Death of Kings. Bernard Cornwell

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      ‘You want more?’ I asked angrily.

      ‘You want everything, Kjartan of Cumbraland,’ she said, and she had paused for the space of an eye-blink before saying that name, as if she suspected it was false, ‘so yes. I want more.’

      I almost refused, but I confess I was frightened of her power, and so I took all the silver from my pouch, fifteen coins, and put them in the wooden bowl. She smirked as the coins clinked. ‘What do you want to know?’ she asked.

      ‘Everything.’

      ‘There will be a harvest,’ she said dismissively, ‘and then winter, and after winter the time of sowing, and then another harvest and then another winter until time ends, and men will be born and men will die, and that is everything.’

      ‘Then tell me what I want to know,’ I said.

      She hesitated, then gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘Put your hand on the rock,’ she said, but when I put my left hand flat on the cold stone she shook her head. ‘Your sword hand,’ she said and I obediently laid my right hand there instead. ‘Turn it over,’ she snarled, and I turned the hand palm upwards. She picked up the knife, watching my eyes. She was half smiling, daring me to withdraw my hand, and when I did not move she suddenly scored the knife across my palm. She scored it once from the ball of my thumb to the base of my small finger, then did it again, crosswise, and I watched the fresh blood well from the two cuts and I remembered the crosswise scar on Sigurd’s hand. ‘Now,’ she said, putting the knife down, ‘slap the stone hard.’ She pointed with a finger to the smooth centre of the stone. ‘Slap it there.’