Turning my back on the men, I slipped out of my sticky leathers.
Back home we didn’t care. Jarl, karl, thrall… we all changed and bathed before each other. It wasn’t the Viking way to be modest, and I’d never let men make me uncomfortable before.
Once in my undergarments, I grabbed the waterskins and dumped the contents over my head, using a coarse cloth to scrub the salt and the gray hue from my skin until it pinked. I tried not to wince when a breeze blew through the cracks in the walls and made goose bumps pepper my skin.
“Look at that. Heirs get as dirty as us karls. Who would have known?”
“She’s cold. Bet they only bathe in warm water back at Oenskan.”
“She’s skinny too. Have the Sweengards lost their good fortune? Is that why they sent her instead of Lika?”
“I’m surprised the beloved firstborn daughter deigns to join us here in all the filth. I thought the heirs would have their own tents since they’re soelite.”
They technically weren’t supposed to address me without me approaching them first.
In a formal setting like the Hird, any jarl was ranked higher than the karls, and as such we could choose who we interacted with by deciding to introduce ourselves or not. I dabbed the cloth over my neck to cool the blood that roared there as I pretended not to hear them try to get around the custom. But when the four men inched closer, the longhouse felt smaller, the hearth cramped.
“She’s a pretty thing, isn’t she? Even all dirtied up.”
I dragged my tongue over my teeth. Not all karls would be like my people at home—especially the ones here at the Hird—but these four were a special kind of stupid, weren’t they? Did they not understand I could have their heads for talking about me like this?
It wasn’t like they knew I didn’t have my rune, and if I did, I could have killed all four of them unarmed and with my eyes closed.
My hackles rose when one of them knocked something down from a cot by the hearth nearest mine, and without turning their way, I warned, “I might not be dressed, but I can slit your throats with my sword anyway. You’re not to come near me.”
“I’m terrified,” one of them joked.
Another laughed. “They’re always so proud of their swords. As if they’re not forged by the hands of karls.”
“Hers looks heavy for someone so small,” another said before he hiccuped violently. “If we win the sword, do we get to keep it? I should like a blade instead of my knives or axes.”
“Only if we’re chosen to take over as heir,” another replied. “Only theelitegets to carry swords.”
“The iron-bound do too,” someone else chimed in.
I almost laughed. I’d choose a second and third and fourth and a hundredth before any of these idiots came near the Sweengard fylki and island. The only way would be to kill me, and even then, neither of them could be the new heir unless the king appointed them. I doubted he would be eager to choose any of these drunk hotheads, even if I hadn’t chosen my second yet.
“Find your spine and say it to my face,” I said instead, keeping my voice calm. “If you dare.”
“Sohonorable,” one of them snapped. “Her back all turned like she trusts us.”
A prickle ran up my neck. I didn’t care for his tone at all. But I didn’t turn around. Lika always told me whenever someone on our travels tried to intimidate us, to pretend I was their chief and they were my unruly subjects—never indulge them. Here at theHird—in this hall of wolves—if I gave them a finger, they’d tear the whole hand from my wrist and laugh while I bled.
“Watch your mouth,” I warned. “I’ve been patient so far, but I’m tired and hungry from my travels, and my restraint is waning quickly.”
“I heard she can take down grown bears with her father’s rune.” There was a slight note of apprehension in this one’s tone. “My brother fought beside hers in one of the last raids, and he threw a fucking horse at an enemy.”
“Thisgirlcan take all four of us?”
The hair on my arms stood at an end when the man laughed, and my hand flew to the rune on my chest.
The rune that was but a ghostly scar.
My heart skipped a beat at the visibly bleached lines, and I grabbed the dirty tunic on the cot and wrangled myself into it before I turned and slid the hilt of my blade into my hands.
“Careful now,” I purred, trying to sound as cold as Lika did when someone annoyed him. “I can take eight of you.”
At least I could have. Now perhaps one. But given the leader seemed to be egging everyone on, maybe one was enough.
