“Why did they attack us?” said Thorgil, opening her eyes.

“They haven’t attacked us—yet. Bees are sensitive to whether someone’s angry or afraid,” Jack said. “My mother never gathered honey when she was upset. We were fighting, and that doesn’t seem to be allowed here.”

Thorgil started to reply when she glanced up at the bees and thought better of it.

All I have to do is walk up that hill,thought Jack, suddenly reluctant to move. That’s easy. I’ve drawn water hundreds of times at home.

“Want me to do it?” Thorgil said sarcastically.

“I’m just thinking.” Jack stood and forced himself to begin. The hill was steeper than it looked. By the time he was halfway up, he had to stop and catch his breath. He went on and on, edging closer to the mighty Tree and the innocent-looking well. He heard Ratatosk the squirrel shrieking vile insults overhead. He heard the myriad worms and beetles chewing on bark. He got to the well.

What if I look over the edge and see Odin’s eye lying at the bottom?he thought. What if it looks up at me?His hands shook, but he forced himself to reach for the bucket. The instant he touched the wood it was as though a great hand reached out and swatted him away like a pesky gnat. Over and over he tumbled down the hill, rolling faster until his fall was broken by his head banging against a rock.

“Told you you’d have to sacrifice something of overwhelming importance,” said Thorgil.

“Stop gloating and help me!” cried Jack. He saw blood drip onto the grass from his scalp. Thorgil pressed her hand on the wound until the bleeding stopped. She cut a strip from her new tunic to bind it. “You certainly know how to treat injuries,” Jack said grudgingly.

“Done it hundreds of times. Now, what are you going to sacrifice?”

“I don’t haveanything,” Jack said.

“Of course you do. You could cut off an ear—I’d help you, of course—or smash the fingers of one hand so you’d never play the harp again. That’s a good one for a skald.”

“Chopping yourself to bits is for Northmen,not sane, sensible Saxons!” shouted Jack. “I can’t believe the life force demands such a thing.”

“You have to show you really care!” Thorgil shouted back, ready as always for an argument. “This isn’t some village fair where you win prizes by pitching walnuts at a target. This is Yggdrassil. Not even Odin approached it without sacrifice.”

“Well then, Odin was an idiot.”

“He was not! You take that back!”

“I won’t! Odin is a vicious bully, and so is everyone who believes in him. He makes shield maidens wait on tables in Valhalla.”

“That’s not true!” shrieked Thorgil. The bees had come down again and were swirling around in a loud, maddening swarm. “Odin stands for courage and honor, something a thrallwould never understand!”

“How can you understand it, then? Youwere a thrall until three years ago!” Jack regretted it the instant he said it. Thorgil reeled back as though he’d struck her with an axe. He could see the light of true madness in her eyes. She was a berserker from a line of berserkers, and the fit came upon her whether she willed it or not. “I’m sorry!” Jack cried. �You’re not a thrall! You’re a shield maiden! Odin loves you, and he’d never make you wait on tables!” But he was too late.

“I vow,” said Thorgil, quivering with rage, “that I will kill myself after drawing water from Mimir’s Well. I offer my life up to bring it to Jack so that he may heal Queen Frith and save his sister. I swear this by Yggdrassil, Odin, and the Norns!”

“Don’t do this!” shouted Jack, but Thorgil was already racing up the hill. She pushed ahead, heedless of the wall of bees between her and the top. They roared around her in their thousands, but they didn’t sting. They seemed beside themselves with wild joy.

Jack watched the shield maiden struggle up the steep hill, but she never stopped to rest. She got to the well and reached for the bucket.

The same invisible hand knocked her back. Thorgil rolled over and over down the hill with the bees fleeing from her path. She bumped against the same rock. This time Jack treated the head wound. Thorgil seemed stunned, more than he. She stared blindly at him.

“They wouldn’t accept my sacrifice,” she managed to say at last. “The Norns… Odin… Yggdrassil. They wouldn’t accept my life. Is that… because I was born… a thrall?”

“No, no, of course not,” said Jack, holding her closely as he had once held Lucy after they’d escaped drowning. “Olaf freed you and named you daughter. The Jotuns honor you. No one thinks you’re a thrall because you’re so much, much more. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” He stroked her hair and felt her sobs echo in his own body. “I think they rejected your sacrifice because you have to offer something of overwhelming importance. Your life means nothing to you.”

“It’s truly meaningless now,” said Thorgil. “I will kill myself anyway. I have nothing to live for now that Olaf’s gone.”

“You mustn’t do that! He wanted you to live. Iwant you to live.”

“Too late,” Thorgil said. She drew a knife, and Jack did the only thing he could think of. He was no match for her fighting skills or her determination, though he’d become as strong as she was in his time with the Northmen. He pulled the rune of protection from around his neck. At once it became visible.

It was a pendant of heavy gold. On it was a pattern that might have been a sunburst, except that each ray had branches like a budding tree. The tree, Jack realized now, was Yggdrassil.

“So that was what you hid around your neck,” Thorgil said, pausing with the knife in the air. “It burned me like fire.”

“That was because you tried to take it by force. The rune can only be given.” Jack felt empty and sad. It was his only link with the Bard. It had faithfully guarded him through danger and despair, and now it would be gone. He hung it around Thorgil’s neck.

“I suppose it will burn me anyway,” she said. “I’ll suffer greatly, but it’s only what I deserve.”

As Jack watched, the pendant vanished. He felt devastated.

“Mother,” whispered Thorgil. “I can see her in my mind.” She put down the knife.

“Queen Glamdis?”

“No… my real mother. Allyson. I was so cruel to her. I called her names and I never treated her kindly, even when she was crying. Father used to beat her. He called her useless because she bore him no son.”

“She did bear him a son. You had an older brother, and your father killed him.”

“I was to be his replacement, but I failed.” Tears rolled down Thorgil’s face.

“How could you possibly fail by being born a girl?”

“Mother cooked me special meals when Father wasn’t looking. She combed my hair and made me beautiful jackets and boots. I never thanked her.”

“Olaf said she never spoke.”

“She did to me, in Saxon,” said Thorgil. “I made fun of her for using a slave’s speech. That’s when she stopped talking. And then—and then they sacrificed her so she could accompany Father to Valhalla.”

“You know what? I don’t think she went to Valhalla at all. Dragon Tongue said you get to choose your afterlife. I think she went to the Islands of the Blessed with Maeve.”

“I hope so,” said Thorgil. “Oh! I just remembered. One of the last things I said to Olaf was ‘I hate you.’ How could I have done that?” She burst into fresh tears.

“I imagine people told Olaf they hated him at least once a day,” Jack said dryly.

“That’s true,” said Thorgil, brightening up again. But then she remembered other crimes from her past. She seemed to have an endless fund of them. She had smashed Heide’s loom after the wise woman made her a dress. She had jeered at Rune’s voice when he tried to sing a praise-song for her. She had tied together the tails of Slasher, Wolf Bane, Hel Hag, and Shreddie to make them fight. And these were dogs who loved her, practically the only creatures who did.