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certain bearing. Hallgerd had a good example to follow: Rognvald’s even temper, Sigrid’s warmhearted gentleness.
    And the legendary pride of her village. But it took an effort to keep her voice steady and speak as nobly as she wished. “No Dane alive,” said Hallgerd, “has it in his power to hurt a man or woman from Spjothof.” She said this to strike an attitude of calm indifference. She sounded, she thought, convincing. She began to feel the first glow of real courage.
    The gray-eyed man smiled. “Then no one will do Rognvald’s daughter any harm.” He used the formal designation, Rognvaldsdottir , indicating that he realized her father was a man of name.
    This polite way of referring to her parentage—fine courtesy by Spjothof standards—made her uneasy. Perhaps it was this easy reference to harm, or the extreme politeness, which Danes used to cover up their baser motives.
    â€œIf you have spilled one drop of my father’s blood,” she said, “I’ll see your heads on stakes.” She said this with too much passion for a noblewoman—there could be no mistaking her anger.
    To her surprise, the gray-eyed man gave a bow.
    Hallgerd’s captors conferred with him, and with an apology one of them refastened her wrists. “Forgive me, pretty one,” said the rough voice.
    This was the one—the man who had threatened to cut off her nose and break her bones. This man spoke with an air of good cheer, as though she had agreed to take part in a rough game with well-established rules.
    â€œDo you believe,” asked Hallgerd, “that a few weak threads will bind the arms of my father’s daughter?”
    Her captor finished with his knots and stepped back. He was a well-built, suntanned man evidently proud of his smile—he showed nearly every tooth. “For a little while,” he said, in a tone of gentle teasing. “If you will allow a seaman’s hitch-knot to test your strength.”
    Like many seamen, his handsomeness was offset by a white scar, a straight line across his forehead. Many men carried such scars, the result of splintering oars or ship’s strakes in collisions or battle. Oddly enough, this scar made him look less like a violent pillager and more like the good-natured shipwrights she had known all her life.
    â€œThese knots do hurt me,” said Hallgerd, in the tone her mother used to get a shoemaker to set a lower price. It was not true—the cloth was some slithery, soft fabric, perhaps silk, although Hallgerd had rarely set hands on the precious cloth herself.
    The gray-eyed man turned to his scarred shipmate with a troubled frown.
    She spoke again, trying to sound as a noblewoman should, and doing, she thought, a good job. “They pain me very much.”
    The gray eyes blinked.
    â€œThey will cause me a bruise,” she said. “And besides,” she added, with what she hoped was a noblewoman’s offhandedness, “I need to relieve myself.”
    The gray-eyed man nodded to Scar-Face. “Untie her,” he said.
    â€œI’ll do that, Thrand, but she’ll scamper,” said Scar-Face. His voice was as rough as a file-stone, a man so strong, he could climb through an entire mountain pass without growing weary of his burden. But either the presence of his superior, or the proximity of the ships, softened his nature, and he did not frighten her so badly now.
    She gave him what she hoped was a cool and level glance, and her scarred captor looked right back at her, smiling. She had an instant of impulse, imagining her hand drawing his knife from his belt, slicing his neck where the life throbbed.
    â€œShe’s a noblewoman, Olaf,” said Thrand. “Such folk expect to be well treated.”
    Scarred Olaf broke into a chuckle. He was a broad-shouldered, tall man, with the sort of muscles the best seamen develop from seasons of rowing. Hallgerd had heard ale drinkers