“All right. Looks like it’s time to go,” said the man, looking around as the people diffused away. He did not need her approval or her permission; he started walking to the exit even before she noticed and tried to catch up.

“Wait!” she said. “Didn’t you hear him? We’re supposed to stay, and—!”

Hrífa had swiveled on his heels, scanning the room once more. He shrugged. “I reckon we’ll get more than enough of him once we’re on a boat with him. Right?”

And so he appeared to vanish; of course. Because Ásdís fancied herself a good girl, now a loyal and obedient soldier, she knew she had to stay, whether she wanted to or not. Yet eagerness nonetheless continued to imbue her actions. So she stayed, and Hrífa was gone behind the doors of the mead-hall.

Outside there were parents waiting, women armed with hugs and kisses and men with their shirts of mail, their helmets polished to a mirror sheen. If they were wealthier men they offered their adventurous relatives swords, [i]seaxes[/i], and good axes; if poor, these children and undesirables could only afford to take their wood axes, their sickles, and their pitchforks.

Inside, meanwhile, the last man in the mead-hall who was not plagued by [i]níþ[/i] or by old festered wounds had stayed behind, leaning cockily against the throne still warm with Fjalfar’s scent. Tall, strong, and beautifully blond, with his hair and beard done up in elaborate death-braids, he was Hralding, their new ship-captain.