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Marta were given small tasks around the women’s house, and after an awkward bit of just standing about, Aaren escaped to explore the village. Most of the wooden houses were deserted; the women and thralls were out in the fields, beginning the harvest. She walked along the path leading out to the fields and stood watching the grain—precious, wind-ruffled mane-of-the-fields—and the harvesters. The women had raised and tied the hems of their kirtles and the thrall men who worked with them were stripped to the waist and covered with sweat.
    How well she knew the labor of harvest, the rhythmic swing of the scythe, the scent of dry grasses. Every autumn she and Serrick and Miri and Marta had reaped their mountain meadows together. A powerful yearning suddenly welled in her and she was tempted to strip off her sword and breastplate and take a place in the row of harvesters. But she recalled Serrick’s caution that a warrior is known by his deeds, and she noted that there were no other warriors in the fields.
    Turning away, she felt a disturbing discontent that had to do with the bar that had fallen over the doors of her old life, separating it irrevocably from the new. She wondered if Fair Raven had ever felt such conflicts in her life as a mortal. She had known the grandeur of Valhalla itself, but Serrick said she had taken true pleasure in her life with him and her baby daughter. If only Odin hadn’t demanded her return, she might have stayed long enough to teach her daughter how to wear both a warrior’s shield and a woman’s mantle.
    Midmorning, Aaren sat in the autumn sun, on the top of a great rock overlooking Lake Vänern. She had spent time wielding her blade and working her muscles as Serrick had taught her, and now rested. The crunch of stone on stone behind her sent her whirling about with her hand on her dagger. A young lad stood a few paces away, eyeing her warily.
    â€œThe jarl . . . he sent me,” the boy said. “Come to th’ hall.” When she picked up her blade, the lad jerked back with widened eyes and scurried back along the rocky path.
    Her mind raced ahead of her feet to what awaited her in Borger’s hall. She had anticipated the call, imagined it, burned for it. She was eager to get on with her next blade-match, to unleash the tension coiled in her against an opponent, to prove to both the jarl and that great flaxen-haired giant that she possessed a true warrior’s strength and weapon-skill. But for the hundredth time that morning, Marta’s question crept into her mind: How many warriors would she have to defeat before they accorded her a true warrior’s place in the hall?
    The massive wooden doors of the hall stood open to the early autumn warmth and the hall was filled with dusky light admitted by the smoke hole above the great hearth. The planking tables and floor were littered with the remains of the pig feast as well as empty bowls and pitchers and fish bones discarded from the morning’s meal. Borger’s men were sprawled over the benches around the walls, wearing squints and scowls, their heads banging like empty ale barrels.
    Aaren paused to let her eyes adjust to the dimmer interior of the hall. Her hands clenched at her sides as she surveyed the formidable gathering. A motion to her right caught her eye and she glanced at the man sprawled in the corner, shackled by neck and leg and secured to the wall. A pair of icy gray eyes glared at her through the gloom and a face appeared, strong-featured, muscular, and wearing several days’ growth of beard and who-knew-how-many-days’ layers of grime.
    His plight washed over Aaren in that brief instant of contact. There was no fate dreaded more by a Norseman than being held captive in the hall of his enemy. Better to die in battle than to live in chains, Serrick had said. She would never allow herself to be held captive, she vowed as she strode through the hall and stood before the