text: The kaupang at Skíringssalr sat in a protected bay in Viksfjord by the main sailing route along the coast. Not that there were any trading vessels or fighting ships out there now. The only boats out on the dark water were the odd færing in which brave or hungry men sat swathed in pelts and hunched into themselves, their weighted lines running down and down into the deep.
  
  'That sod deserves whatever he can pull up,' Olaf had said about one such man they had passed. When they had first seen him he was still in the lee of a gull-crowned island, but now he was drifting with the waves towards the rocks. He would need to wind in his line – never a pleasant thing for the hands in this cold – and row back out before he risked holing his boat.
  
  As Reinen passed within an arrow-shot the fisherman waved in greeting. No doubt he was surprised to see a ship like Reinen, even lightly crewed as she was, coming into Skíringssalr at this time of year and he was testing to see whether he ought to drop his block and line and row for his life. To save him the trouble, Olaf raised a hand and nodded back, putting the man at ease so that he smiled and called across, asking Njörd to give Olaf fair winds and kind seas.
  
  'This is good farming country,' Solmund said at the tiller, looking out across the land as the others took the oars from their trees and threaded them through the ports. There was little wind anyway and they had already lowered the yard and furled the sail on it in readiness to manoeuvre Reinen into her berth. 'But more important is the mouth of the river to the west of here. Crews sail inland for the iron. Whetstone and soapstone too.'
  
  'Maybe we should raid inland then?' Svein suggested, leaning back in the stroke.
  
  'You want to row upriver with not even half a crew?' Olaf asked him, those words pissing out the flame of Svein's idea before it could take hold amongst them, for rowing against the current was not something which anyone enjoyed, for all that there were few better ways to stay warm.
  
  'Besides which, we are not here to raid at all,' Sigurd reminded them, his eyes running along the rows of small houses and workshops strung out along the water's edge, his nose full of the sweet scent of the birch smoke rising into the sky. Around the bay several wharves and smaller jetties jutted out into the water, some with færings or knörrs snugged up against them, but most bare but for the odd gull, and on one a group of children standing on the edge with lines in the water.
  
  Sigurd tried to imagine what Skíringssalr looked like in high summer, thronged with all manner of boats and buzzing like a beehive with craftsmen, traders and seafarers from all over. As it was now, the place was a ghost of itself, blanketed with snow and as quiet as the burial mounds which could be seen beyond the settlement, on promontories and on the low heights along the fjord's edges.
  
  Then Solmund pointed to the north and the ridge of high land overlooking the bay and Sigurd did not need the old steersman to explain what they were looking at.
  
  'Skíringssalr itself,' Sigurd said, though there was no clue as to how it had got the name shining hall, what with it looking like any other jarl or king's mead hall, albeit the place was easily as big as Eik-hjálmr, Sigurd's father's old hall, had been. Before Sigurd himself had placed the Skudeneshavn dead inside it and burnt it to the ground.
  
  'And you're sure it's a good idea, paying your respects to some Danish king?' Solmund asked him, pushing the tiller to turn Reinen towards the shore as Olaf ordered the steerboard side rowers to lift their oars. Those on the larboard made several more strokes and the ship turned neatly, the steerboard blades biting the water again before she had swung fully round. Then, the oars dipping and lifting in perfect unison again, Reinen glided like a swan towards the berth Olaf had chosen, her bows pointing back out into the fjord in case they should have to leave in haste.
  
  Sigurd had not answered Solmund and now he took a mooring rope and jumped up on to the sheer strake as some of the others lined the sides ready to grab hold of the jetty and see to it that they landed as smoothly as a sword sliding into its scabbard.
  
  'Here they come,' Aslak said, taking another rope, from the stern now, and lashing it to the mooring rail as Sigurd tied his off.
  
  Men in mail and helmets and carrying shields were trudging down the hill from the king's hall, the fog around their beards and heads no doubt full of the curses they were uttering at having to leave a cosy warm hall to growl at some crew that had arrived unannounced. With Reinen's prow beast safely stowed in the hold and the oar strokes unhurried, even languid, they had not come into Skíringssalr looking like some raiding party of eager young men seeking to attack the place with the surprise of a lightning strike. Nevertheless, the Danes would have been watching them like a hawk from its roost, wondering who they were and why they were out in the Viksfjord in winter, and now they were coming, a great wave of Spear-Danes rolling down the hill.
  
  'Whoresons are trying to scare us,' Svein said, standing on the wharf leaning on the head of his long-hafted axe.
  
  'Then they should have sent at least three times as many,' Bram Bear said, which raised a laugh because there must have been forty Danes spilling down that ridge from their king's hall.
  
  'Still, that's a lot of hearthmen to keep in your hall over winter,' Olaf observed. 'This Danish king must have plenty of mead.'
  
  'And a decent skald,' Svein said, meaning to irk Hagal, who was hardly earning his keep as a skald these days, if he ever had.
  
  Sigurd had them all in their war gear, in brynjur and helmets, their furs left in the thwarts so that their mail and arms were on display, for it was important to make the right impression. But he did not have them make a shieldwall across that wharf, and that again was deliberately done. Instead his warriors stood in a loose pack in all their war glory, so that each looked like the hero of their own saga. Svein loomed. Bram glowered. Black Floki stood at Sigurd's right shoulder, as silent as the fjord, his shield in one hand and a short axe in the other.
  
  When they had come almost to the shore, a spear's throw from Sigurd, the Danes stopped and formed a skjaldborg, catching their breath and glaring from beneath the rims of their helmets. One of them came forward and planted the butt of his spear into the snow. He was not a tall man, nor a young man, but Sigurd had never seen a broader man. His shoulders, under his fine-looking brynja, were as square as a sailcloth. His beard was a silver rope which fell to his chest and his eyes were small and grey as the sky.
  
  'Who are you?' he asked.
  
  'I am Sigurd Haraldarson,' Sigurd said, 'who killed Jarl Randver of Hinderå and who will kill King Gorm of Avaldsnes when I decide that the worms need a good feast.'
  
  The man laughed at that. 'A Norseman who kills other Norsemen. That is a good start. And a jarl-killer no less.' Then the smile was gone and those small eyes sharpened to spear tips. 'You are an ambitious young man it seems to me. Have you come here to kill the king who lives in that hall?' he asked, thumbing back the way they had come. He lifted the spear then thrust it back into the crisp mantle. 'There must be some hungry worms under here somewhere.' The man's eyes flicked across to Valgerd and lingered there a moment, though Sigurd could not blame him for that, and not just because she was a woman dressed for war.
  
  'I have no quarrel with your king,' Sigurd said. 'To tell you the truth I do not even know his name.' He looked up and down the shoreline. 'I would have asked someone but . . .' He shrugged. 'Everyone must be sitting by a warm fire indoors.'
  
  'Everyone except us,' the man said, his accent as thick as the snow they stood in. He gestured at the boarded-up store houses and workshops along the beachfront. 'You must have noticed that there is little in the way of trading being done at this time of year. But then a man who has not heard of King Thorir Gapthrosnir is clearly a man who knows as much as a herring about what goes on in this world.'
  
  'We live to the west, many weeks' sailing from here,' Sigurd said, wondering how the king on that hill had got the byname the one in gaping frenzy. 'And as you well know, there are more men who call themselves king than there are pretty girls in all of Denmark.'
  
  The man did not know how to take that. Was Sigurd saying that the man's king was nothing special? Or that Danish girls were ugly? Or both?
  
  'Well, at least there will be one less king when you kill this Gorm of Avaldsnes,' the man said, his tone a hair's breadth from open mockery. 'Why are you here if not to trade?' He nodded at Reinen. 'She is a handsome ship. Perhaps a gift for King Thorir?'
  
  Sigurd smiled. 'I have come to ask a favour of your king. A favour for which I will pay very well.'
  
  A stout, big-bearded warrior who must have been this man's son growled in the warrior's ear and the broad man nodded, never taking his eyes from Sigurd. 'You want a favour from a king you had never heard of until a moment ago?' he said.
  
  'I do,' Sigurd said.
  
  The man swept his gaze across the crew standing on the wharf before him and he seemed impressed by what he saw. He could hardly be anything else, Sigurd thought, for whilst they might be only half a crew they looked like war gods come down from Asgard.
  
  'Well then,' the man said, 'you and your friends had better come up to my king's hall so that we may all learn what you want from Thorir Gapthrosnir. I will have my men watch your ship, not that there is anyone around to steal her.' With that the short but impossibly wide man turned and marched back up the hill and Sigurd and his crew followed, the Danish warriors closing around them with shields and spears and reeking of woodsmoke and honey.
  
  Skíringssalr, the shining hall. The very moment Sigurd walked into the place there was no more wondering how it had got the name. For it was brighter inside the hall than outside in the grey day. It was a golden, blazing, flame-burnished hall the likes of which neither Sigurd nor his companions had ever seen.
  
  'Welcome to Skíringssalr,' the square-shouldered Dane said, removing his helmet as he led Sigurd and the others past the great hearth whose flames flapped like war banners in the wind. They had left their weapons outside with the stewards, which none of them had liked doing, though they knew they must observe the custom or stand outside in the cold.
  
  'Even a Dane would not murder his own guests,' Olaf had growled to Svein under his breath. And yet they remembered only too well that a rich farmer called Guthorm had tried to do just that, and would have too, had Floki, who was his thrall at the time, not slaughtered Guthorm and his kin before they could carry out their murder.
  
  'I will have mead brought so that we may drink to the jarl-killer,' the man said, gesturing at the raised wooden benches lining the walls where Sigurd and his crew should sit. And then the man stepped up on to the low platform and sat in one of the big chairs beside two women: one of them a wizened old crone who could only have been his mother by how short she was, and the other an ageing beauty with the proud eyes and bearing of a queen. Her greying fair hair was intricately braided and pinned in a coil atop her head. The oval brooches pinned on the shoulder straps of her apron-skirt were the size of her fists and made of gold, and between them were several strings of glass and amber beads which glowed in the candlelight.
  
  'The crafty sod,' Olaf mumbled, and Sigurd knew they had been tricked and that the short, broad-shouldered man was no hirðman but King Thorir himself. His hair was thinning and cropped short so that the only braid he wore was the one hanging from his chin, which would make an impressive beard if loose. But he was a man who had good, strong years still in him.
  
  'Sigurd Haraldarson, Queen Halla,' the king said, gesturing at the younger of the two women on his left.
  
  'It is an honour, lady,' Sigurd said.
  
  The queen nodded. 'I am intrigued to know what brings you up the Viksfjord at this time of year, young Sigurd Haraldarson,' she said.
  
  Now Sigurd nodded but said no more about it, knowing you did not go straight into the matter but must wait until mead was flowing and the fire's warmth had got into the warp and weft of their tunics and breeks. Instead, he introduced Olaf and Asgot, Solmund and Svein and all his crew, which was easily enough done as there were not many of them, and he finished with Runa, at whom Queen Halla smiled with a mixture of kindness and pity. For the scar on Runa's face was raw and livid, and she wore it with the clumsiness of a boy into his first beard fluff.
  
  The king had nodded to each of them in turn and even complimented Svein on his size, though he had looked a little ill at ease when Sigurd introduced Asgot, which was not unusual for men were always wary when they knew they had a godi under their roof.
  
  There were no hounds in the hall that Sigurd could see, but there were at least a dozen cats. The creatures were curling themselves round folks' legs and benches, sharpening their claws on roof posts, or sleeping under tables, which had struck Sigurd as odd until Asgot muttered that the whole place reeked of Freyja seiðr.
  
  Pretty girls moved through the hall, filling horns and cups as the king's hearthmen took to their benches and tables and made themselves comfortable amongst the women already in their cups, which gave Sigurd a moment to fill his eyes with this shining place. As well as the chain-hung and tall free-standing iron oil lamps you would find in any hall, there were candles everywhere. Hundreds of candles, and they were of beeswax, which accounted for the honey Sigurd had smelt on the Danes who had come down to the shore. They burnt cleanly and with little smoke because their wicks did not yet need trimming, which meant they had been lit recently, perhaps when Reinen had been spotted coming into the bay. If this king's aim was to impress his guests then he had succeeded, for beeswax candles were rare and expensive, scarcely seen amongst the western isles. And yet they were not so rare as the fabrics which hung from Skíringssalr's raftered ceiling, scores of them, from one end of the hall to the other, floating as lightly as summer clouds on the draughts. Only these fabrics were not white like clouds but gold.
  
  'Looks like a golden sea, upon which Óðin far-wanderer might sail his ship Skíthblathnir, which receives fair winds whenever the sail is set,' Hagal said, which was a better description than Sigurd could have come up with.
  
  'And that's why you're a skald. Or used to be, anyway,' Solmund told Crow-Song, looking up with awe at the shimmering drapes, which all but hid the dark roof timbers and hung there like the hem of some goddess's wedding kyrtill, as Runa said, which Hagal agreed was an even better word picture than his.
  
  'Silks,' King Thorir said, looking up at the wafting gold fabrics as though he were still in awe of them himself. The only part of the roof not festooned with this glimmering gold was that part directly above the central hearth by the smoke hole. 'No good for keeping the cold out, but the sight alone is enough to warm a man who appreciates beauty. From across the Baltic sea. You would think it too fragile to make the journey and yet there it is, shimmering like the golden tears of Valfreyja herself.'
  
  That mention of Freyja as the Lady of the Slain was a good start, Sigurd thought, hoping that it hinted at King Thorir's dedication to the goddess, which would in turn suggest he might be familiar with the Freyja Maidens whom Valgerd had talked of. Had Thorir and his men not stared at Valgerd? Perhaps there was more to their interest in the shieldmaiden than her fierce beauty.
  
  'The candles I get from Karl the king of the Franks,' King Thorir said. 'He sends his priests with chests full of them, thinking that he can buy me for his nailed god. For his White Christ.'
  
  'These priests say all my husband need do is let them bathe him,' Queen Halla said. 'He would say some words, whatever these priests told him to say, I suppose, and that would gain him entry into their god's kingdom.' She stretched out her arms, both palms uppermost. 'They send us candles and ask that the king at least thinks about their offer.'
  
  'I tell him I am thinking about it,' King Thorir said, drinking from a great horn.
  
  'And are you?' Sigurd asked, wanting to know more about this Frankish king and the god he worshipped.
  
  King Thorir shrugged those massive shoulders of his. 'As far as I can see, the Franks' god is nothing compared with our own. A god favoured by weaklings and cowards.' He tipped his horn towards Sigurd. 'And yet King Karl is neither. He is more powerful than all your Norse kings put together. So you can see it is an issue I must think on. As I have been doing for many years now.' He grinned, clearly satisfied with the arrangement he had struck with these Frankish priests. 'Besides, this is a place of trade. Ships come here from all over, so I am a friend to all. It has done me no harm,' he said, sweeping an arm out which caused one of his candles to gutter.
  
  'So you like our hall?' Queen Halla asked Sigurd, her brooches gleaming like plunder from Fáfnir's hoard.
  
  'I have never seen its like, lady,' Sigurd said.
  
  She laughed at that. 'You don't look old enough to have seen much of anything, Sigurd Haraldarson.'
  
  'I have seen what the gods have chosen to show me, lady,' Sigurd said, at which Asgot nodded for it was a good answer, saying little and yet much. And it was enough to narrow the king's eyes.
  
  'Why did you kill this Jarl Randver? And why will you kill King Gorm?' King Thorir asked, again pointing his drinking horn at Sigurd.
  
  So Sigurd told him the story, leaving out none of the gore, even telling of his days spent hanging on that tree in the fetid swamp, and the deaths of those brave greybeards from Osøyro who earned their places in Valhöll at the last, due to their pride and the fact that they had been too old to run from the fight. All in all it was a good story – everyone in that shining hall must have thought so – and one that even a skald would enjoy the telling of what with all the mention of murder and revenge and the gods. And when Sigurd had finished, King Thorir raised his mead horn in recognition of a tale well told, as the thralls began to bring bowls of steaming meat stew to his guests.
  
  'Óðin-favoured, hey?' the king said, his mouth moving as though chewing on a thought.
  
  'So men say,' Sigurd replied, sitting back against the wall. The telling of all that had befallen him had been tiring. And yet it had felt good laying it all out like a massive pelt for all to appreciate.
  
  'That is quite something, for I am Freyja-favoured.' King Thorir swung his gaze on to Valgerd then, but the shieldmaiden's face gave nothing away.
  
  'Then we both have powerful allies, lord,' Sigurd said.
  
  'Perhaps. Though it sounds as if you are in need of more allies, Sigurd,' King Thorir said, 'and if that is the reason why you have come here, you will be disappointed. For as I have told you, I am finding more profit in trade and taxes than in war.'
  
  'As much as I would welcome your help against King Gorm, I do not think that even with all your Spear-Danes we would be enough,' Sigurd said. 'No, I am not ready to feed the oath-breaker to the worms just yet. I have come here to Skíringssalr on another matter. I have heard of an island which is home to a band of warrior women, Freyja Maidens, who train for the sword-song that will ring out across the worlds of men and gods come Ragnarök.'
  
  King Thorir glanced at his wife then looked back to Sigurd. 'So you had not heard of King Thorir Gapthrosnir but you know about the Maidens? Even though few men have ever laid eyes on this island you speak of?' He looked at Valgerd again.
  
  'I told Sigurd of the Freyja Maidens, lord,' Valgerd said.
  
  'You were one of them?' he asked, his frown suggesting that if that were so, he did not recognize her.
  
  'My mother's mother was,' Valgerd said. 'Until she left the island. The High Mother had taken a lover for herself. A young warrior who had made his reputation fighting for King Audun.'
  
  'A piss bucket king,' King Thorir growled, for his father had more than likely fought against Audun who had been king to the north of Skíringssalr until he had fallen off his boat and drowned. That was a story which had flown far.
  
  'But this young man fell in love with my grandmother and she with him. The High Mother wanted him killed and her banished but the Prophetess forbade it. Instead she let them leave the island and even blessed their marriage.'
  
  'I remember some talk of it,' the king said, waving a hand through the smoke. 'What do you want with the Maidens, Haraldarson?' There was a steel edge in his voice which was hardly surprising if, as Valgerd had said, the king of Skíringssalr was sworn to protect the island and its women warriors.
  
  'I want Runa to live on the island with these Freyja Maidens,' Sigurd said, 'where she will be safe.' He gestured at the warriors around him. 'We will follow the coast east but not until I know that Runa is out of danger. Where we are going there is bound to be fighting.'
  
  'You will raid?'
  
  'Perhaps.'
  
  'Not my lands.'
  
  'Not your lands,' Sigurd agreed. Though that promise was easier given than kept.
  
  'I see that someone has already tried to ruin your great beauty, girl,' King Thorir said to Runa, 'but we are thankful that they failed. I trust that your brother avenged you?'
  
  'He did, my lord,' Runa said, turning her livid scar away from their hosts.
  
  For a moment Sigurd felt again the savage, hot hatred in his belly that had filled him as he killed the archer whose arrow had torn open Runa's face.
  
  'And you would not consider an arrangement with me?' the king said. 'We could look after young Runa here, in this hall. She would be safe with us.'
  
  'And what would stop you coming to a subsequent agreement with my enemies, who are even now searching for me?' Sigurd asked.
  
  'I could give you my oath,' King Thorir said.
  
  Sigurd grinned. 'In my experience, kings are no less likely to break their oaths than the thralls who empty their piss pots.'
  
  Thorir bristled at that, though there was a half smile on Queen Halla's lips, Sigurd noticed.
  
  'Careful, lad,' Olaf hissed out of the corner of his mouth.
  
  The king looked at Valgerd. 'You know where to find the Freyja Maidens?' he asked.
  
  'No, King Thorir,' she said. 'My mother told me of their island but I have never been there.'
  
  'Ah, so you want me to show you the place, Sigurd,' the king said.
  
  'I will pay you,' Sigurd said.
  
  But the king shook his head. 'No. I will not show you where it is. Not even if I wanted to, which I do not. For it is forbidden.' He raised a hand before Sigurd could speak again. 'However, perhaps I will arrange for your sister's safe conduct to the island. For a fair price. I have business with the Maidens from time to time. I send them gifts. Mail coats. Helmets. Swords.' He glanced up at the golden silks that were set shimmering in the draughts by the light of all those candles whose burning sweetened the usual fug of a hall. 'I help the Maidens where I can and in return they will see that I am taken to Freyja's hall, Sessrymnir, when the day of my death comes, and no matter the manner of it. My wife, too, will enjoy the Goddess's hospitality.'
  
  'You would not rather be received in Valhöll, King Thorir?' Olaf said.
  
  Thorir's face darkened like a fjord where two currents meet. 'I have sons. Fine sons. But we had a daughter once. Our beautiful Hallveig died when she was just a girl. She waits for us now in Sessrymnir. We will see her again.' He glanced at his wife. 'Freyja willing.'
  
  Olaf nodded. 'A hard loss, King Thorir,' he said, 'I am sorry to hear of it.' The king nodded back before downing a belly-full of mead.
  
  'My lord, if Olaf and I may speak a moment about your offer?' Sigurd asked, at which the king dipped his head and held out a big hand, inviting them to talk amongst themselves.
  
  'There would be nothing to stop him taking payment from us and then sending word to King Gorm or Hrani Randversson, offering them Runa for a price,' Olaf said. 'We would be gone up the coast and none the wiser.'
  
  Sigurd shook his head. 'I will not leave without knowing that Runa is safe with these Freyja Maidens.' As much as he was determined that his sister should not face the dangers of any coming fights, he was also reluctant to trust a Danish king he had not heard of until this very day. 'So what do we do, Uncle?' he asked.
  
  Olaf scratched amongst his beard, his eyes skimming across the faces of those gathered on the benches in King Thorir's hall.
  
  'What are you looking for?' Sigurd asked him.
  
  'These fine sons of his,' Olaf said. He nodded at a group of drinking men. 'He is one without a doubt,' he said.
  
  'What of it?' Sigurd asked.
  
  'Perhaps the king is willing to let us . . . look after . . . one of them. For a little while.'
  
  Sigurd felt the smile twitch in his lips like a fish on a line. He turned back to their host. 'King Thorir, are you certain the Freyja Maidens will take Runa and keep her safe?'
  
  'As I say, we have an understanding,' the king said.
  
  'And if we agree on the price for your most trusted hearthmen to deliver my sister to these maidens with all haste, what will you give me, seeing as we do not yet know each other well and I will have given you payment and my own sister who is more precious to me than anything in this life?'
  
  The king's eyes narrowed. 'You want a hostage?'
  
  Sigurd shook his head. 'A guarantee.'
  
  'My sons are too old for fostering,' the king said.
  
  'I find it is the young man who thinks he knows everything that is in most need of learning that he knows nothing much at all,' Olaf said.
  
  Sigurd wondered if that had been aimed at him, but Olaf gave nothing away. The king was deep in thought by the looks and even raised a hand to hush the queen, who was trying to give her opinion on the proposition.
  
  'Thidrek,' King Thorir called and a big-shouldered man stood from his bench, dragging a hand across his mouth.
  
  'Father,' the man replied. He was not tall but he was stout as a boar in his prime.
  
  'Could be useful,' Olaf muttered.
  
  'Where's your brother?' King Thorir asked the young man.
  
  'Thorberg,' Thidrek called over his shoulder to the man who had stood beside King Thorir on the wharf and who Sigurd and Olaf had known must be the king's son. This Thorberg half stood at his bench, spumy-bearded and frowning.
  
  'No, damn it!' his father said. 'Thorbiorn! Where's Thorbiorn?'
  
  Thidrek shrugged those impressive shoulders, spilling mead over the lip of his horn. His brother Thorberg sat down again.
  
  'Here, Father,' someone said. All eyes turned to the far side of the hearth and a group of young bloods with mead in one hand and women in the other parted to give their king a line of sight to his son. Bare-chested, his fire-bright hair loose over his shoulders, Thorbiorn clambered out of a deep, fur-piled bench and the two naked bed thralls he had been sharing it with.
  
  'Gods, boy, we have guests!' King Thorir roared, standing and hurling his horn across the hall at his son so that several men and women were spattered with mead.
  
  Thorbiorn, who could not have been more than seventeen summers, stood on the rush-strewn floor as if he was on a ship in an angry sea.
  
  'Maybe it was not such a good idea of yours, Olaf,' Solmund said under his breath.
  
  'Shit of the gods,' Olaf rumbled into his beard.
  
  'Do I have to come over and drag you up here by your balls?' King Thorir bellowed at the lad. This got a laugh from many but not from Thorbiorn, who grimaced and staggered across the hall, pulling on his tunic as he came. Then he stopped, bent double and spewed the contents of his stomach on to the floor, raising curses from the king's hirðmen and a stink that spread through the hall like a sea fog.
  
  'Lad looks like you,' Olaf mumbled to Sigurd.
  
  'Thorbiorn is my youngest son,' King Thorir told them. 'The gods know the boy has a lot to learn. When I was his age I had three or four good raids under my belt. I had stood in the shieldwall and weathered the storm of swords.' He shook his head. 'But Thorbiorn would rather swive himself half to death with any thrall who will open her legs for him than make a name for himself like his brothers.'
  
  Whereas his brothers were wide and thick-necked, Thorbiorn was lean and knotty, though he did not look weak. His cheekbones were high and his eyebrows were darker than his hair, so Sigurd could see why Olaf had said that the young man looked like him. Even swaying on his legs like that, looking as if he might spew another steaming load.
  
  'You want me to go with this . . . crew, Father?' Thorbiorn asked, gesturing at Sigurd and his companions. 'We do not know them. I will not be the hostage of some band of outlaws.'
  
  'You will do what I tell you to do, boy!' the king said, flushing. But then he got a hold of his anger and looked to Sigurd. 'Still, Sigurd, my son has a point. We do not know what kind of man you are, other than a jarl-killer who worries about his sister.' He frowned. 'I want Thorbiorn to learn the ways of the warrior. We are at peace here and do not involve ourselves in petty fighting over sheep or cattle, so there is rarely an opportunity for him to taste the blood-fray.' He pointed a stubby finger at Sigurd and Olaf. 'How do I know that you are the right sort of men to teach him? And if you take him into a fight or two, how do I know that you can keep him alive?' He looked at Thorbiorn. 'He may be as much use as tits on a fish but he is my son.'
  
  'Were you not listening to Sigurd's account of our blood feud with the oath-breaker and Jarl Randver of Hinderå?' Olaf asked him.
  
  'A good story,' the king shrugged, which could not have been easy with those shoulders, 'but perhaps just a story,' he said.
  
  'Wait for it,' Solmund mumbled.
  
  The king looked at the queen. Halla gave a slight shake of her head but Thorir was already grinning.
  
  'Wait for it,' Solmund said again.
  
  'I have an idea, Sigurd Haraldarson,' King Thorir announced, loud enough to startle the mice in Skíringssalr's thatch.
  
  'Here we go,' Solmund said through a grimace.
  
  'I am listening,' Sigurd said.
  
  'A fight, Sigurd. You against me.' His teeth looked good in that smile, Sigurd thought, which meant no one had ever managed to knock them out. 'A friendly little fight.'
  
  The king's men were moving. Svein and Floki and the others began to rise but Sigurd stayed them with a hand.
  
  'No blades of course,' King Thorir went on. 'Just a friendly grapple until one of us has had enough. What do you say?'
  
  But before Sigurd could say anything at all, the king was out from his bench and on to the table, knocking platters and candles flying as he scrambled across the boards and jumped down on to the floor. Then he came at Sigurd like a rolling barrel and Sigurd had just got to his feet himself when the king grabbed hold of his belt and brynja and threw him into the middle of the hall. Even as he rolled across the floor he could hear Olaf bawling at the others to stay on their benches, but then the king was on him, bending low to wrap his brawny arms round Sigurd's thighs, his shoulder in Sigurd's crotch. Then the king drove upwards, lifting Sigurd off the floor, before slamming him down again, knocking the air from his lungs so that he could not have shouted Stop even if he'd wanted to. A fist hammered into his temple and another buried itself in his eye socket and white heat filled Sigurd's head.
  
  He threw up his left hand, grabbing the king's beard rope, and savagely yanked on it, and the king's head had no choice but to follow so that Sigurd's right fist drove into it, hard enough to loosen Thorir's back teeth. Then Sigurd scrambled free and the two men got to their feet, circling each other like crabs at low tide, and Sigurd knew how Thorir had got the byname Gapthrosnir, one gaping in frenzy. The king's mouth was open and his eyes were round as arm rings. Then he came like a charging boar, wrapping his arms round Sigurd's waist and lifting him again. But this time Sigurd scrambled up and over the ledge of his shoulder and twisted, locking an arm round the king's neck and letting his own weight haul Thorir backwards until the king lost his footing and they hit the floor in a squall of flying fists and grappling arms.
  
  The king was not a young man but he was wildly strong, and because he was so short all his strength was stuffed into those tree-trunk legs and thick, bulging arms, and it made him as good at wrestling as a mackerel is at swimming. There was blood in Sigurd's mouth and blood blurring the vision in his right eye but these things were the least of his problems, as the king wrapped a leg round his torso and an arm round his neck, binding him like Gleipnir, the fetter which held Fenrir Wolf.
  
  Skíringssalr thundered as men hammered their heels against their benches, pounded their palms against sea chests and tables, and everyone in that shining hall clamoured either for the king or for Sigurd.
  
  'Had enough?' Thorir growled in Sigurd's ear, his breath hot and meady.
  
  Sigurd gasped for his own breath. 'No.' With sudden fury he straightened his legs and bucked, slamming his head back into the king's face. But Thorir's grip tightened again and his mouth was again by Sigurd's ear.
  
  'Yield?'
  
  This time Sigurd smelt metal on the king's breath. Blood. But darkness was flooding Sigurd now. He could not breathe. He could not see.
  
  'Give it up, jarl-killer,' King Thorir growled, slackening his arm just enough to allow Sigurd's lungs to draw a whisper of air into them.
  
  And Sigurd used that breath for one word.
  
  'No.'
  
  Sigurd bent his left arm round himself and felt the cold iron rings of King Thorir's brynja. Then his hand was under the brynja's hem and into the king's other, dearer treasures. He grabbed a handful of cock and balls and squeezed, and King Thorir bellowed like a gelded bull. Sigurd broke the fetters of bone and muscle and scrambled away on all fours, gasping like a man escaping a burning hall, but just as he tried to stand a hand clutched his left ankle and hauled him back and he fell again, kicking madly at the frothing beast who was clambering up his legs, that gaping mouth like a prow beast's.
  
  They wrestled and grappled, punched and kicked, rolling round in the rushes and the dirt beneath those shimmering silks, as if for the amusement of the gods themselves, men and women cheering and banging cups against the boards. Just when it seemed King Thorir must choke the submission out of him Sigurd would somehow break free, only to be fettered again.
  
  Twice more the king asked Sigurd if he would yield and twice more Sigurd said he would not. And if Sigurd was thinking at all, he was thinking that at his age the king must surely tire first, for wrestling in mail was a young man's game. Not that even young men keep that up long.
  
  Then they were up and Thorir Gapthrosnir took three huge blows to the head as he came in low again, gripping Sigurd's belt in both hands and lifting to slam him down on his back, his solid weight driving the air from Sigurd. Crushing him. They stayed like this for a little while, Sigurd's strength countered by the weight pressing down on him, both men planning what to do next.
  
  'You done?' Thorir rasped. He was blowing like a gale and his face was as grey as his beard rope.
  
  'Are you?' Sigurd asked, fearing that some of his bones had snapped inside him.
  
  And with that King Thorir laughed, his teeth bloody but all still planted firmly in his jaws. 'We're done, Sigurd,' he said, rolling off Sigurd's chest and springing up on to his feet with a nimbleness which must have been his last flourish for surely he was exhausted. 'Up you get, Sigurd jarl-killer,' he said, offering his hand for Sigurd to grasp. So Sigurd grasped it and the king pulled him on to unsteady legs and Sigurd spat blood into the rushes. 'That's one way to work up a thirst, hey?' The king loosened his massive shoulders and grinned at his people and then at Queen Halla. 'You see, wife! Still no one can beat me.'
  
  Queen Halla shook her head and all but rolled her eyes and yet there was pride on her face too. And well there might be for her husband had just shown them all that experience was the master of youth.
  
  'Olaf, give me a drink,' Sigurd called, staggering back to his bench, knuckling blood from his eye. 'Svein, fetch me some snow.'
  
  'Well, jarl-killer, that was fun. Apart from when you crushed my bollocks.' King Thorir pointed at Sigurd accusingly. 'I am beginning to wonder if you kill your jarls when they are looking the other way, for that was cheating. Still, as my people will tell you, I have never been beaten and yet you did not give up. I think we could be rolling around in the cat shit until Ragnarök and still you would say you did not yield.' He winced, a hand going down to his groin. 'Only two other men before you have held out without saying they'd had enough. One of them had too much pride and so he is dead.' He wafted the honey-smelling air with a hand. 'We were not friends like you and I.' He grimaced again. 'The other my wife says was trying to yield. He was growling, I thought insulting me for my height, but Halla swears he was begging me to stop.' The king's sweat-glossed head wrinkled as his brow lifted. 'He is dead too.'
  
  'Then it seems I was lucky,' Sigurd said and meant it.
  
  'You see!' King Thorir said to his youngest son, who stood there looking as bored as if he had been forced to watch someone lay a new thatch. 'This is the sort of man who will show you what it means to be a warrior.'
  
  Svein came up to Sigurd's bench, his upturned helmet full of snow. Sigurd clenched his fists and shoved his raw knuckles into the snow, relishing the icy chill that would soothe the pain and prevent the joints from swelling.
  
  Svein leant in close to Sigurd. 'You made hard work of that, Sigurd,' he said. 'Gods but he's an old man!'
  
  Sigurd grimaced.
  
  'You think Sigurd should have put a king on his arse in his own hall?' Olaf asked Svein. 'You brainless ox. That would be a sure way to not get what we want.'
  
  Svein frowned and Olaf glanced at Sigurd with a raised eyebrow, but Sigurd ignored them both. His body hurt in too many places to count but his pride was still in one piece. Truth was King Thorir was a formidable fighter, however old he was, and Sigurd was lucky that all his bones that were meant to be straight still were straight and that his skull was not cracked. Besides which Olaf was right in that it seemed his performance had done enough to impress the king.
  
  'You will see my sister safely delivered to the Freyja Maidens, King Thorir?' he asked. He could see the king and queen only through his left eye now, his right having swollen shut.
  
  'I will,' the king said, then pointed at Thorbiorn, 'and you will take Thorbiorn into your little fellowship. I hope that some of your grit rubs into him. We will be disappointed if, when you bring him back to Skíringssalr, he is still more familiar with tits and arse than with sword and shield.'
  
  'Then we have an agreement, King Thorir,' Sigurd said, getting up again and limping over to take the king's hand which he proffered across the table.
  
  'Let us drink to it, Sigurd Haraldarson.'
  
  And they did, both of them to numb their pains as much as to approve the arrangement, and everyone in that shining hall took it as an excuse to celebrate: the Danes because their king had still never been out-wrestled, the king's hearthmen because they were getting rid of Thorir's useless son, and Sigurd's crew because Runa would be safe while they sailed east.
  
  'Seems to me there are only two people not enjoying themselves in this hall,' Olaf said a little while later, throwing an arm round Sigurd's shoulder that made Sigurd curse with pain. Olaf was talking about him and Runa.
  
  'She wants to stay with us,' Sigurd said. 'And I would rather she did,' he admitted, looking over at Runa who was with Valgerd, both of them on stools by the hearth. He had asked the shieldmaiden to tell Runa stories of her mother's mother, who had been a Freyja Maiden, in the hope that these stories might warm Runa to the idea of living amongst these warrior women for a time. After all, Runa had always loved the goddess. Even now she wore a silver pendant of Freyja the Giver and Sigurd knew she had invoked the goddess many times, had asked her to ride into battle beside him whenever Sigurd stood in the storm of swords.
  
  'You know she can't come with us, Sigurd,' Olaf said. 'There'll be fighting and there'll be killing where we're going.' He shook his head. 'Wouldn't be fair on Runa and wouldn't be fair on the others.' He looked at their companions who were deep in their cups and horns and in good spirits enjoying the warmth of a hall after weeks at sea. 'It'd be only a matter of time before one of the idiots caught a spear in the ear while checking to see that the girl was all right.'
  
  Sigurd nodded but he could not help feeling that he was failing. The oath-breaker King Gorm, the man who had betrayed his father, still lived. Hrani Randversson, who had brought death to Jarl Harald's people at Skudeneshavn, still lived. And now Sigurd had to admit that he could not keep his own sister, the last of his family, safe. He was an outlaw with less than a crew of warriors to call upon, for all that they were the finest Sword-Norse he could ever hope to fight beside. What were his father and brothers thinking, watching him from their mead benches in Valhöll?
  
  'And yet it seems to me that Runa would be more useful to us than that streak of piss Thorbiorn,' Olaf said, nodding at the king's son who had returned to his bed thralls amongst the furs, no doubt keen to tup them while he could. He was yelling for mead as he slapped a naked arse, which evidently the thrall took as the command to get on all fours.
  
  'If he becomes a pain in my arse I will hang him over Reinen's side until his balls freeze off,' Svein put in, spilling mead as he leant across to have his say. 'And if his father does not like it then I will wrestle him myself and show you all how it is done.'
  
  'Instead of boasting about winning a fight you'll never have, why don't you go and get me some more snow?' Sigurd said, wanting to press some against his eye around which the flesh was as juicy as an overripe plum.
  
  'And find some more mead on your way back,' Olaf said, at which Svein grinned, picked up his helmet and drank the water in it, then set off through the crowd.
  
  Sigurd looked at the king, who seemed no longer the worse for the fight, laughing with his hirðmen and drinking like Thór himself. 'Do you think Thorvard would've beaten him?' he asked. Sigurd's eldest brother had been an awe-inspiring warrior; strong as an ox and fast as an adder, though he had fallen to a spear and an axe in the ship battle which had begun this whole thing. Seemed a lifetime ago now, though it had not been two years.
  
  'I think Thorvard would have strangled him with his own damn beard rope,' Olaf said, and far from feeling ashamed that he hadn't beaten the king himself, Sigurd felt hot pride swell in his chest so that he hardly noticed his injuries at all.
  
  And so they would stay at Skíringssalr until King Thorir's messenger had been to the island of the Freyja Maidens and returned with their word that they would take Runa. Which of course they would, Sigurd knew, looking up at the silks which shimmered in the golden light. Because the short-arsed king who had just given him a rare pummelling was Freyja-favoured. No one in that shining place would deny that. And Runa was Freyja-favoured too, wasn't she? Or else that arrow might have gone into her eye and killed her. Perhaps the goddess had blown to divert the shaft's flight, letting it graze Runa's face to bring them all to this very place. For this very purpose. Was it not possible?
  
  Anything was possible when the gods were involved, Sigurd thought, taking the mead horn which Svein offered him now and, with his other hand, scooping snow from the red-haired giant's helmet and holding it to his swollen eye.
  
  Yes, anything was possible with the gods. But one thing was certain, and that was that there would be chaos and death.
  
  Then he drank.