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noticed her arrive. "He'll flay you alive if he hears you talking about warlocks and spirits. You know how he is."
        "Who are you to tell us what we should talk about, girl?" The pregnant woman backs toward the doorway. "His science is failing. Our founders wanted us to keep to the old ways. Well, the Norse gods and magic are among the old ways."
        "The old ways included birth without anaesthetic, Salbjerg," Bera says. "Think that that's one old way we should return to? Our founders wanted us to cherrypick the best of the old ways, not embrace every superstition."
        "Perhaps Pappi's grown tolerant in his old age?" Salbjerg says to her friend. "I remember a time when a chit of a girl who got herself knocked up without keeping hold of the man's dick would have had the skin peeled from her back one layer at a time."
        "Or maybe Pappi is the Pappi," the older woman says, leering.
        Bera doesn't answer at first. Then she looks up. "Do you fear that I lay with your Bjarney, Salbjerg? You've nothing to worry about. He's never even glanced at me. I promise you that."
        "Of course I wasn't worried, you little slut." The flush rising to Salbjerg's face gives the lie to that. "Why would my man want a nothing like you?"
        You watch Bera's jaw work, and a part of you feels a surge of protectiveness toward her. She shouldn't have to take such abuse. Ignoring the voices momentarily, you let out a low growl and both the women step back.
        "You should go now," Bera says. "Before Loki decides that he prefers cannibalism to starving to death. He might take a chunk out of you, Salbjerg."
        The women back away, muttering, and when they've gone, Bera laughs softly to herself. "Quite the lioness defending her cub, aren't I, Loki? Who'd have thought milk-and-water Bera would bare her teeth so?"
        But you arch to let the voices out, and clutch at your head; she holds you, shushing you.
        Later, when the smell of burning has faded away, and the pain has receded to a level that's almost bearable, you fall silent.
        Bera is joined by a ruddy-faced giant. She says to him, "Help me get him into the wheelbarrow, Yngi."
        You whimper when you try to stand, but when they ease their grip, you grab a pillar, and hold yourself up with it. They grip you under an arm each, and Bera nudges you toward the wheelbarrow, where they settle you into it.
        "Thanks, Yngi," she says.
        "What are you going to do with him?" Yngi says.
        "I'm going to wheel him outside," Bera says.
        The Other is pushing at you, pushing you down into a pit of blackness. Your skull isn't large enough to contain both of you. You moan and clutch the sides of your head. The Other has awoken, and his voice is the loudest of them all, begging to be allowed his body back – as if it is his, the madman.
        "Hush, now," Bera croons. She pushes the wheelbarrow, grunting with the effort, and the world tilts alarmingly. You would get out, but the effort makes the barrow lurch, and at her urging you sit still.
        "Ooh, look!" calls out the woman Thorbjorg who visited the barn earlier. "Bera's got herself a pram! Taking baby for a walk?"
        There are subdued laughs at this, but Hilda says fiercely, "Thorbjorg! She may have lapsed, but no woman deserves mockery after losing a child!"
        Thorbjorg looks sulky.
        "What are you doing, Bera?" Hilda says.
        "He's permanently hungry," Bera says. "And then I realised there are lichens he can eat." Your world tips and she half-laughs, half-cries, "Aagh! He's falling!"
        The grass is sweet and juicy, and as you lie prone on the ground you tear at it with your teeth, feeling some trickle down your chin. "Don't eat that, Loki," Bera says. "You can't digest grass. Come on now, leave it!"
        A noise catches your attention, just for a moment. A man whose name you don't know – he has never been into the