"Hrífa!" He had decided on a starboard bench, near the bow but a row or two back. Kneeling behind it, he dragged his sleeping bag over, he pulled one item at a time from it, beginning to fold these belongings neatly underneath. His spear protruded underneath the two benches on either side of his, but otherwise he defined "his" property on this boat in neat little lines, all his junk gathered in a squared pile. Ásdís smelled the saltfish even from where she stood.

"Hrífa the 'Rat-eater'?" The word had caught Hralding's attention. He had dropped his gaze to watch them over his shoulder, his broad, bony face cast down upon the deck. The wind played at his gilded mane, and as he jumped and slid down the prow, his long tunic flared out near his knees. "And this looks like Adlif's daughter. Though I don't know her name."

Ásdís felt the man's haughty eyes judging her; not for her own flaws but her companion's. She felt that when her shoulder rubbed against his, it imparted upon her narrow frame a [i]níðingr's[/i] residue, which Hralding only barely did not scoff at. Why the offspring of one of the more respectable and modest men of the village, if also one of the meek and mild too, should ever have thought to consort with the witch—...

Nonetheless, the captain smiled cordially. He had promised them safe refuge on the ship (at least from his ire, if not the Franks'), regardless of their histories; and he kept his promises. Maybe the Rat-eater did too, and the rumors would be proven wrong; but Hralding waited to be [i]proven[/i] wrong on that end.