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pig away or let it in, I don’t care which.”
    Vigdis opened the door and screamed.

5

Blood for Blood
    Gudrun Night-Sun lay on the threshold, her face pressed against the stone, her hands clawing the ground. A trail of blood led out through the garden gate. Her face was dead white, the eyes glassy. She looked as though she had no blood left in her body—her dress was sodden with it. It oozed from a wound in her chest.
    Jorunn gathered her up and lay her on the wall bench. Thorvald stared at her, his eyes almost out of his head, then staggered away. I heard him groan.
    â€œChrist Jesus!” cried my mother. “How? Where was she?”
    She knelt beside Gudrun and lifted the blood-soaked dress from her legs. “Ahh!” she moaned when she saw the blood between her thighs where she had been ripped. “Baby, who did this to you?”
    Gudrun’s lips moved, but no sound came out. Only saliva bubbled at the corners of her mouth.
    Vigdis dashed to the river and came back with her hands full of moss to press against the wound. But we all knew it was too late for that.
    â€œWhere was your sister?” Jorunn demanded of Gunnar and me.
    â€œUp at the shieling,” I said. “Looking for her elf lover.”
    â€œAnd dragged herself all this way?” Vigdis murmured. It seemed almost impossible.
    â€œElves didn’t do this,” said Jorunn between her teeth, her breath coming short.
    â€œTrolls, then?” I said.
    â€œOr men no better than trolls,” Gunnar said.
    We looked at each other and knew.
    â€œI’m going to the shieling,” I said, reaching for my sword. “Father—?”
    But he had retreated to his high seat and wouldn’t look at us.
    â€œLeave him,” Gunnar snarled. He grabbed up a spear and ran out the door.
    I raced after him.
    In the high pasture we found a bloody shambles. Slaughtered sheep lay everywhere, and the bodies of the three young thralls who had been with her, too—all dead. Inside the hut, I noticed something glittering in a corner—my belt with the silvered buckle. They must have pulled it off her when they raped her. We ran farther up the slope to the rim of the valley and looked out. Nearly lost in the glare of the sun were some black specks moving rapidly away from us—toward the coast where Hrut’s farm lay.
    Back at the house we told what we had seen.
    â€œSend us after them, Father!” I cried.
    But he pressed his hands to his temples and squeezed his eyes shut.
    â€œSend us, you useless, pitiful old man,” shouted Gunnar, nearly in tears, “or we’ll go anyway.”
    â€œNo!” Thorvald backed away from us toward the door. “How do you know it was Hrut—doesn’t the whole world hate us? It might have been anyone. Time enough to act when the girl recovers.”
    â€œRecovers!” Jorunn hissed, kneeling by the body. “Husband, in Christ’s name….”
    With a sudden swift motion, he snatched his sword from the wall and planted himself in the doorway. He was breathing hard and sweating.
    â€œListen to me, all of you! I know what you think of me, but I’m telling you the truth. Listen to me. We are defenseless. We have no allies, no friends. But this man, Hrut, isn’t he a Christman like the others? They’ll back him up. Oh, don’t I know how it’s done? They’ll combine against us. They’ll wipe us out. Can’t you see that? Except that we’ll not give them their chance—oh no, not for a few sheep, and thralls, and a … and a girl. We won’t let them destroy us just for that!”
    He swayed in the doorway, making menacing thrusts at us with his sword. His eyes were mad. We would have to kill him to get past him. Gunnar would have done it gladly but for our mother.
    Instead, we turned to doing what we could for Gudrun.
    Whoever stabbed her had a faltering hand and missed her heart. He would