"Quarter mile off the cliff road. The fire was still hot when I found it."
He sat down across from Torvald and laid out everything else, the bedrolls, the provisions, the boot prints, and the sight lines from the camp to the path. Torvald listened without interrupting, his brow furrowed. When Ivar finished, Torvald picked up the plaid and turned it in his hands.
"He's positioning fer the gathering," Torvald said.
"Aye."
"He'll move during it. When there are enough bodies in the courtyard tae create confusion and the royal observers are watching the main event." He set the fabric down with a sharpthud. "Same method as the harbor fire. Create chaos, use it."
"He's predictable," Ivar said.
"Predictable men are still dangerous."
"More dangerous. Ye ken what they're going tae dae, and ye have tae let them dae it." Ivar had been turning this over since the tree line. "If we tighten the guard now, visibly, he'll ken we found the camp. He'll change his approach. We lose the advantage of knowing his method."
Torvald was quiet, working through the tactical logic. "So we let him think we're unprepared."
"We let him think the gathering is exactly what we've presented it as. A loyalty demonstration. A public occasion with nay particular military posture." Ivar looked at the plaid. "And we put the right men in the right places, quietly, where he willnae see them until he's already committed."
"A trap," Torvald said, a grim light entering his eyes.
"He's been planning one fer a long time. It's our turn tae return the courtesy."
Torvald sat back.
"The letter tae the King," he said. "We should still send it. Nae about the gathering, about the camp. Document that we found it, document the plaid, document the proximity. If this goes sideways, the Crown needs a record that we flagged the threat before it materialized."
"Agreed." Ivar pulled paper toward him. "We write it taenight."
They worked for the better part of two hours, the letter taking longer than it should have because every word required weighing. The tone needed to be measured without being submissive, firm without being aggressive. Something that communicated that they were loyal, they had evidence, they were managing the threat, and were informing the Crown, not because they required intervention, but because transparency was the act of men with nothing to hide.
Torvald drafted. Ivar revised.
They went back and forth twice before they had something that satisfied both of them, which was how they'd made most of the important decisions over the last eleven years. Not quickly, and not easily, and better for both.
When it was done and sealed, Ivar sat back and looked at the candle between them, burning low.
"Four days," Torvald said.
"Aye."
"Get some sleep." Torvald stood. "Ye're nae useful tae anyone running on calculations and three hours of rest." He paused at the door. "She all right?"
Ivar thought about her on the cliff road. The look on her face when she'd identified the plaid without flinching and said, " Probably, " and handed it back to him. "She's well."
"Good." Torvald went.
The chamber was dim when he entered.
As always that was the first thing he noticed. The candle count, the quality of the light, where the shadows were. It was a habit formed since she had entered his life.
One candle burning on the far table. Not the one beside the bed. Not the three she usually kept within reach.
Matilda was at the window, already in her nightgown, unbraiding her hair. She turned when he came in.
"How was Torvald?" she asked.
"Sharp. He usually is." He set his cloak aside and moved through the room, the familiar last-things circuit. Shutters checked, fire banked, the world made smaller and warmer for the night.