through the passage.
The stranger took a key from his pocket and unlocked the side door.
"Come along."
Max followed him inside, stepping from the damp street into the warm gloom of the warehouse. His eyes took a moment to adjust. The building was larger than he had expected, with high timber rafters disappearing into the darkness above and long rows of crates stacked beneath them. A narrow passage ran between the goods towards the rear, where a forge glowed orange behind a screen of ironwork. The steady ring of a hammer carried through the building, accompanied by the occasional hiss of metal meeting water. Men moved about their business without paying much attention to the newcomers, though one or two glanced up long enough to acknowledge their employer before returning to their work.
It was the sort of place Max had seen many times in his professional life, although usually from the other side of a counter or across a desk covered in invoices and correspondence. There were bundles of rope, barrels of nails, packing straw, sacks of some dark granular material and a collection of metal fittings laid out on a workbench. A pair of handcarts stood near the far wall, their wheels still muddy from the street, while a narrow office window overlooked the main floor. Everything had a place, even if the arrangement would probably have offended a man who preferred his inventory recorded in triplicate. The warehouse was busy, practical and apparently prosperous enough to keep several men employed.
Then Max noticed the runes.
The first were carved into the wooden frame around the side door, so neatly that he might have mistaken them for decorative marks had he not looked closely. They were angular, cut deep into the grain and darkened with something that had settled into the grooves. A second set appeared upon a supporting pillar a few yards further inside, partially hidden behind a stack of crates. Beyond that, he saw more markings on the lintel of an internal doorway, and another series carved into the timber surrounding a narrow passage that led towards the rear of the building.
Max slowed.
He knew enough about the subject to recognise that the symbols were not simply a merchant's attempt to make his premises look exotic. Some resembled forms he had seen in books concerning the older Scandinavian traditions, though the arrangements were unfamiliar and the cuts seemed to follow a pattern of their own. There were marks near the corners of the door frames, others positioned at roughly the height of a man's head, and a few carved low enough that they would have been hidden by an ordinary stack of goods. Their placement suggested purpose rather than ornament, as though the building itself had been marked out according to some system that was not immediately apparent.
He nearly stopped to examine one of the pillars, but the stranger had already continued towards the rear of the warehouse, and Max hurried to catch up. The runes remained in his thoughts, however, and he found himself looking for others as they passed between the stacks. Once he began to notice them, they seemed to be everywhere: upon the frames of doors, along the faces of pillars, beside the forge and around a heavy timber post near the back wall. Some were plain and unadorned, while others had been worked into more elaborate patterns that combined several symbols. Whatever the owner of the warehouse believed, he had taken considerable care to ensure that the markings were distributed throughout the building.
"Something caught your eye?" the stranger asked without looking back.
Max realised he had been staring at a carved lintel. "The runes."
The man turned his head slightly. "You know them?"
"Some of them, or at least I think I do. I've seen similar symbols in a number of books, though never quite arranged in that fashion." Max glanced again at the pillar as they passed it. "Are they decorative, or do they serve some purpose?"
"That depends on who you ask."
It was not an answer, and Max suspected the man knew perfectly well that it was not an answer. Before he could press the matter, they reached a small office built into the rear of the warehouse, separated from the main floor by a partition of dark timber and glass. The stranger opened the door and gestured him inside.
The office was surprisingly tidy. A large desk stood beneath the window, its surface occupied by a ledger, several invoices, a brass inkwell and a heavy paperweight shaped like an anchor. Shelves held account books and bundles of correspondence, while a narrow cupboard stood beside a coat rack crowded with work jackets. There was a small iron stove in one corner, and beside it a washstand with a white ceramic basin, a jug of water and a clean towel folded over a rail. The room smelled of ink, soap, tobacco and the faint metallic tang that seemed to follow the stranger wherever he went.
"Wash yourself," the man said, taking a fresh towel from the cupboard. "There's more water in the jug if you need it. Don't be shy about making a mess; the basin has survived worse than a little blood."
Max accepted the towel and moved towards the washstand, suddenly conscious of the state of his clothes. He had acquired a smear of grime along one sleeve and another across the front of his coat, while his once-respectable appearance had been thoroughly undermined by the blood drying around his mouth. He set the stained handkerchief aside and poured water into the basin, wincing as the first splash struck his swollen face. The water quickly turned pink, and he worked carefully, trying to clean the blood from his upper lip without aggravating his nose.
The stranger watched him for a moment before removing his cap and setting it on the desk. Without the brim shadowing his eyes, his face appeared even more weathered than it had in the street. The scars were clearer now, as were the dark tattoos that climbed from his wrists and disappeared beneath his sleeves. He had the look of a man who had spent a great deal of his life outdoors, or in places where the weather and the work were equally unforgiving. Yet there was nothing careless about the way he moved. He set his keys beside the ledger, straightened a paper that had become caught beneath the edge of the desk and then leaned back against it, waiting for Max to finish.
"What's your name, lad?"
"Max Bygraves."
"Max." The stranger nodded as though filing the information away. "What do you do, Max Bygraves, when you're not visiting cobblers' daughters?"

[Keeper]

“I am employed in an occult bookshop, as it happens,” Max replied, carefully dabbing at the blood beneath his nose. “Hart’s Corner. I work for Horrace Hart, alongside his assistant, Mr Carstairs. We deal in rare books, manuscripts, antiquities and objects of a rather more unusual nature.”

“Unusual how?”

Max glanced towards the office door, where the carved markings were visible in the timber. He was still trying to decide whether the symbols belonged to a particular runic tradition or whether their arrangement reflected some purpose that was not immediately apparent. “Magical, in many cases. Though I imagine that depends upon what you mean by unusual.”

The big man gave him a sidelong look. “And what would you mean by it?”

“Well, there is a difference between an object that is old, an object that is rare, and an object that does something no ordinary object ought to be able to do. At Hart’s Corner, we are fortunate enough to encounter all three.” Max rinsed the cloth and wrung it out over the basin. “Horrace has assembled a remarkable collection over the years. There are things there that would interest any serious student of the subject, though I doubt many of them would ever be displayed in a public museum. Not because they are fraudulent, you understand, but because their significance is rather more than historical.”

“And you know what they do?”

“Some of them. Others I understand well enough to handle safely, which is not always the same thing.” Max gave a rueful smile, then winced at the movement. “I am still an apprentice, after all. There is a great deal I have yet to learn, and I would be a fool to pretend otherwise. But I have been fortunate in my teachers. Mr Carstairs has a formidable knowledge of the collection and its history, and Horrace…” He paused, considering how best to explain a man whose experience was so far beyond ordinary reckoning that the truth would sound absurd to anyone unfamiliar with it. “Horrace has spent rather longer studying these matters than most men have been alive.”

Alrik's expression did not change, but Max had the impression that the answer had been more interesting than he had expected.

“Then you have seen magic at work?”

“Yes.”

The reply came without hesitation. Max met the man's gaze, wondering whether he had expected embarrassment or evasion. “Not every day, perhaps, and not always in ways I could explain afterwards, but yes. I have handled objects whose properties were demonstrable, studied records of workings that were supported by evidence, and seen enough to know that the subject deserves rather more serious consideration than it generally receives from men who have never troubled to investigate it.”

“Yet you still work as an apprentice.”

“Knowledge is not the same as mastery.” Max returned the cloth to the basin and examined his reflection in the little mirror above the washstand. His nose was swelling badly, and the blood had found its way into the edge of his collar. “Besides, the opportunity to learn from Horrace is not one I would exchange for a more impressive title. I should rather be a useful apprentice to a man who knows what he is doing than a master of a subject I barely understand.”

A low sound of approval came from Alrik. He pushed away from the desk and approached the washstand, where he examined the damage to Max's face in the light of the lamp.

“And these marks outside?” he asked. “You recognised them.”

“I recognised some of the forms. I couldn't say that I understood their arrangement.” Max looked towards the door again. “Runes are a subject in their own right, and I wouldn't presume to claim expertise merely because I've read about them. The markings on your warehouse are unusual, though. They seem to have been placed according to a deliberate plan. Some are positioned at the entrances, others on the supporting timbers, and there are patterns repeated in several places. I wondered whether they were intended to work together.”

Alrik studied him for a moment. “That's a better question than asking whether they're decoration.”

“I'm pleased to hear it.”

“Most people see a mark on a door and think the fellow who carved it was trying to make the place look interesting.”

“Most people don't work at Hart's Corner.”

“Perhaps they should.”

There was a dry humour to the remark, and Max found himself smiling before the pain reminded him to stop. Alrik's gaze returned to the runes on his forearms, which were partly concealed beneath the rolled sleeves of his shirt. The black lines followed the contours of the muscle, their angular shapes intersecting in patterns that seemed at once deliberate and unfamiliar. Max had noticed them in the street, but there had been rather more pressing matters to occupy his attention at the time.

“May I ask whether those markings on your arms are of the same tradition?” he said.

“You may ask.”

“And will you answer?”

“That depends on the question.”

Max gave a soft laugh, then immediately regretted it. “I begin to see why you have so many friends.”

“More than I need.”

Alrik took a clean cloth from the washstand, dampened it, and handed it to Max. Then he drew up a chair and sat opposite him, his broad hands resting upon his knees. The movement was unhurried, but something in his manner had changed. Until now, he had been making conversation while allowing Max to clean himself up. Now he appeared to be considering the young man with a more deliberate interest.

“Tell me something, Max Bygraves. You believe in God?”

Max looked at him. “Yes, though I suspect we might need to establish which God we mean before the conversation went very far.”

That earned him a short laugh.

“Fair enough. You were raised in the Church?”

“The Church of England. As were most of the people I grew up among.” Max set the cloth aside and took care not to touch his nose. “But my work has made it difficult to believe that the spiritual world begins and ends with the limits of any one congregation's teaching. I don't say that to dismiss Christianity. I simply mean that the world is older, stranger and more complicated than most people care to consider.”

“And the old gods?”

“The old gods are a rather different question.” Max glanced at the carved runes beyond the office door. “There are many traditions whose accounts have survived in manuscripts, inscriptions and objects. Some have been studied carefully; others have been dismissed because the people who practised them left behind no convenient explanation for modern scholars. I am interested in what can be learned from them, particularly where the evidence suggests that a belief was founded upon something more substantial than a story passed down through generations.”

“Stories can carry truth,” Alrik said. “Even when the people telling them have forgotten what the truth was.”

“I agree. A story may change with every telling, but that does not mean there was nothing at its heart. One must be careful, of course. The fact that a tradition is old does not make every part of it true, any more than the fact that a book is rare makes it valuable. But neither age nor unfamiliarity is a good reason to dismiss something.”

Alrik regarded him steadily. “And if I told you the Norse gods were real? Not figures in old stories, nor names given to the forces of nature, but powers that still existed and could be approached by those who knew how?”

Max took a moment to consider the question. He was not being asked whether he believed in the possibility of magic; that much had already been established. Nor did Alrik seem to be asking whether the Norse people had once worshipped such gods. He was asking something considerably more direct: whether Max could accept that the beings described in their surviving traditions were still present in the world, and that a man might have dealings with them.

“I would want to understand what you meant by real,” Max replied. “There is a difference between an influence that can be demonstrated, a presence that can be perceived, and a being with its own will and purpose. I would not pretend those distinctions are unimportant. But if you are telling me that the old gods exist as powers in their own right, and that you have some knowledge of how to deal with them, then yes, I would listen.”

“Even if the knowledge came from a man who spends his days shifting crates and mending iron?”

“Why should his occupation make a difference?”

“Some people prefer their mysteries to come from gentlemen.”

“Then they have a very poor understanding of the world.” Max reached for the jug and poured a little more water into the basin. “I have met educated men who could discuss the properties of an object for an hour without understanding the first thing about it. I have also met men with very little formal education who knew precisely what they were dealing with. A man's knowledge is not measured by the respectability of his clothes.”

Alrik's eyes narrowed slightly, though there was amusement in them now. “You might get yourself into trouble speaking like that.”

“I seem to have managed that already this evening.”

This time Alrik laughed properly, the sound filling the small office before fading beneath the steady ring of the hammer from the forge. He leaned forward and motioned for Max to turn his face towards the light.

“Let me see that nose.”

Max obeyed, bracing himself as Alrik examined the swelling. The big man's hands were rough, his fingers marked by old cuts and calluses, but his touch was unexpectedly careful. He tested the bridge of the nose with the gentlest pressure, watching Max's eyes rather than the injury itself, and withdrew his hand when the young man flinched.

“Broken, most likely. Not badly displaced, though. I can set it straight.”

“Are you a surgeon as well as a warehouseman?”

“No.”

“I'm relieved to hear it. I should hate to discover that I had been rescued by a man with too many professions.”

“There's nothing complicated about setting a nose. The trick is knowing when to stop.”

“That is a reassuring philosophy for a surgeon.”

“Good thing I'm not one, then.”

Alrik rose and crossed to the cupboard, returning with a small bottle and a folded cloth. He placed them on the desk, then looked again at the runes on his arms. Max followed his gaze, his curiosity returning with renewed force.

“You said there were other ways to deal with an injury,” Max reminded him. “I take it you weren't referring to a particularly good bandage.”

“No.”

“Would that be the work of the runes?”

“Part of it might be. The runes are a means, not the whole of the matter. There's more to it than cutting a shape into wood or skin and expecting the world to obey.”

Max considered this. It was a familiar principle in a different form. At Hart's Corner, he had learned that an object's appearance rarely told the whole story of its function. The materials mattered, as did the circumstances of its creation, the history of its use and the nature of whatever force had been bound into it. A symbol might be a key, a focus, a warning or merely the visible remnant of a process that had taken place long before. To know which required more than recognising its shape.

“Then the runes themselves do not produce the effect?”

“The rune is there whether I use it or not,” Alrik said. He tapped the black markings on his forearm. “What matters is what I put into it, and what answers when I do.”

Max looked down at the markings, trying to reconcile the simple statement with the possibilities it implied. “And what do you put into it?”

“That's a longer conversation than we're likely to have before your nose begins to swell shut.”

“Then I shall try not to let it.”

Alrik shook his head, but the corner of his mouth lifted. “You're a curious fellow, Max. Curiosity's useful, provided you know when to keep it on a leash.”

“I've never found that the easiest part of learning.”

“No. I imagine you haven't.” Alrik picked up the bottle and held it out. “Now, before we go discussing the gods, there is something you ought to understand. They don't give freely, and they aren't obliged to be kind merely because a man asks politely.”

Max looked from the bottle to the runes on Alrik's arms. “You mean there is a price?”

“There is a cost to this. Twice over.”

“Twice?” Max asked. “Why should I have to pay twice?”

Alrik rested one hand on the edge of the washstand. In the lamplight, the black markings upon his forearm seemed darker than the ink with which they had been made, their lines following the contours of his skin with the precision of something that had been considered long before it was ever cut into flesh.

“Because, lad, you are paying me, and you are paying the gods.”

Max looked at him for a long moment. The explanation was not what he had expected, though he was not entirely certain what he had expected in the first place. He had encountered enough genuine magic to know that a working could have conditions, limitations and consequences, and he had no intention of assuming that the rules governing Alrik's runes would resemble anything he had studied before. The question was not whether there was a price, but what sort of price the man meant.

“And what,” Max asked, “do the gods consider payment?”

Alrik's expression grew more serious.

“Something that matters.”

[Keeper]

Max looked at the runes on Alrik's forearm, then back at the man himself. “Something that matters,” he repeated. “You mean something valuable?”

“Not necessarily. A thing can be worth a great deal of money and mean nothing to the person who owns it. Another might be worth a penny to anyone else, but its owner would sooner lose a week's wages than part with it. The gods aren't merchants, Max. They don't weigh your offering against a price list.”

“And they decide whether it is sufficient?”

“They decide whether they accept it. I don't make that decision for them.” Alrik considered him for a moment. “But we're not asking for a miracle here. You've got a broken nose, and I can help it heal. You needn't offer anything precious. Find something small, something that means a little to you, but which you can bear to lose. The offering ought to be genuine. It needn't break your heart.”

Max glanced down at his waistcoat, thinking. He had a few coins in his pocket, a pocket watch he would certainly not offer, and a handful of small personal possessions that were of little consequence. None seemed quite right. Alrik had been clear enough: a coin meant little to him, and presumably no more to the gods. Whatever he chose had to represent something he valued, even if the object itself was unremarkable.

His fingers found a small, rounded object tucked into the little watch pocket of his waistcoat. He drew it out and opened his palm.

It was a dark blue button, no larger than the nail of his little finger, with four small holes and a slight chip along one edge. It was hardly the sort of thing anyone would think to keep. Max had been carrying it for several months, however, ever since the evening he had first met Ingred. They had been standing outside her father's cobbler's shop, talking while she helped him fasten a loose cuff, when the button had come away from her coat. He had picked it up from the cobbles and shown it to her, and she had laughed at the idea of a button being so determined to escape its garment. She had told him to keep it as a memento of their first meeting, and he had slipped it into his pocket with a promise to return it if she ever wanted it back.

He had never found a reason to do so. Instead, he had carried it with him, a small private reminder of the beginning of an acquaintance that had since become rather more important to him than he cared to admit aloud.

Max turned the button between his fingers, rubbing his thumb over the chipped edge. It was a trifling thing, and he could easily have bought another button of the same colour and size. But this was the one Ingred had given him, and that made it different.

“Would this do?” he asked.

Alrik looked at it without reaching for it. “What is it?”

“A button from Ingred's coat. It fell off when we first met.” Max smiled faintly at the memory. “She told me to keep it. I've carried it ever since.”

“Would you be sorry to lose it?”

“Yes,” Max admitted. “A little.”

“Then why offer it?”

Max considered the question. “Because it reminds me of her. And because I'd like this to work.” He looked at the button again, then closed his fingers around it. “I would rather keep it, of course. But if the price is something that matters to me, then this seems a fair thing to give.”

Alrik studied him for a moment. There was no mockery in his expression, nor any attempt to persuade Max to offer something more valuable. At last he gave a small nod.

“That'll do. It's not the button the gods are interested in, lad. It's what you're willing to give up for the favour you're asking. Don't mistake the size of a thing for the size of its meaning.”

Max opened his hand and looked at the little blue button one last time. He could almost hear Ingred laughing as she had that first evening, and for a moment he was tempted to put it away again. Then he placed it in the wooden bowl.

The sound was barely audible as it touched the bottom.

Alrik nodded once, accepting the decision without ceremony. “Good. Now, as for my fee, I don't intend to charge you for every little kindness. If we meet again, you can buy me a drink. That will settle my part of the bargain.”

Max looked up. “A drink?”

“A pint will do. I'm not particularly difficult to please.”

“You've just offered to perform a piece of magic upon me, and all you want in return is a drink?”

“That's my fee. The offering in the bowl is for the gods, not me. Two separate obligations, two separate payments. You owe them their offering for the favour. You owe me a drink for my time and skill. Neither cancels the other.”

Max nodded slowly. “I understand.”

“Good. Then let's see about that nose.”

Alrik moved the bowl closer and rolled his left sleeve further up his forearm. The runes there were more intricate than Max had first realised. Some consisted of single angular strokes, while others joined together in patterns that followed the contours of the muscle. They were not the haphazard tattoos of a sailor who had collected designs during his travels. Each appeared to belong to a larger arrangement, laid out with a precision that suggested careful thought and a particular purpose.

Alrik picked up the knife and turned it once in his hand. The blade looked sharp enough to open flesh with scarcely any pressure, its dark steel catching the lamplight along the sharpened edge.

“Your own blood?” Max asked.

“For this working, yes.”

“And that's necessary?”

“Necessary is a broad word. Blood is a direct offering of oneself, but the offering you've made is the price for the favour I'm asking. My blood is the means by which I carry out the work.” Alrik glanced at the bowl. “Different things have different purposes. It helps to know which is which.”

Max watched as Alrik pressed the point of the knife against the pad of his thumb. The prick was small and controlled. A bead of blood welled up, bright against the callused flesh, then fell into the wooden bowl. Another followed, and then a third, until a shallow pool had gathered at the bottom. Alrik pressed a folded cloth against his thumb to stem the flow, set the knife aside and reached for a quill kept in a small wooden box on the desk.

Max had seen blood used in magical practices before, though he had no reason to assume that Alrik's method followed any of the traditions he knew. He watched closely as the older man dipped the quill into the blood, allowing the liquid to gather along the nib.

“Now, I should explain,” Alrik said, “that I'm not going to make your nose as good as new in the blink of an eye. The bone needs to sit properly, and your body still has to do the healing. The rune will help that process along. It won't make you invulnerable, and it won't excuse you from taking care of yourself.”

“I had no intention of testing either proposition.”

“Good. Sit still, then.”

Alrik drew a chair closer and gestured for Max to take the stool beside the washstand. Max settled himself carefully, keeping his head upright and his hands on his knees. He had begun to feel apprehensive, not because he doubted that Alrik knew what he was doing, but because his nose was already painful enough without further interference.

“First, let me see whether the bone is sitting where it ought to.”

Alrik placed one hand against Max's cheek and examined the injury with careful fingers. He tested the bridge of the nose, watching Max's expression rather than the wound itself, and made a small adjustment with two fingers. Pain shot through Max's face, bright and immediate, and he caught his breath sharply, gripping the edge of the stool.

“Damnation!”

“Language won't hurt it any more,” Alrik observed. “Though I can't promise the same for your pride.”

Max glared at him through watering eyes. “I shall endeavour to bear both injuries with dignity.”

“Do that.”

Alrik waited until Max had recovered enough to sit still, then dipped the quill into the blood once more. With his free hand, he steadied Max's chin and tilted his face towards the lamplight. The point hovered above the bruised skin of the nose while Alrik considered its placement. His expression had lost its earlier amusement. The man who had broken three sailors' confidence with a few swift blows was now intensely attentive to a task requiring neither strength nor haste.

He began to paint.

The first stroke ran along the upper bridge of Max's nose, a thin red line following the natural shape of the bone. A second crossed it at an angle, and a third joined the two in a pattern of sharp turns and intersecting lines. Alrik worked with the same steady precision Max had observed in the runes carved throughout the warehouse. He did not appear to be copying a symbol from memory so much as completing a design whose structure was already known to him. Each stroke followed the last, the blood settling into the lines without running down the skin.

Max held himself still, fascinated despite the discomfort. The design was unfamiliar, but its construction was deliberate, its proportions carefully maintained. Alrik paused twice to replenish the quill, glancing at the bowl before returning to the work. When the final stroke was complete, he set the quill aside and rested two fingers lightly against Max's cheek.

He closed his eyes.

His lips moved, but the words were too quiet for Max to catch. They were not English, nor did they sound quite like the fragments of Old Norse he had encountered in books. The syllables came slowly, with a weight and cadence that suggested they were not intended for the ears of the man sitting before him. Alrik's hand remained steady, and the runes upon his forearm were clearly visible beneath the lamplight.

For several seconds, nothing happened. Max could feel the cold of the blood against his skin and the ache of his injured nose. Then warmth began to spread beneath the painted lines, slight at first, like the sensation of holding one's hands near a stove on a cold morning. It grew more pronounced, travelling along the bridge of his nose and across the bruised flesh beneath his eyes. The sharp edges of the pain softened, and the pressure that had been building behind his eyes eased as though something tightly clenched had finally relaxed.

Alrik opened his eyes and lifted his hand away.

“Breathe through your nose.”

Max obeyed cautiously. The first breath was shallow, and he paused, uncertain whether he had imagined the difference. He tried again, a little more deeply, and felt the air pass through both nostrils with considerably less obstruction than before. The ache remained, but it had become distant and manageable, and the swelling no longer seemed to be increasing.

He looked at Alrik, then at the red rune painted across his nose. “What exactly have you done?”

“Helped the healing along. The bone is set, and the working should help it mend properly. You'll still be sore for a while. Magic doesn't mean your body has forgotten it's been injured.”

Max touched the side of his nose with the lightest pressure. “And this will heal without further treatment?”

“Keep it clean. Don't go getting into another fight tonight, and if the pain worsens or anything seems wrong, find someone who knows medicine. I'm not asking you to ignore a doctor because I've painted a rune on your face.”

“That sounds remarkably sensible for a man who has just invoked the Norse gods in his office.”

“The gods don't object to common sense.”

Alrik took the damp cloth and carefully wiped away the excess blood, leaving the rune itself to fade as it dried. Max sat very still, testing his breathing and trying to reconcile the warmth he had felt with the improvement he could now measure. The pain had not vanished, and he did not feel transformed into some healthier version of himself. His nose was still tender, his face bruised, and his evening had taken a turn he could scarcely have imagined when he left Ingred's door. But something had plainly changed, and he could find no ordinary explanation for the speed with which the pain had eased.

His gaze moved to the bowl on the desk. The little blue button lay at the bottom, barely visible against the dark wood.

“And the offering?” he asked.

“It's been given.”

“To the gods?”

Alrik nodded. “What happens to it now isn't for me to decide.”

Max looked at the button for a long moment. It was an ordinary object, small enough to be lost in the lining of a coat, yet he knew he would notice its absence the next time he reached into his pocket. He thought of Ingred standing outside her father's shop, smiling as she had told him to keep it, and felt a small pang of regret. He had chosen it willingly, and he did not intend to complain about the price now that it had been paid. Still, he hoped that when he next saw her, he might find a way to explain why the little memento was no longer in his possession.

Alrik began clearing away the quill and knife, treating the objects with the same practical care he might have given a set of tools after repairing a broken fitting. He placed the knife back in its leather case, wiped the quill clean and returned it to the wooden box, then set the bowl aside.

Max rose carefully, testing his nose once more. The improvement was unmistakable. His breathing was easier, and the pain, though still present, no longer dominated every thought.

“I shall hold you to your promise,” he said.

Alrik settled his cap back on his head. “See that you do, Max Bygraves.”

Max glanced once more at the carved runes around the office door. He had known magic existed before that evening; working at Hart's Corner had made certain of that. But this was a different tradition, practised by a man who treated it neither as a parlour trick nor as an academic curiosity. It was a practical art, woven into his work, his surroundings and his dealings with powers that apparently expected something in return.

He paused at the door. "Goodness, all this time and i didn't ask your name?"

Alrik gave a small smile. "They call me Vargr. Would you like some advice?" he added almost as an afterthought.

"I'm always interested in good advice, if that's what you mean?"

Again, Alrik smiled. "Ingred," he said and Max feared the man was going to steer him clear of his relationship with her.
"Treat her well, she is a pure spirit in this otherwise fetid city. Good bye, Max. Erik will have a cab waiting for you outside."

[Keeper]

Chapter Two

The Morning After

By half past eight the following morning, Max Bygraves had come to the conclusion that London was a city best navigated with one's eyes open, one's head down and a reasonable appreciation for the number of ways in which a perfectly ordinary evening could go wrong. The previous night's adventures had left him stiff about the ribs, tender across the bridge of his nose and possessed of a headache that seemed to object to every movement of his head. His sleep had been fitful, disturbed by uncomfortable dreams in which Norwegian sailors had multiplied alarmingly and the streets of London had become a maze of warehouses, all of them decorated with runes that watched him as he passed.

Yet the most curious consequence of his encounter was not the lingering pain. It was the appearance of his face.

The swelling had subsided considerably during the night, and the bruising around his nose and beneath his eyes had taken on a yellowish cast, as though the injuries were several days old rather than the result of a beating administered less than twelve hours earlier. The skin remained tender, and the bridge of his nose protested whenever he touched it, but the livid blue and purple discolouration he had expected to find had never properly developed. In the cold light of his bedroom mirror, the marks looked unpleasant but strangely mature, the sort of bruises a man might carry towards the end of a week's recovery rather than the morning after a fight.

Max had examined himself for a good five minutes before leaving his lodgings, turning his head from side to side and pressing a finger cautiously against the bridge of his nose. He had then washed, dressed, eaten a breakfast that tasted rather less appealing than it ought to have done, and set out for Hart's Corner with a growing sense that he had a great deal to explain.

He had considered telling the story to someone on the way, if only to hear how it sounded when spoken aloud. The difficulty was that it sounded improbable even inside his own head. He had been assaulted by three Norwegian sailors, rescued by a broad-shouldered dockside warehouseman, introduced to the practical application of runic magic, and persuaded to make an offering to the Norse gods in exchange for help with his broken nose. He had also acquired a debt involving a pint of beer, which seemed almost comically ordinary beside the rest of the business. Had anyone else told him such a tale, Max would have listened carefully, asked a great many questions and reserved judgement until he had some means of establishing the facts. He intended to do precisely that now, though he suspected that his employer would have rather more to say about the matter than most people.

Hart's Corner occupied the ground floor of a narrow building on a street that had once been respectable and was now attempting to become respectable again. Its shopfront was discreet, the lettering upon the glass modest enough to discourage casual curiosity while still attracting those who knew what they were looking for. The windows displayed a carefully chosen assortment of old books, engraved instruments, small antiquities and objects whose significance was not always apparent to the untrained eye. A brass astrolabe stood beside a collection of bound volumes on natural philosophy, while a little carved figure from some forgotten civilisation occupied a place of honour beneath the glass. Nothing was arranged merely to make the shop look mysterious. Every object had its reason for being there, whether for its historical importance, its unusual properties or the questions it raised about the world from which it had come.

Max had long since ceased to notice most of the collection as he entered each morning, but today his attention was drawn to the familiar things with an odd sense of gratitude. The shop had not changed overnight. The books remained where they belonged, the glass-fronted cabinets stood undisturbed, and the little brass bell above the door gave its customary bright chime as he stepped inside. There was comfort in that ordinary familiarity, though it did not entirely dispel the feeling that he had returned from an excursion into a part of the world he had never properly understood.

He had barely shut the door when Mr Carstairs looked up from the counter.

Carstairs had been examining a large ledger, with a pair of spectacles balanced low upon his nose and a sharpened pencil resting between his fingers. He was a lean, neatly dressed man whose appearance suggested an orderly mind, though anyone who had spent more than a week working beside him would have known better than to confuse neatness with a lack of curiosity. His knowledge of the shop's contents was extensive, and he possessed a particular gift for remembering the provenance of objects that had passed through its doors, often recalling details that had escaped even Max's careful notes. He had been Horrace Hart's assistant for long enough to understand that the unusual was not necessarily the inexplicable, and that the distinction mattered.

His eyes settled on Max's face.

The pencil stopped moving.

“Good heavens, Max. What on earth happened to you?”

Max closed the door behind him and removed his hat. “Good morning to you too, Mr Carstairs.”

“Don't you good-morning me. Look at your face!” Carstairs put down the pencil and came around the counter, his expression one of genuine alarm. “Your nose is swollen, your cheek is bruised, and you look as though you've spent the night being used as a punching bag. Were you in an accident?”

“Not precisely.”

“Were you attacked?”

“Yes.”

“By whom?”

“Three sailors.”

Carstairs stared at him. “Three sailors?”

“Norwegian, I believe, though I can't be certain of their precise origins. They were certainly speaking Norwegian, or something close enough that I recognised it as such.”

“And you thought it advisable to take on three Norwegian sailors?”

“I didn't take them on. They took me on, which is a rather different arrangement.”

Carstairs looked as though he was deciding whether to be angry, relieved or simply astonished. He settled upon all three, with a strong preference for the first. “Max, you are an intelligent young man. You know perfectly well that the docks are not the place to involve yourself in a quarrel with three drunken seamen. What were you doing there in the first place?”

“I was visiting Ingred.”

“Ah.” Carstairs's expression altered slightly, though his concern did not diminish. “The cobbler's daughter?”

“The very same.”

“And did she send you home in this condition?”

“No, sir. I left her perfectly well. The trouble began after I had left her shop.”

Max removed his coat and hung it on the peg beside the door. Carstairs followed him with his eyes, still looking rather as though he expected the young man to collapse at any moment. When Max turned back, he found the older man examining the bruising with a professional interest that was beginning to compete with his alarm.

“Does it hurt?”

“Rather.”

“Can you breathe properly?”

“Much better than I expected.”

Carstairs frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means that last night I could scarcely breathe through my nose, whereas this morning I can manage quite comfortably. It's still tender, but the obstruction has almost entirely gone.”

“Have you seen a physician?”

“No.”

“Max!”

“I know, I know. I ought to have done. But someone else took an interest in the matter, and he seemed to know what he was doing.”

Carstairs studied him for another moment. “Someone else?”

“Yes. The man who came to my assistance.”

“You mean someone intervened when these sailors attacked you?”

“Precisely. He arrived at a most opportune moment, I assure you.”

Carstairs drew a breath and let it out slowly, evidently attempting to restore some order to the conversation. “Very well. Sit down, please, before I ask you anything else. You look as though you might fall over if I so much as raise my voice.”

Max took the chair beside the counter, suppressing a wince as he settled himself. Carstairs fetched a glass of water from the little room at the rear, set it before him and remained standing, his arms folded. His concern was genuine, but Max knew him well enough to recognise the signs of an enquiring mind that had already begun to assemble the pieces of a puzzle. The bruising was plainly visible, yet its colour was peculiar. Carstairs leaned closer to inspect it, careful not to touch the injured skin.

“How long ago did this happen?”

“Some time last night. It must have been around nine o'clock.”

“And you say it looks better this morning?”

“Considerably.”

Carstairs's gaze moved from the yellowish marks beneath Max's eyes to the bridge of his nose. “That is unusual. Bruising often takes a day or two to develop fully, but this appears to be well on its way to fading. The swelling has also reduced more quickly than I would have expected.” He straightened and looked Max squarely in the face. “What exactly happened after your rescuer arrived?”

Max took a drink of water and considered where to begin. He could hardly explain the final part of the evening without first describing the man who had made it possible, and he suspected that Carstairs would be interested in rather more than the particulars of the fight. There was also the matter of the runes, which he had been turning over in his mind since leaving the warehouse. He had spent enough time around unusual objects to know that a genuine working was rarely exhausted by its most obvious effect. The healing of his nose was one thing; the principles behind it were another entirely.

“I was on my way to find a cab when the sailors began calling after me,” he said. “They had apparently taken an interest in Ingred, and they were not pleased to discover that I had been visiting her. At first I tried to ignore them. When that failed, I attempted to leave. They blocked my way, and one of them struck me. The rest followed rather quickly.”

Carstairs's expression darkened. “Cowards.”

“I thought much the same, particularly when they decided that three against one was not enough and began kicking me while I was down.”

“And nobody intervened?”

“Not until the last moment. People were watching from a distance, but no one seemed especially eager to become involved. Then a man came across the street from a nearby public house and told them to leave me alone.”

Carstairs gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “And they simply obeyed?”

“Not at all. One of them took exception to being told what to do, which proved to be a mistake.”

Max found himself smiling at the recollection, though the movement tugged at his cheek. The fight had been swift and brutal, and he still found it difficult to reconcile the man's size with the speed at which he had dealt with three opponents. He had not wasted a movement, nor had he seemed particularly excited by the violence. There had been no theatrical display of strength, no wild swinging of fists. He had simply taken control of the encounter and ended it.

“The fellow was enormous,” Max continued. “Broad through the shoulders, thickly built, with dark hair tied back and a heavy beard. He had scars on his face and arms, and his forearms were covered in runic tattoos. He wore ordinary working clothes, a flat cap and a dark waistcoat. Nothing particularly remarkable in itself, except that he carried himself like a man who had never felt the need to prove his strength to anyone.”

“Was he a professional boxer?”

“I doubt it. He moved too economically for a man who fights merely for sport. He knew precisely where to put his hands, when to move and how to use an opponent's momentum against him. One of the sailors had a knife, but the fellow disarmed him before he could do any real damage. The others fared no better.”

Carstairs's eyes narrowed at the mention of the tattoos. “You said his arms were marked with runes?”

“Yes. The markings were quite distinct. I noticed them in the street, though I had little opportunity to examine them closely at the time. Later, when he took me to his warehouse, I saw that the building itself was marked in much the same fashion.”

That caught Carstairs's attention more effectively than anything else Max had said. His arms unfolded, and he leaned against the counter, studying Max with renewed interest.

“Runes carved into the building?”

“Doorframes, lintels, pillars and other structural points. They were arranged in a deliberate pattern, not merely scattered about for decoration. I asked him about them, but he was not especially forthcoming at first.”

“Did you recognise the forms?”

“Some of them. Others were unfamiliar, and the arrangements didn't correspond exactly to anything I remember studying. I couldn't say whether they were variants of an established tradition or part of a system of his own.”

Carstairs nodded slowly. “That is interesting.”

“I thought so.”

“Did he explain their purpose?”

“Eventually. Though not before asking me whether I believed in God.”

Carstairs blinked. “He asked you what?”

Max laughed, then immediately regretted it. “I assure you, I had much the same reaction. He asked whether I believed in God, and then whether I accepted the possibility that the Norse gods might exist as powers in their own right rather than merely as figures in old stories.”

Carstairs's expression became thoughtful. “And what did you tell him?”

“The truth. I told him that I had no difficulty accepting the existence of powers beyond ordinary human understanding. I also told him that I would want to know precisely what he meant by the word real, and how he had come by his knowledge. He seemed satisfied with that answer.”

“As well he might. It is a sensible distinction.”

Max nodded. He had expected Carstairs to understand that the question was not whether magic existed, but what sort of magic the man practised and upon what principles it operated. That was the sort of distinction they made every day at Hart's Corner when assessing an unusual object or investigating a report of an inexplicable occurrence.

“He told me that the runes were not merely symbols,” Max continued. “They were a means of directing a working, though he was careful to point out that the markings alone were not enough. He said that what mattered was what he put into them, and what answered when he did.”

Carstairs considered this for a moment. “That suggests an interaction rather than a simple inscription. The rune may provide the structure, while the practitioner supplies something necessary to activate it. Did he mention a source of power?”

“He spoke of blood and of his own essence, though he used a different term for the latter. He called it Q.”

“Q?”

“Yes. He described it as something a person could draw upon, though I don't believe he intended to suggest that it was simply a matter of physical strength. He seemed to regard it as an intrinsic part of the individual, something that could be spent in a working.”

Carstairs was quiet for a moment, his attention drifting towards the shelves behind him. Max knew that expression. It was the look Carstairs wore when an observation had connected with something he had read or encountered before, and he was attempting to recall the source without allowing an untested conclusion to take hold.

“Did he demonstrate this Q to you?”

“Not directly. At least, not in a way I could identify with certainty. The demonstration came later, when he offered to help with my nose.”

Carstairs looked sharply at him. “He did what?”

“He offered to help it heal. He was quite clear that he could not simply make the injury disappear, and that he would first need to ensure the bone was sitting correctly. But he said that a rune could assist the healing process.”

“And you allowed him to perform this working on you?”

“I did.”

“Without knowing what he intended to do?”

“I knew enough to understand that he was describing a magical working, and I had every reason to believe he understood the risks better than I did. He was also the man who had just rescued me from three sailors. I confess that I was inclined to trust his judgement.”

Carstairs stared at him, then rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Max, I am delighted that you are alive, more or less in one piece, and apparently recovering. But I should like to know what possessed you to submit yourself to an unfamiliar magical procedure in a warehouse belonging to a man whose name you did not even know.”

“That is a fair question.”

“And?”

Max considered it. “Curiosity, I suppose. And the fact that he seemed to know precisely what he was doing. He explained the cost before he began, and he made certain I understood what I was agreeing to. He did not pressure me into it.”

Carstairs's expression softened a little. “Very well. Tell me about the cost.”

Max explained the distinction Alrik had drawn between his own fee and the offering required by the gods. He described the small blue button he had given up, the one that had fallen from Ingred's coat when they first met, and how Alrik had insisted that the offering need not be expensive so long as it meant something to the person making it. He also recounted the promise of a pint of beer, which had struck him as an almost comically mundane arrangement beside the rest of the proceedings.

When he had finished, Carstairs remained silent for several seconds.

“A meaningful offering,” he said at last. “Not simply an object of value, but something the giver is genuinely willing to surrender. That is a familiar principle in a number of traditions, although the precise mechanics differ considerably.”

“Indeed. He was very particular about the distinction. The offering was for the gods, while the drink was payment for his own time and skill. He made it clear that one did not replace the other.”

Carstairs nodded. “That is at least internally consistent. If he believes that he is acting as an intermediary rather than claiming the power as his own, then the distinction makes sense within his system.”

“That was my impression.”

“And the healing itself?”

Max leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “He used his own blood. He pricked his thumb with a knife, allowed the blood to collect in a small wooden bowl, and then used a quill to paint a rune across the bridge of my nose. He spoke a few words I couldn't understand, and I felt warmth beneath the markings. The pain eased, and my breathing improved almost immediately.”

Carstairs looked again at the bruising. “And you believe that the same working has accelerated the healing?”

“I can think of no better explanation. I went to bed with a badly swollen nose and a face that looked as though it had been beaten with a shovel. This morning the swelling has reduced considerably, and the bruising has already begun to yellow. It is still painful, but the improvement is unmistakable.”

Carstairs examined him in silence. “That is a remarkable result.”

“Yes.”

“Did the rune remain visible?”

“Only for a short time. He wiped away the excess blood, and the markings faded as they dried. I couldn't say whether the rune itself disappeared or whether the blood simply ceased to show it.”

“Did you observe any other effects? Weakness, dizziness, unusual sensations?”

“Nothing beyond the warmth during the working and the reduction in pain. I felt perfectly normal afterwards, though I was rather preoccupied with the fact that my nose no longer seemed intent on occupying the whole of my face.”

Carstairs gave a reluctant smile. “I imagine that was a relief.”

“It was.”

For a while, neither spoke. The shop was quiet, save for the faint ticking of a clock in the rear room and the occasional sound of a cart passing outside. Sunlight filtered through the front windows, illuminating the dust that drifted above the shelves. Max had spent countless mornings in that room, discussing manuscripts, examining artefacts and comparing observations with Carstairs. It was familiar territory, a place where unusual things could be approached with patience and care. Yet he had the distinct feeling that the previous evening had given him a new subject of study, one that might prove considerably more difficult to investigate than an old book or a curious object brought in by a collector.

Carstairs finally straightened. “What did you say the man was called?”

Max smiled faintly. “He didn't introduce himself by his given name. His companions called him Vargr.”

“Vargr?”

“Yes. He seemed to be known by that name among the people at the public house and the warehouse. One of his companions was a thick-set fellow named Håkon, and the other was called Erik. They followed his lead without question, and he appeared to trust them completely.”

Carstairs repeated the name quietly, considering its sound. “Vargr. A wolf, in the old Norse tongue, if I remember correctly. Though it has other associations, depending upon the context.”

“That was my understanding too. I wondered whether it was a nickname, a title or something he had chosen for himself. I didn't think it wise to ask him while he was in the process of saving my life.”

“A sound decision.”

Max smiled. “I thought so.”

Carstairs returned to the counter, though his attention remained fixed upon the young man. “Did he say where he came from?”

“Not directly. He was plainly Scandinavian, though whether Norwegian, Swedish or Danish I couldn't say. His accent was difficult to place. He has a warehouse near the docks, with a forge at the rear, and he appears to have a number of men working for him. The place was well organised and busy. He was clearly accustomed to running a business, and I suspect he has more interests than the storage and handling of goods.”

“An industrialist with an interest in runic magic,” Carstairs mused. “That is an unusual combination, though not necessarily an incompatible one.”

“No. In fact, the way he spoke about the runes suggested that he regarded them as practical tools rather than objects of study. He uses them as naturally as another man might use a hammer or a ledger.”

Carstairs glanced towards the shelves, his thoughts evidently moving ahead of the conversation. “I should very much like to see these markings for myself.”

“I thought you might.”

“Did you tell him where you worked?”

“Yes. I mentioned Hart's Corner and Horrace, of course. I explained that I was an apprentice and that I had some familiarity with magical objects and traditions.”

“And how did he react?”

“He seemed interested. I suspect he was trying to establish whether I was likely to dismiss him as a superstitious fool or listen to what he had to say. When I explained that I was willing to hear him out, he appeared satisfied.”

Carstairs nodded slowly. “Then you may have done us a service, Max. A man with practical knowledge of a magical tradition that is unfamiliar to us could prove a valuable source of information. Provided, of course, that his claims stand up to examination.”

“I agree. I should like to learn more about his work, and particularly about the relationship between the runes, the Q he described and the offerings he makes to the gods. There is a coherent system there, I think, though I cannot yet say how it operates.”

“Nor should you attempt to decide that after a single demonstration.” Carstairs gave him a pointed look. “We have always maintained that an observation is the beginning of an investigation, not the end of one.”

“I haven't forgotten, sir.”

“Good. And if you intend to pursue this acquaintance, I would prefer that you do so with rather more care than you exercised last night. You have already demonstrated that you are quite capable of finding trouble without any assistance from the supernatural.”

Max laughed softly. “I shall endeavour to be more circumspect.”

“You will do more than endeavour. You will be sensible.” Carstairs paused, then his expression softened again. “Nevertheless, I am glad you came to no worse harm. You gave us a fright, and I should not like to think what Horrace would say if he discovered that one of his apprentices had been beaten senseless in the street and then submitted himself to an unfamiliar working without so much as a note of explanation.”

“I imagine he would have several questions.”

“Several hundred, most likely.”

Max smiled, but the thought of Horrace brought him back to the matter that had been occupying his mind since he left the warehouse. Carstairs had listened carefully, understood the significance of the offering and recognised the importance of the healing working without treating the whole affair as an absurdity. But there was another person at Hart's Corner whose perspective would be invaluable, someone whose experience with geomancy and magical artefacts extended far beyond anything Max could hope to acquire in a lifetime.

“Horrace ought to hear about this,” he said.

Carstairs looked at him. “Yes. I believe he should.”

Max rose from the chair, wincing slightly as the movement tugged at his bruised ribs. He crossed to the counter and reached for his apron, then stopped when he caught sight of his reflection in the glass of a cabinet. The yellowing bruises still looked unpleasant, but they were unmistakably older in appearance than they ought to have been. He touched the bridge of his nose with the lightest pressure and found that it hurt considerably less than it had the night before.

Carstairs watched him. “You are still in pain?”

“A little.”

“Then don't go lifting anything heavy today. If you need to move a box, ask me.”

“I should hate to deprive you of the pleasure.”

“You may deprive me of many things, Max, but not the pleasure of telling you when you are being an idiot.”

Max laughed, and this time the movement caused only a faint ache in his cheek. He put on his apron, straightened the cuffs of his shirt and glanced towards the shelves of books that had occupied so much of his life. The work was waiting, as it always did, and the familiar tasks of the shop offered a welcome counterweight to the extraordinary events of the previous evening.

But as he began sorting the morning's correspondence, his thoughts kept returning to the warehouse by the docks, to the carved runes on its timbers and the man who had used blood and an unfamiliar working to ease his injuries. He had met people who claimed to understand magic, and he had examined objects whose properties demanded careful study. Vargr was different. He had not offered a theory or an artefact for inspection. He had simply demonstrated a practical knowledge that Max had never encountered before, then gone back to his ordinary business as though nothing remarkable had occurred.

Max suspected that the encounter would prove to be the beginning of something rather than the end of a curious evening.

And he had a pint of beer to buy.

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