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“Are you all right?” Alf stands before me.

“No.”

“Can I help?”

Would that he could. “Are you trustworthy?”

“I believe myself to be.”

“Do you travel often?”

“Yes.”

“Do you ever travel to Ribe?”

“Once a year, at least.”

“Will you deliver something for someone?”

“Yes.”

“At what price?”

Alf moves to lean his back against the wall, so we are standing side by side, looking into the room. If he says he wants nothing from me, just as he wanted nothing from we three girls for the mermaid purses, I will stamp on his foot. “If you had not just drunk wine, I would have asked a price.”

I remember Egill wanting a kiss. My lips curl. “What price?”

“It doesn't matter now. I can't ask, the state you're in.”

“It does matter. What price?”

“A truth.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to know something you believe—something you hold true.”

“I feel challenged by the price, and dulled by the wine. Everything takes so much effort.”

Alf nods. “And if it doesn't take effort, perhaps it's not worth doing. Thank you for this piece of wisdom.”

“Wisdom? It was a description of my present state. Wisdom. Do you fancy yourself a soothsayer? I thought you chased fun and pirates.”

“Your words smart.”

“Do they really?”

“Does everything have to be a challenge with you?”

“You bring it out in me.”

He sighs. “So what is it you want me to deliver to Ribe?”

“Come.”

I lead him as steadily as I can back to our home, then leave him at the front gate while I dig through my personal chest of belongings. When I come back outside, he's gone. I step through the gate and look up and down the road. Bleak. The whole world seems bleak and horrid. I sit on the ground. Who cares if dirt stains my clothes? Who cares? Who cares? My head drops backward, and my hand goes to my throat. My eyes feel like they are glass beads that will fall backward through my brain. I want a reason, an excuse, to howl in grief. The heavens are empty.

“Have you got it?” And here he is, sitting on the ground beside me.

“I thought you had gone.”

“I wanted you to think that.”

“But why?”

“To see if you'd be sad.”

“You're tricky.”

“Perhaps.”

“Not tricky enough, though. You don't know why I was sad—whether for lack of you or for lack of a messenger.”

“Do you know why you're sad?”

The question wavers in the air. It swirls now. It could make me shiver if I let it. “You haven't earned an answer to that one.” I empty my hand into his. “A toilet set. For Ástríd, wife of Beorn, mother of Búri and Alof. And maybe others by now.”

“Beorn the
skald
? He used to come through Jelling every year when I was a boy. Then he got married and came no more. Is Ástríd your sister?”

“Not by blood.”

“Those can be the best kind.”

“Don't say that. Don't ever say that!” I grab hold of his arm and throw my weight on him to help me get to my feet. “When will you deliver it to Ribe?”

“I'll leave soon.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow, in fact. I had other plans, but plans are meant to be changed.”

This feels too good to be true. I turn in a circle. “There is no moon.”

“No stars, either.” But he's looking up at me, not at the sky.

“Heaven is empty.”

“No. Just full of clouds.”

“They're filling my head.”

“Then I'll bid you good night.”

“Sit down, Alfhild.”

I sit on the bench built into the side wall of the main room. Queen Tove stands beside King Hók. Her face gives nothing away. That alone is enough to worry me. Has something gone wrong? I want her smile. I long for it.

“We've had a marriage request for you.”

My cheeks go hot. I stare at my hands in my lap. When he says no more, I look up.

The king smiles. “King Valdemar.”

I have recovered from my inebriation of last night. Yet it seems the king speaks gibberish. “Who?”

“He's king of the Gautar.”

The queen steps forward. “Gøtaland is across the water from here—and a little north. They speak the same language we do. Or nearly.”

I clutch the sides of my shift. “I don't even know him.”

“He saw you last night,” says the king. “He says you caught him by the arm.”

The giant. I remember his teeth.

“Did you?” asks the queen.

“Yes,” I say.

Queen Tove raises her eyebrows. “Does that mean you fancy him?”

“It would be a good alliance,” says the king. “Uniting our area with—”

“I don't fancy him. I don't fancy anyone.” I say the second sentence more loudly, and even to my ears it feels false.

“You're of a good age to marry,” says the king.

I stare at him. A father cannot force a daughter to marry, not even if he is a king—he knows that. He would not violate that.

“Age is not the only factor,” says the queen.

“But a request denied requires the most tactful of answers. You are sure, Alfhild?” The king's voice has softened, at last.

I nod. He leaves. The queen looks at me hesitantly. “I didn't expect this,” I say. “Please believe me. You know I have something important to do before I marry. I must find my sister. I told you that when I first came. We never talk of it, but you must remember.”

“I never forget. This just happened. Like the king said, it's your age.”

“I have no interest in suitors.”

“Don't fret over it, Alfhild. The king will give Valdemar
your answer, and that will be the end of it.” She touches the side of my arm. “Wait here.” She leaves and comes back a moment later with the hawk-plumage cloak dangling from her hands. She drapes it around me. “Travel inside your head, daughter. Inside your heart. Anywhere you need to go. And Alfhild . . .” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Don't leave me for real travels. Not yet. Go far, far, far, right here, in this cloak. I won't let anyone come into this room till mealtime.” She leaves again.

I grab the sides with each hand and raise my arms to close the cloak over my head. The feathers are many enough and thick enough to shut out the light, but the cloak is still practically weightless, which, strangely, makes me feel weightless. I bring my legs up on the bench and cross them. I am now entirely within this cloak. It is a good place to retreat to.

But I'm not supposed to retreat. I'm supposed to travel. That's what the queen, my queen, my mother, told me to do. Travel inside myself. I close my eyes.

Gold. Something shiny and gold with a black center. Hawk eyes. I sense them on me. They see the air go in and out of my lungs. They ride the thick slowness of my blood. They poke at my heavy bones, poke and poke to make them hollow—hollow as a flute. They inspect the hairs of my head, of my body, and lengthen them, fray them, fan
them out into feathers. They are my eyes, and I am flying high over the land, over the sea. I soar on the wind currents. I drink the clouds.

My land, my sea, my wind, my clouds.

I alight on the top of an enormous tree. Oh, yes, this tree is Yggdrasill, where the gods hold daily assembly, and I am the eagle who perches there, so high that I have knowledge of the whole world.

Jutland might as well be the whole world. It has been my home for seven of my fifteen years. By now this language feels more mine than any other does. The habits of these people no longer surprise me. Probably the habits of people in Eire would, in fact. Even the gods of these people make sense to me now. Christian stories belong to another time, another life.

I could let go of that other life completely. I could give myself fully to this land. I don't have to be the eagle that sits on the top of Yggdrasill, I don't have to be anything fancy. I could be a simple hawk. Here. Happy. I could dive around another hawk, sweep across the skies, and plummet together with him, talons intertwined. I could build a nest.

Especially if my husband had eyes the color of rain. That realization pins me to this life like knives through flesh. I would have to rip away parts of me to escape it.

But that other life—the lost and distant life—isn't
simply a matter of language and habits and gods. In that life I was a real daughter and a real sister. My parents and brother, they may not need me, though I know their hearts are sore. What Papi told was enough to convince me of that. But Mel, she may need me. She may have a life that nicks at her soul.

No soul can endure that forever. It will come to bits; it will disappear. The real sister in me has no choice.

I have waited all these years to grow up. Now is the time to act. That giant man, let him fester if that's his choice. That rain man, let him dissipate, leaving me dry as rock.

I lean back against the side of the room, lower my arms, and open my eyes. I am spent.

*  *  *

“What did you do to that man?” King Hók strides back and forth in front of me.

“Nothing. I told you.”

“Tell me again.”

“I thought he might be the
skald
everyone said had arrived—and I knew a
skald
once. So I reached for his arm. To make him turn.”

“You touched him! That was your mistake! That's what convinced him!”

“On his arm. Only on his arm.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. Not a single word.”

“He says your face spoke passion.”

“I cannot answer for what someone says my face speaks.”

Queen Tove pulls on her fingers. “Alfhild has never been the least flirtatious. She cannot be held responsible for how this stranger interprets her action.”

The king stops pacing and looks at me. He slaps a fist into a palm. “We have to seal you away.”

“Seal me away?” My cheeks turn icy.

“We'll use the high tower beside the fort. There's only one entrance. We'll dig a wide pit in front of that entrance and add a door that drops down to form a bridge over the pit for when you want someone to enter.”

The queen shakes her head uncertainly. “Bridge, pit . . . What are you talking about?”

“Vipers. It was a viper who brought Alfhild to us. Vipers will help us keep her. A pit full of vipers.”

“What vipers? We keep no vipers.”

“I'll pay high sums. The word will get out. Arabs charm snakes—Arabs will bring them.”

“That will take too much time,” says the queen. “The word would have to travel with them all the way to their home countries before they could come back with snakes. But this Valdemar is breathing down our necks now.”

“Then we'll use our own vipers. There are snakes to be
caught in the north countries if you search. I'll pay exorbitantly. We'll fill the pit. No one will get to Alfhild.”

I stop gnawing on my fist. “What will I do locked in a tower?”

“Be safe. And keep us safe. King Valdemar has threatened war if he cannot have you, and the way he talks, I believe him.”

“But, King,” says the queen, “how can putting Alfhild in a tower save us from war?”

“I'll announce where she is. I'll declare that I will prevent no man from entering her chamber. The vipers will stop him, not me.”

“That's good,” says the queen. “He can't declare war if you make it clear that he can try to enter the tower.”

“What if he brings arrows and simply shoots the vipers dead?” I say.

“That will be against the rules. No arrows shot at the vipers unless you are inside the pit with them. No large rocks, either. Yes. I'll announce that.”

“What if he has no fear of a viper pit?” I say.

“Have you heard of Ragnar Lodbrok?” asks the king.

“No.”

“He was a Norseman. Years ago they captured him in Saxland. They threw him in a viper pit, and he died screaming.”

“This Valdemar will know the story,” says the queen. “It will stop him. Everyone knows the story.”

I didn't. The king and queen look at me, but none of us say it.

I shake my head. “He could still try. After all, I didn't die from the viper bite.”

“But a single bite made you very sick,” said the queen. “He'd get many bites.”

“He'd recover and try again,” I say. “He could try and try until he succeeds. No. I have to leave.”

The queen gasps. “What? You can't leave me yet. No.”

“I have to.” I had already realized it was time for me to go in search of Mel anyway—I realized that when I wrapped myself inside the hawk-plumage cloak today. It would appear that three years is all I'll ever get of family life. Three years with Ástríd, three years with Queen Tove.

“No!” King Hók shakes his head vehemently. “We're not going to lose you because of this wretched King Valdemar. You're going nowhere except into that tower until the danger has passed. Listen to this rule: If a man should try to get you out of the tower, and if he should fail, he must yield to me and I will immediately decapitate him and impale his head on a stake for all to see. I will announce that, as well.”

“What a hideous threat!” I say.

“Let's hope King Valdemar agrees.”

My father, the king, is a
dróttinn
, a military leader. He has many men who will come at his call, ready to fight for him—his
hemþægar
. He also has an older man, his
þegn
, who has sworn loyalty to him at all costs. And he has a younger man, his
dreng
, who has also sworn loyalty at all costs. My father, the king, is the leader of so many warriors.