Free Daughter of the Wind by Michael Cadnum Page B

true,” she agreed, the way her mother would have, to spare even an enemy’s feelings.
    Indeed, the vessel’s interior was drier and more comfortable than any seagoing craft Hallgerd had ever sailed before. Braziers of smoking coals warmed her hands and feet each morning, and Thrand offered her cups of fruit wine, a drink Hallgerd had heard of but never tasted in her life.
    â€œMade of grapes,” said Thrand, noting her expression of surprise.
    She knew of berries, gathered wild during the summer. She had heard of vineyards in distant lands, but had never tasted their fermented juice. “I don’t like the flavor.”
    Olaf gave his familiar grin, gazing down over Thrand’s shoulder. “You’ll get used to it,” said the scarred seaman, “when you sit at your fine table.”
    Hallgerd gave what she trusted was a smile her father would approve.
    Never , she thought.
    Never, if it costs me my life .

Sixteen
    When it was time for the evening meal, the sun-weathered sailing men opened wooden chests and brought out platters of loaf bread and slathered it with butter.
    Butter was so rare in Hallgerd’s experience that some farmers hoarded it like gold and paid off debts with small tubs of the stuff. Eating such treasure struck Hallgerd as an extravagant, reckless luxury, but the oarsmen around her bit into grand slices of bread and butter, laughing and enjoying one another’s company. They placed bets on how long a seal would stay submerged alongside the ship, or which seabird would cross Bison ’s wake first, just like the men of Spjothof, despite their Danish accents and unthinkingly rich diets.
    Thrand gave her a linen cloth to dab the droplets of grape wine from her lips, and offered her cheese smeared with butter, smiling good-naturedly, and making no further threats. The soft-spoken man was the one who blew upon the hardwood coals until they glowed at dawn, and fastened a whale-skin over her shoulders in the gentle mist that fell one afternoon.
    â€œYou won’t be cutting off my nose, Olaf?” asked Hallgerd as Bison ’s sail was full bellied, the beautiful ship well ahead of the others.
    â€œI would never have done such a thing,” Olaf replied.
    When she made no further remark, Olaf’s smile become less certain. “It was a make-believe threat, Jarl’s Daughter—nothing more than that.”
    Aside from Olaf, who turned out to be as much a hardworking manservant as captor, and Thrand, who finally poured a cup of Frankish wine so sweet, Hallgerd had to agree that it was delicious, most of the oarsmen ignored her. If the broad-shouldered helmsman met her gaze he would dip his head with a polite smile and then make every effort to find some point on the horizon to study.
    One Danish warrior had been badly wounded in the fighting, a balding, heavily bearded man named Odd. A sword cut in his belly would not stop bleeding.
    â€œI didn’t feel the blow,” he explained. “Or see it, until much later when my boots were full of blood.”
    Hallgerd knew it was a mortal wound but said nothing, feeling little but compassion for the Dane, and respect for the man’s refusal to complain.
    â€œI’ve been hurt much worse than this,” said Odd. “My brother cut me with a scythe once, here—see the scar.”
    It was an old scar, a neat seam along his forearm. His friends agreed that they themselves had suffered many worse wounds, and Olaf said that he himself had been more badly injured a hundred times and that Odd had no need to worry.
    But when Odd drank wine, it flowed right out the gash beneath his ribs. He laughed at this, and said he’d be able to outdrink even Olaf. But despite the encouragement of his shipmates, he fell into a slumber, his face swollen, his breath rattling.
    It pained Hallgerd to hear Odd’s friends tell their unconscious friend that they’d be home soon. “We’ll turn