Wait a minute,thought Jack. I’m not being given to the king.

Olaf stood. Jack noticed that he didn’t look up either. His eyes were directed at the queen’s feet—and lovely feet they were too. They peeped daintily from beneath her gown, and then something else peeped out from behind her—an enormous cat! It muscled its way to the front, rubbing itself against Frith’s dress and purring loudly. More cats lounged in the shadows at the back of the dais. They all had long, red-gold fur, and they stared out at the hall with pale gold eyes.

“Great Queen, before my skald sings, I have something important to do,” said Olaf. “Thorgil went on her first raid and made her first capture. Instead of keeping it for herself, she insists on giving it to you, knowing that you like pretty children. I have always found Thorgil to be generous and brave. I would welcome her into my berserkers, if you would graciously agree.” Thorgil rose and bowed. Her face was flushed and happy. She was also somewhat rumpled from playing with the dogs. Olaf lifted Lucy from her seat.

No!thought Jack. Now that the moment had come, he felt he had to snatch his sister away no matter what happened after. But then he looked up and saw the queen.

She was as fair and innocent as a May morning. No harm could possibly come from her.

Thorgil took Lucy’s hand and led her up the steps of the dais. The cats came forward to inspect them, and Jack thought he saw Thorgil flinch. Certainly the creatures didn’t like her, or perhaps it was the smell of dog. They laid back their ears and hissed. Lucy leaned forward to pet one of the brutes; Jack tensed, fearing the worst, but it rubbed against her and purred.

“They like you,” said the queen.

“A cat kept me warm after I was stolen from the castle,” Lucy informed her.

“Ah! So you are a princess.”

“I’m yourprincess, silly,” said Lucy. “Don’t you remember? The trolls stole me from you when I was only a baby.”

A gasp went through the hall when Lucy said silly.Jack guessed that no one ever insulted Frith. But the queen only laughed. “Now that you mention it, perhaps I do remember I had a daughter. I’m surprised the trolls didn’t eat you.”

You’re half troll. You ought to know,thought Jack, and yet he couldn’t believe such foul ancestry when he looked at Frith.

“Oh, they wanted to!” cried Lucy. “They started fighting among themselves. ‘Shall we roast her with an apple in her mouth?’ they said. ‘Or shall we make her into a pie?’ ‘Pie! Pie!’ roared half the trolls. The other half shouted for roast baby. They began to fight, and soon they had knocked each other senseless. That’s when Father came and found me—I mean, my other father. The one who isn’t here.”

Lucy hadn’t talked so much for weeks. She slipped into her role as princess with amazing ease. Well, she’d been practicing it all her life, thought Jack. Lucy walked up to the queen and confidently hugged her knees.

“What an imagination!” marveled Frith. “I can see you’re going to be entertaining. Thank you, Thorgil. It is a most generous gift.”

Thorgil muttered something and waited awkwardly. Social graces were not her strength.

“Yes?” said the queen.

“Could I—I mean, would you—could you—let me join the berserkers?”

“A young child such as you!” warbled Frith in her lovely voice. “Surely you’d rather learn maidenly things like sewing and weaving and cooking.”

It was as though the queen knew exactly what would upset Thorgil. The shield maiden turned red from her effort to control herself. Jack thought she probably wouldn’t succeed.

“Great Queen,” interrupted Olaf. “She’s the child of Thorgrim. There was never a finer berserker, and she has inherited his spirit.”

“Indeed,” said Frith somewhat coldly. “I wouldn’t have thought a shield maiden would wear such a feminineornament as that necklace of leaves.”

So that’s her game,thought Jack, who had stopped looking at the queen. It made his mind clearer. She wants Thorgil’s necklace.

Thorgil undid the necklace and handed it to Frith. Jack could see it hurt her. “I don’t want it,” the girl said ungraciously. “It’s an ugly girl thing.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt me,” cooed Frith. “Why, thank you. Now you may return to your table. I’m anxious to hear Olaf’s praise-song and don’t want to wait another minute.”

Thorgil stumbled off the dais and threw herself down on the bench. Her face was purple with rage, and Olaf put his hand on her shoulder. “Later, my Valkyrie,” he whispered. Thorgil softened somewhat at his praise, but she still looked like a storm cloud full of lightning. She’d given up her first capture and the beautiful silver necklace, and she still wasn’t a member of the Queen’s Berserkers.

Jack looked out over the hall. At least a hundred faces looked back at him, many of them Ivar’s men. Olaf had moved Tree Foot and Eric Pretty-Face to his table and threatened them if they talked during the performance. They’d removed their party helmets to hear better. Rune smiled gently as he rested his chin on his harp. This would be his triumph too, though no one would know it. Thorgil had withdrawn into her rage, but Jack wasn’t singing for her anyway.

He cleared his throat. He felt, rather than saw, the queen behind him. I mustn’t think of her,Jack thought. Cold ran a finger down his spine. He began:

Jack warmed to his task as he sang. He forgot about the audience. He forgot about the queen. The life force shimmered all around in spite of the gory theme of the song. It was drawn, Jack thought distantly, by the magnificence of Rune’s poetry. It made each line more lovely and Jack’s voice more resonant. He was dimly aware that one of Odin’s skull-pickers—a crow—was sitting in the rafters high overhead. This disturbed him briefly, but he forgot about it.

When he finished—and it was a very long poem—not a sound was to be heard. Even the hearth fire had stopped crackling. Then the great hall burst into cheers. “WONDERFUL! WONDERFUL!” bellowed Tree Foot, dabbing his eyes with his beard.

“IT CHOKES YOU UP, DOESN’T IT?” agreed Eric Pretty-Face.

“I really liked the part about skull-splitting,” said Egil Long-Spear.

“And wading in blood up to your ankles,” said Sven the Vengeful.

“It’s not fair!” Thorgil said loudly. “Jack gets all the glory for doing nothing. He never fought a battle or pillaged anything!”

Rune sat with a quiet smile on his face. The compliments flowed around him like warm honey. Jack wished he could give him credit, but that would be dangerous at the moment. Perhaps someday Jack could show his gratitude.

“What a charming tune,” trilled the queen’s voice from behind him. Somehow the way she said it made Rune’s achievement seem trivial and silly. Jack whirled around, ready to defend the old warrior’s art. He remembered his peril in time and turned the movement into a bow. “Don’t you think that was a pretty tune, Lucy?” Lucy, who had dozed off on the queen’s lap, sat up and nodded.

“Life has been rather dull of late,” said Frith. “What treats we have in store for us, with our new skald.”

“He’s my brother,” Lucy said proudly.

“All the more reason for him to live with us. Don’t you think so, my lord?”

Olaf, do something,thought Jack.