The buds of her breasts were like rocks, hard and sore, so sore she could not sleep on her stomach as she preferred to do, and her legs ached with the pangs of growth. She would not be small—not this small—forever, and she would not pass for nine or ten much longer. Blood had begun to seep from between her legs. Not much. And not often. But she knew what it meant.
“Please let me stay with you.” Her plea shamed her, and it did nothing to change his mind.
“I can’t,” he said, firm, and she knew he would not relent. “There will be questions if I accompany you. Questions I cannot answer. It will go better for you if you are alone. Do not speak of me or the boy. It will only bring us trouble.”
She turned her head, searching the forest behind her, needing to see Hod one last time, but he was not there.
“They need not know about your songs either. It is enough to simply be a girl. That is gift enough. They need not know what you are capable of.”
“What am I capable of?” she asked, stalling, desperate.
“You can make a blind man see,” he snorted.
“Are there many blind men on Temple Hill?”
“No. But there are many ways that men are blind. Be careful, little one. Guard your songs.”
It was the first time Arwin had called her anything but witch or girl, and she blanched in surprise. He sounded almost kind.
“Now go,” Arwin insisted. “Walk straight to the door. Don’t stop. Leave the blanket over your head. Go. Go.” He pushed at her back, shoving her forward, and she took four stumbling steps. When she looked back, he too had disappeared into the trees. She pulled the sides of her makeshift cloak around her, keeping the hood over her hair.
There was nothing to do but go forward.
By the time she’d made it to the man at Lothgar’s door, he was staring with a furrowed brow.
“I’ve come to see Lothgar,” she insisted, avoiding his eyes.
“And who are you?” he asked.
“I want to go to the temple.”
He pushed back the blanket over her hair.
“You’re a girl,” he gasped.
“Yes. And I want to see Lord Lothgar.” She was suddenly, strangely calm. It had been harder to steal aboard a boat. At least she wouldn’t have to hide with the rats.
“Come with me,” he said, and abandoned his post at the keep’s entrance.
Inside, the beams were high and the furnishings heavy and dark—everything made for big men. Horns and antlers and feathers and furs adorned the walls and covered a floor set with stone. The smell of bread and roasting meat came from deeper in the edifice, but the man did not take her to the kitchens. He took her to a hall where tables were arranged in a square, leaving the center empty. A few men milled about, but no one was eating. A fire crackled on a huge stone hearth and two dogs fought over a bone that had been fought over before.
A man with a full gold-and-gray beard that framed his broad face lounged in a huge chair on a raised platform, talking in earnest with a man who had a similar beard and a similar face, though he seemed to be listening more than he spoke.
“Chief Lothgar!” her escort interrupted. His voice was excited, triumphant even, and every head swiveled toward him.
The man in the chair looked up, irritation flickering across his features. The man beside him scowled as well, but when they saw her, trailing behind the big guard, their faces went slack.
“I’ve brought you a girl child, Lothgar,” he crowed.
The only sound in the room was the popping of the fire in the grate.
5
YEARS
“Where did you find her, Ludlow?” Lothgar whispered.
“She walked right up to the door, Lord. She asked for you. She said she wants to go to the temple.” The man laughed as though he couldn’t believe it himself.
“How old are you, girl?” the chieftain asked. It was always the first question they asked. Hod’s voice rose in her thoughts.
There have been no other daughters of Saylok born in twelve years. The men bring daughters from other lands . . . but it is not enough . . . and there seems to be no remedy or rune to cure the drought.
“I don’t know how old I am,” Ghisla lied. Her shoulders tightened and she stared down at her bare feet. They were black with filth.
“Where did you come from?” he pressed.
“I am of Leok.”
“If you were born in Leok, we would have known,” the man beside Lothgar said.
Lothgar held out his hand, as if to silence the man beside him. “Lykan . . . let me, brother.”
“I am of Leok,” she insisted, lifting her chin, doing what Arwin had counseled her to do.
“Why have you come?” Lothgar asked.
“I want to be sent to the temple.”
A murmur rumbled throughout the room.
“Go. All of you. Leave,” Lothgar ordered, and his command was immediately obeyed by all but his brother. Lykan stayed frozen beside him and Lothgar did not insist he go.
“Who cares for you, girl?” Lothgar asked when the room had cleared.
“I care for myself.”
“Where is your family?”
“I don’t know.”
“What is your name?”
“I do not know.”
“What do you know?”
“I am of Leok,” she insisted, her voice rising. “And I am a girl.”
Lothgar barked in laughter and his brother cursed in disbelief.
“The girl is small, but her tongue is sharp. She seems to have a firm grasp on the situation, young as she is,” Lothgar said to him. “You look like a daughter of Leok,” the chief conceded. “Your hair is fair and your eyes are blue.”
“She looks like your daughters, Lord. Like our mother too,” Lykan mused. Chief Lothgar studied her, his hand stroking the length of his beard.
“But she wasn’t born in Leok,” he said. “She is young, and we would have heard. Her parents would have brought her to me for the blessing.”
“Mayhaps her parents were travelers between lands,” Lykan suggested. “Mayhaps she belongs to the rovers.”
“I belong to no one,” Ghisla said. The two men gaped at her once more. It was as though they could hardly believe their eyes.
After a moment, Lothgar spoke again. “And . . . why . . . do you want to go to the temple?”
“Because I belong to no one,” she repeated. “In the temple I’ll eat.”
Lothgar nodded slowly and his brother spoke again.
“We have no one else to send, Lothgar.”
“No.” Lothgar shook his head. “We don’t. Not without raiding the homes of our people.”
“You would have slain any man who tried to separate you from your daughters,” his brother murmured.
Lothgar’s eyes darkened, but he nodded his head. “That I would.”
“Yet here is this child. A girl child. We don’t know where she came from . . . but I find I don’t much care,” Lykan admitted.
Lothgar sat back in his chair with an air of relief. “Praise Odin,” he whispered. “Nor do I.” He tugged on his beard and studied her a moment more, but she held his gaze. It had gone just as Arwin said it would. They had no one else.