"A bit, yes," Sigrid said. It was a lie, and she knew it. She could read, but only a little bit, and even then only the Futharc used in Jutland. The Angle runes baffled her. They were familiar, but just not familiar enough that she may recognize the corresponding runes in Futharc. What's more, she's pretty sure the Angles have at least twice as many runes in their script. "Why do you ask?" She hoped that there wasn't some sort of test coming up, or worse yet, a task assigned to her that required mastery of the script. Most horrifying of all would be if her failure to read Angle script marked her forever as a foreigner, a blood with the brutal raiders that ignited the flames spanning the whole Angle-land coast. Sigrid took a nervous bite of her pear, and found it tasting like ash. Perhaps she should have gone to the other farmer . . .

Soon enough, the pear was done. Despite its taste, Sigrid still wished there was more. Pears aren't exactly the filling type, and a merchant's job was never finished. She still had a couple of things to handle before night, not least of which was meeting the local jarls and working out a charter. She looked over to her ship, her mind cataloguing all the articles of clothing she owned. There had to be a fancy dress somewhere in that rotting log. She distinctly remembered buying something of the sort in . . . either South or East Seaxe, definitely something with Seaxe in the name. Yet, for the life of her, she cannot remember if she traded it away. That'll be an afternoon of digging through her muck again.