The weak, early summer sun was warm as it shone down on the lake not far from the cabin, but the warmth was fleeting. It came and went unpredictably, as the wind continually blew clouds across the sky, hiding the sun. There was a chill in the breeze that made Sigurd very glad that he had worn an extra layer of clothing.

He lay on his back, with the short grass by the edge of the lake tickling his neck. A series of ripples as his brothers moved around in the water made tiny waves that lapped up on the stony ground. Sigurd propped himself up on his elbows and squinted in the glare of the sun to watch Ivar and Hvitserk in the water.

Of his three brothers, only Ubbe had decided to brave the cold to swim in the deeper water at the centre of the lake. He had not stayed long in the water, and now he sat alongside Sigurd, shivering slightly in the meagre warmth of the sun. Ivar had, of course, seized upon the cold temperature of the water as an excuse not to venture any deeper than his ankles, and Hvitserk appeared to have agreed with him, because the two of them remained in the shallow edge, with their feet probably sinking as much into the mud and silt as into the water. Hvitserk held a fishing spear in one hand, and stared down into the murky water in front of him that was probably too shallow for anything but the tiniest of fish.

Things would probably have been different if he had been in his own body, Sigurd mused to himself. He was reasonably sure that if he had been himself, he would have swam too, not out of any particular desire to swim, but simply in an attempt to prove himself against the cold. And if he had gone in, Hvitserk would have had no choice but to dive in alongside him and Ubbe, not wanting to appear a coward.

But he was not himself, and the fact that Ivar was, had given Hvitserk an out.

If he had been in his own body, right now all three of them would have been shivering on the grass, attempting to dry off before they dressed again, and Ivar would have been feeling very smug in his dry clothes.

As was Sigurd, now that he thought about it. Next to him on the grass, Ubbe rubbed his hands quickly up and down his arms in an attempt to warm himself with friction. His skin was covered in gooseflesh and there was a bluish tint to his fingertips and toes. Sigurd grinned at him. "A little chilly?" he asked.

Ubbe quickly shook his head in denial. "No, I'm fine," he insisted through chattering teeth. He reached for his tunic and pants, pulled them on, and wrapped his arms around himself tightly. "A swim was exactly what I needed," he added.

Still grinning, Sigurd shook his head slowly. Of course Ubbe wasn't going to admit that going into the water had been a mistake. "It would be easier to believe you if your fingers weren't blue," he told him.

Ubbe glanced at his hands, flexed his fingers, then rubbed both hands quickly together in an attempt to coax the blood back into his extremities. He shrugged a little sheepishly.

Over at the edge of the lake, where the warmth of the sun had heated the water enough to make it more tolerable, Ivar was standing very still, staring down at where his feet disappeared below the surface, as though fascinated by it. A little further toward the centre of the lake, in the slightly deeper water, Hvitserk also stared down, spear in hand, as he moved slowly through the water trying not to disturb it and frighten the fish.

Ubbe cupped his hands and blew warm air into them, then quickly rubbed the palms on the fabric of his pants. He, too, had been watching their brothers in the water, but now he turned to glance at Sigurd. "Have you noticed anything strange about Sigurd recently?"

Sigurd blinked. He continued to watch Ivar for a few moments more. His brother was still staring down into the water, but standing on one leg now as he moved the other foot in a slow arc, creating a pattern of ripples as it went. He shook his head. "No, he seems totally normal to me."

"Well, he isn't," Ubbe insisted. He sighed and shook his head. "Maybe you wouldn't notice because you don't spend a lot of time with him, but something's… off."

Well, he definitely wasn't wrong about that; there was undoubtedly something strange about his brother, but Sigurd had no intention of telling Ubbe what it was.

"I'm going to talk to him about it," Ubbe said decisively, as though he had been mulling it over for some time and had finally made up his mind.

Sigurd rolled his eyes in a way that he imagined looked very like Ivar. "Right. Like how you made Hvitserk talk to me?" Sigurd shook his head. "I wouldn't bother, you won't get anywhere. Anyway, I'm sure he's fine."

Ubbe frowned. He moved his attention from his brothers in the lake, and focussed it firmly on Sigurd. He stared at him through narrowed eyes for just long enough for it to feel uncomfortable. "You know something, don't you?" he asked. He leaned slightly toward him. "What is it, Ivar? What are you not telling me?"

Sigurd suppressed the urge to sigh. Of course there was something that he wasn't telling him, but it was only because every time either he or Ivar tried, they had been dismissed as liars or pranksters, and then the whole thing was quickly forgotten. If he told Ubbe anything, he would only be wasting both their time, so instead, he shrugged. "Surely you don't think Sigurd would tell me of all people if something were bothering him?"

"No, but…" Ubbe began, then stopped and looked thoughtfully at him. "Actually," he said, "Yes. I think he might have told you. Probably on that day when the two of you disappeared all day. And whatever it is that you talked about, I think it has somehow made the two of you closer."

He wasn't completely wrong. He wasn't right exactly either, of course, but there were elements of truth in Ubbe's theory. Sigurd didn't bother to deny anything; most likely that would only make Ubbe push harder. Instead, he shrugged. "Sigurd will be fine," he assured him. "He is just getting used to some things, that's all."

He glanced back over at his brothers just in time to see Ivar accept another spear from Hvitserk and begin moving through the lake in the same manner as his older brother, paying obvious attention to the slow and careful steps that Hvitserk was making as he tried not to disturb the water too much, as he moved deeper, to where the fish were.

As he watched them, Sigurd could almost feel the chill of the water moving a little higher up his legs with every step. He imagined it approaching the bottoms of his pant legs, where he had rolled them up in an effort to keep them dry, and eventually soaking into the fabric. He was not sure whether it was his imagination, or an unpleasant coincidence, but as he imagined the cold water moving deeper up his legs, they began to ache.

Hvitserk had sensibly removed his pants to keep dry before he had entered the lake, but Ivar had not intended to go any deeper than his ankles. The water was up to his knees now, and Sigurd sound himself imagining the feeling of his feet sinking into the silt at the bottom of the lake, of the slippery mud squeezing between his toes, and the shock and surprise when one of the fish that lived in the lake brushed unexpectedly against the back of a leg.

He was jealous. Even though the lake was so cold that Ubbe was still shivering as his hair dripped water down the back of his neck, Sigurd wanted nothing more than to join his brothers out there, and he hated that he could not. He hated that it was something he may never be able to do again, and that if he ever could it would mean that Ivar could not.

"What things?"

Pulled unexpectedly from his reverie by a seemingly random and disconnected question, Sigurd turned to look at his older brother with a question in his eyes.

"You said that Sigurd is getting used to some things," Ubbe reminded him. "So, what are they?"

Oh. He continued to watch Ivar as he replied. Ivar was getting used to walking, to fishing, to the different sensation of moving through the water compared to along the ground. Sigurd on the other hand… "Sigurd is getting used to the idea that he might have been in the wrong more often than he realised," he said.

The water came to mid-thigh on Ivar now, and had soaked up his pants leg to even higher. Sigurd hoped he had thought to bring a change of clothes with him, or he would be very cold until they dried. But then, that was Ivar's problem, not his. As he watched, Ivar raised the spear a short distance into the air, then thrust it down with force into the water. It came up empty, and Hvitserk's laughter sounded loudly across the distance.

"If Sigurd has really realised that," Ubbe mused. "I think it must be one of those miracles that the Christians like to talk about."

Sigurd pulled an expression of distaste at that, and shook his head. Without thinking about what he was doing, he reached into his pocket and touched the tips of his fingers to the small wooden representation of Odin that Floki had given to him. "The Christian god has nothing to do with it," he said. "Our own gods are more than capable of teaching somebody a lesson if it needs to be taught."

"A lesson?" Ubbe frowned, then gave a quick nod and shrug. "Well, whoever did it, if it is true, then I am thankful to them. It would certainly make my life easier if the two of you could stop being at one another's throats all the time."

He supposed that was one way to look at it. From Ubbe's point of view, of course his two youngest brothers suddenly appearing to have dropped their long-standing feud would feel like a good thing. Of course, Ubbe had no idea of what the gods had done to achieve it, and Sigurd couldn't help but wonder whether he would still feel the same way if he knew what his brothers had gone through.

Yes, Sigurd decided. He probably would still think it was a good thing. And what was more, he would probably laugh at the two of them too.

"It might be easier for you, but it is not easier for me," he said quietly. Nothing was easier in Ivar's body. It was as though it had been created by the gods purely as a way to make life difficult, a way to place obstacles in his way and force him to overcome them before he could even begin to think about the mundane, unimportant things that his brother's considered to be hardships.

He couldn't believe that he had ever, even on the worst days, thought that his life was difficult before.

"I would have thought it would be much easier not to fight with your brother. And I'm sure it must be easier for Sigurd not to feel he has to dodge your fists and the things you like to throw at him."

He had a point. Or he would have a point if things were as Ubbe thought, and the two of them had just come to some sort of an understanding. There was, of course, no point telling him otherwise. Instead, Sigurd shrugged, and changed the subject. "Shouldn't you be out there fishing with those two idiots?"

Ubbe shook his head. "No need. We have plenty of meat from the hunt yesterday, we don't need fish as well. Besides, I don't particularly want to go back into the water."

"So, you were too cold?" Sigurd asked with a grin.

"Me?" Ubbe shook his head. "Of course not, the water was fine. I just got dry, I don't want to get wet again." He paused and looked pointedly at Sigurd. "Why don't you go and fish instead?"

Sigurd glanced back out at his brothers in the lake, and felt another pang of jealousy. Ubbe hadn't said that to be cruel, and if he had really been speaking to Ivar, the comment would probably have washed over him without him even noticing. Maybe Ivar even could spear fish, if he wanted to, all it would take would be for him to sit in the water.

He attempted to squash down the emotion as far as he could, and to imagine how Ivar might react. He shook his head and lay back on the grass as though enjoying relaxing in the meagre warmth of the sun. "Because that is the advantage of being a cripple," he said. "I get to sit back and watch while my brothers do all the work." He grinned at Ubbe.

Ubbe rolled his eyes. "Oh really? Well just for that, you can be in charge of cooking tonight."

Sigurd shrugged. Cooking meant making sure that the meat didn't burn, and he was sure that he could handle it.

A shriek of laughter carried over from the lake, and both of them glanced across immediately. While they had been talking, Hvitserk had caught a fish. With it still mounted on his spear, he was running toward Ivar, water splashing wildly around him as he did. Ivar stood his ground for a moment, adopting a grip on the spear that looked almost as though he intended to fight, but at the last moment he turned and ducked out of the way. Hvitserk turned too, and Ivar took off, water splashing all around him as he moved through the water, glancing behind him as he attempted to escape from his brother and the fish.

"It's only a fish Sigurd, nothing to be afraid of!" Hvitserk called after him as he ran through the water, gaining rapidly on Ivar who was unused to running, and especially unused to running in water. As he chased, Hvitserk pulled the creature from the end of his spear and tossed the spear onto the dry land at the edge of the lake. It landed with a dull thud on the ground.

Just as Hvitserk was almost close enough to touch Ivar with the cold wet fish, Ivar appeared to lose his balance, his top half moving faster than his legs could carry him with the water holding him back. His arms flailed for a moment, spinning in the air in an instinctive attempt to stay upright, before he fell face-first into the water with a huge splash.

Sigurd pushed himself into a fully seated position, staring into the lake as Ivar came up spluttering and coughing, a look of almost panic in his eyes that turned to anger when Hvitserk laughed.

Sigurd and Ubbe watched in horrified fascination as Ivar reached out with one hand from below the surface of the water, and drove it hard into the back of Hvitserk's knee. His older brother dropped the fish as he, too, landed hard in the water, instantly soaked to the skin.

Ivar moved closer, and for a horrible moment, Sigurd thought that his younger brother was going to do something terrible, to try to fight Hvitserk, or even drag him down under the water over what had been a silly joke. Hvitserk had made a fool of Ivar and embarrassed him, and that was something that Sigurd knew he did not forgive easily. He found himself leaning forward, toward the lake, as though he would be able to do anything. Ubbe, he noticed, appeared calm and unconcerned. Of course, Ubbe thought that it was Sigurd in the lake, and while Sigurd could admit now that he could be cruel, Ubbe knew that he was not violent.

Ivar, on the other hand…

As Sigurd watched, Ivar reached down into the water as though reaching for something. Sigurd opened his mouth to cry out a warning to Hvitserk, expecting his brother to pull out his fishing spear, or perhaps a rock to hit Hvitserk with. The cry died on his lips as Ivar's hand emerged from the water holding the fish that Hvitserk had dropped. He held it menacingly in the air, then grabbed at the neck of Hvitserk's sodden tunic, and pushed the creature inside.

Hvitserk let out a shriek of surprised horror, and splashed in the shallow water as he tried to pull the slimy carcass out again, and Sigurd felt himself relax. He laughed. Sitting next to him in the sun, he heard Ubbe laughing too.

Ivar emerged from the lake first, crawling out, then getting to his feet when he was free of the water. He was dripping from head to foot, with a victorious grin on his face. Hvitserk climbed to his feet while still in the lake, fishing down the front of his tunic for the fish, he ran a few steps to catch up to Ivar just as he reached Sigurd and Ubbe, then hit him hard on the back of the head with the fish.

Ivar spun around quickly, raising a hand to slap the slippery fish from Hvitserk's hand and somehow, whether he had planned it that way or it had been a coincidence, it landed in Sigurd's lap.

Sigurd looked down at the fish. The wound in its belly had been washed almost clean by the water of the lake, and it lay motionless for a moment until he grabbed it before anybody else could, and threw it at Ubbe. It hit him in the centre of the chest then slit down to lay on his knee.

Ubbe frowned at him in apparent confusion. "Why did you do that? Sigurd was the one that made it hit you."

It was a reasonable question. Ivar had hit the fish from Hvitserk's hand, while Ubbe had been an innocent bystander. Sigurd shrugged. "It seemed fair. You were the only one who hadn't been hit yet."

Ubbe picked up the fish by the tail between his thumb and forefinger, and tossed it away. It landed by the edge of the lake and lay motionless. He brushed the back of a hand down his tunic and his lap where it had hit him, then glared at Sigurd. "If you really want to make things even between the four of us, little brother, you are the only one who didn't get wet today."

Sigurd glanced nervously at the water. His apprehension was not for the same reason that Ivar disliked the water; he knew that his brothers would never allow any harm to come to him in there. They would probably not even put him in the deep water, but he could imagine, very easily, Ubbe and Hvitserk picking him up and depositing him in the shallow edge of the lake, just deep enough to ensure that he got thoroughly soaked before he managed to crawl out again.

"He has a point there, Ivar…" Hvitserk agreed with a grin. He turned to glance at Ivar. "What do you say, Sigurd, shall we take him for a swim?"

Ivar hesitated. He, too, glanced back at the water for a moment, then looked at Sigurd, his expression thoughtful. After a moment, he took a step forward, grabbed hold of the sodden front of his tunic with both hands, and wrung it out. The water splashed onto Sigurd's head and ran down his face and the back of his neck before he had the chance to get out of the way.

"There, now he's wet too," Ivar said. "Can we go now? The sun will be going down soon, and I would like to get back and light a fire before I freeze to death."

Sigurd flicked his hands through his hair in an attempt to brush the water away, and tried to look as though he was annoyed rather than thankful.

As he did, Hvitserk cupped a hand over his eyes and squinted up at the sky to verify that the sun, warm enough only a few minutes earlier to counteract the chill in the wind, had begun to sink into the horizon. "Good point," he said, then folded his arms tightly and shivered. "I wish I had decided to swim now, at least I would have had a dry tunic to put on."

Ubbe got to his feet. He grabbed the pair of pants that Hvitserk had discarded before he went into the water, and threw them at his brother. To Ivar, he tossed the slightly damp cloth that he had used to dry himself off earlier, and gave him an apologetic shrug. "Let's go then," he said. "Ivar has volunteered to cook tonight, and I'm looking forward to sitting back and letting him do all the work." He shot a smug glance in Sigurd's direction as though he thought he had won.

"Sounds good to me," Hvitserk agreed, then glancing at Sigurd, he pointed at the wooden carry-chair that he and Ubbe had used to transport Sigurd to the lake.

Sigurd looked at it reluctantly, knowing that he had no choice. His fingers still ached from the tight grip he had felt compelled to keep on the sides of the thing when they had carried him here. He knew that neither of his brothers would deliberately drop him of course, but there had been something about being carried in that way that made him feel unsafe, as though he might fall.

He gritted his teeth, turned over onto his front and crawled toward the chair. When they got home, he was going to suggest some modifications. Padding, for a start. And perhaps it would feel safer if he tied himself in. Actually, no. Now that he thought about it, that would probably be worse. Which was presumably why Ivar hadn't already suggested it.

There had to be something though. Something better than this, better than being carried around by his brothers like a sack of grain. Preferably even some way for him to move around better under his own power instead of having to rely on others.

Of course Ivar had already told him one way, and the more Sigurd thought about it, the more Ivar's crazy idea about strapping iron to his legs started to make sense. Maybe it would even work…

He settled himself into the chair and tried to force his fingers to relax and not to hold so tightly as Ubbe and Hvitserk lifted him off the ground. Meanwhile, Ivar pulled on his boots and gathered up the fishing spears and other things they had brought with them. When all was done, they began to make their way back to the cabin for the night.