“He’s my skald,” said Olaf.

“Ooh! Your own personal skald!” cried Dotti.

“You deserve it, really you do,” enthused Lotti. They were as alike as two apples from the same tree: blond and blue-eyed with fat, rosy cheeks and well-rounded arms.

The third wife was different. She had a broad, flat face and eyes that tilted up at the corners. Her skin was bronze, which made her light blue eyes all the more remarkable. But that was not the only difference. Jack felt the air tremble as she looked at him. A lazy, drowsy warmth crept over him, and Olaf’s voice seemed to fade away. Nothing registered except this strange, dark woman staring at him. Then she laughed, and the drowsy feeling went away. “I like thiss boy,” she announced in a heavily accented voice.

“Now, Heide, I’m not giving him to you,” said Olaf.

“You haff not the giffing uff this boy,” Heide said.

“And you have not the getting, woman. See, I brought you pots of herbs and medicines, as you asked.”

Heide nodded, accepting the tribute. “How about the girlll?” Her voice was low and husky. Lucy hung on to Jack’s hand, her thumb in her mouth. She stared at the smoldering fire in the middle of the room and appeared to be miles away in one of her fantasies.

“She belongs to Thorgil.”

“Thorgil?”cried Dotti and Lotti together.

“It was her first capture,” Olaf said. “She was pleased as anything about it.”

“Thorgil,” said Heide in her smoky voice, “iss not pleased about anything.”

“Yes, well, I’m not going to break my rules and deprive her of her first capture.”

Jack was fascinated to see how careful Olaf was with Heide. He might knock his crew around, and he probably smacked Dotti and Lotti as well, but this woman was in a different category. If anything, Olaf was afraid of her.

“What iss Thorgilll”—the name was drawn out—“going to do with the child?”

“Give her to Frith.”

“No!” cried the other wives, and Olaf looked apologetic.

“She wants to be admitted to the Queen’s Berserkers,” he said. “It’s her dearest wish. I can invite her along on trips, but I haven’t the authority to admit her. The gift of Lucy—that’s the little mite’s name—will win her entry.”

“It iss not well done,” said Heide. “It iss supreme foolishnesss, my ox-witted Northman. It will end in disasterrr.”

Now Jack did expect Olaf to strike her, but he only grimaced. “Don’t try your witchy stuff on me, Heide. I’m tired, I’m dirty, and the only thing I want is a long sweat in the sauna and a nice bucket of mead.”

“Bucket” was exactly what Olaf had in mind. Dotti filled one from a keg in one of the storehouses, and Olaf drank until his beard was dripping. “By Aegir’s mighty shoulders, that’s good!” he said. “Honey wine from your own fields. You can’t beat it.” Lotti hastily brought him bread and cheese.

“You know what would go with this?” said Olaf. “ Graffisk.Fetch me some graffisk!” Lotti sped out the door. “You’re in for a treat, boy,” he told Jack. “Many’s the time I dreamed of this dish while at sea. It truly means I’ve come home. Because I like you, I’ll let you have some.”

“Thank you,” Jack said uncertainly. He wouldn’t have minded the bread and cheese, but that hadn’t been offered. Suddenly, an unbelievably foul odor wafted through the door. It was like toenails and rotten teeth and ancient bilgewater. Jack couldn’t begin to describe it. He had all he could do to keep from bolting from the room.

Lotti danced in with a bowl. “I opened a fresh keg,” she warbled.

Fresh?thought Jack. The bowl was full of purplish lumps floating in a slimy gray liquid. It looked every bit as horrible as it smelled.

“Graffisk!”said Olaf. He smeared some onto a chunk of bread and gobbled it down. A smile of contentment creased his beard. “Have some.” He held out the bowl.

“I—I’m not hungry,” Jack said.

“HAVE SOME.”

So Jack took a morsel of bread and dipped the tiniest corner of it in the liquid. He put it into his mouth. He swallowed quickly, but not quickly enough. The taste coated the inside of his mouth like the mud coated his legs when he mucked out the barn. Jack ran for the door, bent down, and retched for all he was worth.

“Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Brjóstabarn!” Olaf said, guffawing. His wives and children joined in with merry peals of laughter. After a while Heide took pity on him and brought him a cup of water.

“That’s hiss favorite joke with outsiders,” she said. Jack stumbled after her, back into the room. He’d finally figured out what graffiskmeant: “grave fish”, as in dead, as in rotten.

“ Graffiskis what we make when we have no salt,” explained Olaf, who was mopping up the nauseous stuff with his bread. He really did like it! “Sometimes we find a herring run—thousands and thousands of herring!—so many, the sea is thick with them. You can lay an axe on the water and it will not sink. So! We bring the herring home. What then? We can only eat so many. If it’s raining, we can’t dry the rest.

“So we put the fish into barrels and bury them in the earth. For months we wait. The fish ripen like fine cheese. They turn purple. They get a delicious smell. The longer we wait, the better they taste.”

“Why don’t they poison you?” said Jack, thinking, I wish they would poison you.

Olaf grinned and slapped his stomach. “We Northmen are strong. Not like Saxons.” All this while Lump and She-Lump had been stoking up the sauna. Lump came to the door. The giant stood up, brushed the crumbs from his beard, and followed the glum slave.

Jack went over to sit by Lucy. She was watching the fire in the middle of the room with rapt attention. “Lucy?”

No answer.

“Lucy?” He took her hand. She seemed strange, almost as if she wasn’t there.

“It’s so pretty,” she said, staring at the fire. One of Olaf’s girls came over and shoved her off the bench.

“Hey!” Jack yelled.

“Toad Face,” said the girl. “I think that’s what I’ll call you. Toad Face. It’s my turn to name a thrall.”

“Leave him,” said Heide, who had come up behind them as silently as a wolf. The girl fled. Jack put Lucy back on the bench. She stared at the fire as though nothing had happened.

“What’s wrong with her? Is she sick?” Jack cried. Inside, he thought, Is she insane?

“Her spirit hass fled,” said Heide. “It iss wandering in a strange place—a nice place, I think.”

“Father used to tell her she was a lost princess,” Jack said, somewhat reassured. “He said that someday knights would find her and take her back to the castle. I’m afraid Lucy believed him.”

“I haff seen thiss before,” said the dark woman. “In my land the winters are long and dark. People’s spirits wander sso that they do not go mad. When spring comes, they return.”

“I hope spring returns for Lucy.”

“It may with your help. You are a special boy. I know. I haff looked inside.”

“Are you a wise woman?” Jack asked.

Heide laughed, a sound as smoky as her voice. The other people in the house stopped what they were doing. It seemed everybody walked carefully around Heide. “Thank you for not calling me a witch,” she said. “That iss what theythink.” She indicated the others in the room. “But yess, I practice seiðer.”

“Isn’t that… witchcraft?” said Jack.

“It iss woman’s magic. What skalds do iss man’s magic. It iss only witchcraft iff the two are mixed up.”

Jack wasn’t sure he understood, but it relieved his mind. He was a skald, and so the magic he did was all right. Thorgil wouldn’t be able to accuse him. “Where are you from?” he asked.

“Olaf won me in Finnmark. My father wass the headman uff a village, and Olaf wass trading for furs.”

So the giant doesn’t always kill people and steal things,Jack thought.

“I had many suitors. Many. A wise woman iss very valuable. But my spirit chose Olaf. I should haff married one uff the others, but”—Heide shrugged—“he wass so big and beautiful. I am not like them.” She frowned at Dotti and Lotti, who were examining their children for head lice. “I only stay iff big ox-brain treats me right. Iff he insults me, I will go.”