Oddrun was waiting for me outside. She appeared out of the shadows of the doorway, all elbows and dirty blonde hair, making me jump
“Gudrun sent me to see how you were,” she signed, in that eager-to-please way of hers. Before I could protest, she grabbed the now-empty drinking horn out of my hands.
I rolled my eyes to the heavens as she slung the richly embroidered strap over her shoulder.
“What, she doesn’t even trust me to carry it back myself?” I signed.    Oddrun merely shrugged as we began the short, blustery walk along the clifftop to the women’s quarters. Her tiny, birdlike frame was dwarfed by.the massive swelling of her belly, which made her look impossibly small and fragile, younger than her true age, which couldn’t have been [ syntax]more than sixteen or seventeen.
“She does it just for the pleasure of bossing you around, you know,” I told her. “I don’t know how you put up with it.”
Oddrun only shrugged once more.
“I mean it. You should stick up for yourself more,” I informed her, with all the wisdom of my eighteen years. “Rather than bowing and scraping to their every command and acting hurt when they’re only meaner to you in return. They can sense weakness. Truly. It’s like wolves or something.”
Oddrun gave me a mildly puzzledlook, as if she wanted very much to take my advice on board but was struggling to understand what I meant. Perhaps being poetic with her was taking it a stretch too far.
Further discussion on the matter, however, had to be postponed, as just then we were interrupted by a shout from behind us.
“Frida! Wait!”
 It was Erik. He had been running to catch up with us, and his face was slightly pink from the exertion. As he drew level with us, he held out his hand, which contained a single, glittering earring. It must have fallen out of my ear at some point in the proceedings in the hall.
“You…er…you dropped this,” he said.
His gaze flicked shyly up to my face ashis said it, then back down again. His cheeks turned a slightly darker shade of pink.
I reached out and took it from him, inclining my head.  Erik didn’t understand the signage of the women’s quarters, and I was still bound by the rules of silence, so I couldn’t give any other sign of thanks. But he hesitated for a moment, eyes searching myface, as if waiting for something else from me.
“Well. Um. That was all. Better be going, then,” he said eventually.
And with one last, lingering look, he turned around and sprinted all the way back to the hall.
“That one likes you,” signed Oddrun, nodding in the direction that Erik had disappeared.
I watched him go, frowning.
“Yes,” I signed.  “Yes, he does.”

By thispoint we had reached the women’s quarters. As soon as we stepped through the doorway, Gudrun was upon us.  My father’s chief wife, the unofficial ruler of the kingdom and orchestrator of the present festivities turned around, setting down the pestle and mortar she had been using on the table beside her.  She strode over to take the horn from Oddrun.
“Give that here, girl,” she signed.“What took you so ridiculously long?”
Without waiting for a response from either of us, she yanked the horn off her shoulder, none too gently, and strode back over to set it down on the table where all her herbs and ointments were laid out. Then she turned around and regarded us both as she leant against the table, her posture as ever a mix of poise and pent-up tension.
“So how are they?” she asked, addressing me.
“They haven’t killed each other, at least. Yet,” I offered.
“And your father?”
“The dose came just in time, I think. He was getting irritable.”
Gudrun shook her head.
“Gods be thanked,” she signed. “If this wedding comes off without a bloodbath, we’ll be lucky.”
As if the thought had reminded her, she looked me up and down, checking my appearance. And sighed deeply.
“Come closer, dear,” shesigned, and proceeded to fiddle with my hair when I obeyed. Stray curls were already beginning to escape from my plaits. Gudrun pulled them back into place and pinned them as if they had done her a personal offence.
“Andthe Lord Erik,” she said, stepping back to admire her handiwork, “was he well pleased with you?”
I blushed.
“I…I think so.”
“You were kind to him?You remembered to smile? Remember what I told you about how important this is.”
“I’m always kind. You know me.”
Gudrun only lifted a single eyebrow. It was the non-verbal equivalent of a sceptical hmm. I knew very well what she thought about my charming qualities.
“Ah, if only your brothers were here…” she signed, with a disappointed sigh.
I didn’t respond. I found it was always best to do so when anyone brought up my brothers.  It seemed like I alone was the only one who didn’t have fond memories of them. To everyone else, they had been golden boys, tall and handsome and destined for greatness, who could do no wrong. To me, they had been tormentors, who took gleeful delight in bullying a sister who was younger and weaker and had a different skin tone from them.
Thankfully, she didn’t seem to require any response. Instead, she rounded on Oddrun.
“Girl,” she said. “I find myself short of that leaf from the garden. You know the one. Would you be so good as to fetch it?”
Oddrun nodded and began to hurry towards the side entrance to the hall, past mine and Gudrun’s private chambers.  She halted suddenly as something small and hard hit her square on the shoulder, leaving a sticky imprint. There was a giggle from the other side of the room.
“Swiftly now, My Lady Rattlebones!” said Astrid, “The kingdom is depending on it!”
And she picked up another of the imported Imperial sweets from the bowl beside her and took a bite.
Mentioning Oddrun’s mother. That was low. If I had been in Oddrun’s shoes, I would have stormed over to Astrid and slapped her round her pretty, pointed little face. That or broken down into tears. But Oddrun merely looked from the sticky patch on her shoulder to the small round object on the floor, figured out what had happened, and continued on her way.
“Astrid, that was unladylike,” said Gudrun.
“I agree,” said Astrid. “A lady would not have let that insult pass her by.  But she just stares at me with that dumb cowlike expression of hers and goes on her way!”
    Sigi, my father’s second wife, who was doing some embroidery next to Astrid, sniggered unkindly. Astrid always was her favourite. She did it to spite Gudrun, with whom she had conducted a friendly enmity since she had arrived in Helgafell and broken Gudrun’s stranglehold on the women’s quarters. That had been more than thirty years ago, and the legendary beauty which had incited Gudrun’s jealousy had faded and grown plump[ Hm]. At the same time, decades side by side in the close environment of the women’s quarters had created a genuine bond between the two while preserving a façade of constant, acrimonious bickering.
“Oh, relax, will you?” she said[ JAY: Sigi said], putting down her sewing to address Gudrun, “You’ve been driving us crazy all day with your constant fretting. Astrid doesn’t mean anything by it. The gods know, I wouldn’t wish any harm on that poor slip of a thing-” she nodded in the direction that Oddrun had disappeared- “But she doesn’t make being kind easy. The gods help me, how confused she was when that thing hit her! I nearly died!”
And she chuckled again.
Gudrun frowneddisapprovingly, but didn’t respond. After all, she took as much pleasure in bossing Oddrun around as the rest of them.
    I wish I could say for certain I didn’t participate in all the pettiness against Oddrun. I certainly don’t remember doing so. But memory is a funny thing, often conveniently passing over our less admirable moments. Maybe I did not pinch her and pull her hair like Astrid or order her around until her tiny overburdened body was utterly exhausted like Gudrun and Sigi. But did I ever defend her against the insults, the orders and the bullying? Did I ever try to befriend her, to be her ally in what must have been an absolutely terrifying, isolating new situation? If I’m honest with myself, I was just like the others, in attitude if not in action. I saw the grubby-faced daughter of a cook and was prepared to believe she was just too stupid to really feel it. It’s a funny thing, a place like the women’s quarters. You’d have thought that shared confinement would bring the captives closer together in common rage against their tormentor.  What really happens is they simply find someone else to torment in their turn. It’s easier than a futile struggle against the bonds that keep you powerless. Lock up a bunch of rats together and they’ll eat each other alive before thinking of attacking the cage.[ Well they still wouldn’t break it- more likeattempt to destroy cage]
    I can’t say I blame Astrid, not really. Young and beautiful and high-born, life in my father’s halls must have been achingly boring. She must have been nearly twenty [ Age up accordingly]at the time and still expected more from life. Marrying acrochety old man as part of an alliance between him and her father and being stranded here long after the friendship had outlived its usefulness- well, that was terrible bad luck. Then there was the fact that Oddrun’s presence among us seemed to be some sort of giant joke. A mere year after taking on a beautiful young bride with impeccable lineage, it was insulting that my father’s eye should have been caught by a mere serving girl, a low-born orphan who lived off scraps in the kitchen, and, even worse, was the daughter of a woman whose crimes had been so dreadful that her remains still hung suspended from the eaves of the hall, rattling mournfully on a windy day. But what truly rubbed salt in the wound was that she should fall pregnant and as a result be given the full honours of wife; now she had a chance of being the one to grant my father his prophesied son, an honour that all my father’s other wives had been denied for years.  Hence all the nastiness and cruel allusions to Oddrun’s heritage.
    I wonder sometimes whether it was the same for my mother, in the time she spent at my father’s court. They say my father loved her the best of all his wives, the wild woman of the Plains who could not be confined to the stuffy, silent house on a chilly outcrop by an insignificant sea [ Rewrite]but who escaped at the first opportunity, leaving only me behind[ JAY: Should Frida be more angry about her mum?].  Did she arouse the wrath of Gudrun and Sigi with her mysterious hold over my father? Did her foreignness leave her open to contempt, with her bronze skin, her untameable black hair, her oversized figure, like mine?  Was she subject to petty jibes and hair-pulling as she sickened andpined beneath these dreary northern skies? I thought I saw some hint of it in Gudrun’s eyes whenever she tucked my inevitable flyaway hairs back into an appropriate style for a Valkyrie, or removed my food from me before I had finished in the hopes of starving my stubborn largeness down to a more manageable size.
    The skald who had been playing for us in the women’s quarters had left off his song briefly when all of this occurred, visibly taken aback at the sight of such cruelty. He had been playing in the women’s quarters for less than a year, and I suspected he still wasn’t entirely used to how intense things could become in here occasionally. Now he began to sing again, taking up a different tune.
“Side by side, the Ladies weave.
Their cloth is made of dead men’s guts,
 The weights are skulls,
 Their loom is built from swords …”
“What is that are you singing, boy?” snapped Gudrun, banging her fist down on the table to get his attention.
“The…the Song of the Ladies, my lady,” stammered the poor young man, leaving off his song. Because he was so new, he still treated all of us with great timidity, especially Gudrun.
“You think that is an appropriate thing to be playing in a royal hall? By all the Gods, man, do you want to call down Their wrath upon us?”
“Forgive me, my lady,” cringed the boy.
“Don’t ask my forgiveness!” she said, “It’s the Ladies you should be concerned about. Not even the Gods insult them with impunity. You had better hope they are still as kind to you as they weave your fate from now on. ”
She sighed and shook her head, turning towards the door.
“I think I’m going to go and pray,” she said.

After the ceremony of the morning there was a great feast, to celebrate the peace and begin the wedding celebrations, andafterwards there was a competition, which any skald in the kingdom could enter, to produce the best piece of poetry. There were many fine examples that night, but one in particular caused quite a stir. This was the piece by the same skald who had been entertaining us in the women’s quarters that morning. He was a strange, intense young man, with piercing green eyes and a slight stutter in his speech. He was very young, as yet unable to grow a beard, and as such had been relegated to the junior position of performing for us in the women’s quarters. His name was Gunnar, as I was to find out.
    He did not make much of an impression as he stepped forward. His hands trembled slightly and he stumbled over his words as he said:
“I am Gunnar. I wrote this in honour of our Valkyrie Frida and her betrothed Lord Erik. It is called The Tyrant’s Lament. May it please you, lords.”
He bowed low to all of us seated at the long table, practically falling over in the process. There was a murmur of derision and even some open guffaws in the company assembled, for his was one of the later performances and a decent amount of mead had been consumed. But the unruly murmur died down almost instantly as he launched, unperturbed, into his song. His voice was uncanny, almost impossibly high and clear for a man’s. It was beautiful and achingly sad at the sametime, and made one think somehow of happy summer evenings long passed away[ For pete’s sake]. I even thought I saw some of the more inebriated of my father’s grizzled old war commanders quietly sobbing into their tankards.
    I still recall the song today. It went like this, as best I can render it in the Common Tongue:
“Where now are my armies?
Where now are my friends?
Where now the fine helmets
And spears of my youth, bright-shining?
I am exiled; I am lost
Far from my home, dishonoured, disgraced
Once I was queen. All bowed before me,
Now they shun me and curse my name
Revenge consumes me like a gnawing hunger.
 Let me long for death.”
You can hardly get a true sense of the effect Gunnar’s song had just from these few poor words, wrenched from their original language and robbed of their accompanying music. But trust me when I say the man had a gift. As he sang you felt like he was drawing out all the pain and turmoil inside you and making it beautiful. That he understood, somehow, all the deepest fears of your heart, and was sending you a special message to tell you that all was well.  We had not seen this side of him in the women’s quarters.There was a short pause of stunned silence while the effects of Gunnar’s song wore off. Then all of a sudden my father shattered the peace, saying loudly and indignantly:
“And what do you mean by this travesty, boy?”
There was a perceptible shift in the atmosphere in the hall. I could almost feel the anger directed at my father by every person in the room on Gunnar’s behalf.
“My lord?” said Gunnar.
“You sound like you have sympathy with the tyrant. She was a cruel and viciouswoman, and deserved what she got. Or do you not know any history at all?”
“I do have sympathy with the Lady Svava, lord.” said Gunnar quietly, in that earnest way of his, “She was a cruel woman, it is true. But even the most despicable among us have their pain and suffering. Iconfess, this is…fascinating to me.”
And although he stuttered and cowered a little in the face of my father’s wrath, his eyes lit up with the fervour known only to poets when you get them talking about their particular pet project.[ More appropriate comparison?]
“Insolent pup!” snapped my father, “Fascinated by suffering, indeed! Don’t think I don’t know what you’re about. You know full well that my ancestor Freyr was the one who finally brought the lady’s tyranny to an end. You mean to insult my house. You see which way the wind is blowing and seek to ingratiate yourself with that common-born,ancestorless muck seated beside me. Think he’ll toss a few pieces of silver your way to spread his lies about my kingdom, do you?”
My father was getting truly worked up now, his breathing coming in sharp, rage-filled bursts and his face starting to turn a delicate shade of pink. Poor Gunnar merely stood transfixed to the spot, blinking in terror. I looked anxiously at Harald; had my father inadvertently revealed himself with this outburst? Harald couldn’t know. That could ruin everything.
Gudrun was clearly thinking the same thing.
“Peace, husband,” she said, placing a restraining hand on his arm. “The insult was not meant. Drink now, and let it pass by graciously.”
She proffered him the richly decorated cup that had been sitting on the table in front of him. I was always surprised, whenever she spoke out loud to my father, as was permitted under the law, at how high-pitched and weak-sounding her voice was. My father simply ignored her and batted the cup away irritably.
“I’ll have you whipped for this!” thundered my father, “I’ll whip you until it flays the very skin from your flesh! I’ll…”
Olaf the Wise had got up from his seat and put a firm hand on my father’s shoulder, whispering something in his ear. Presumably reminding him that powerful kings did not get into petty squabbling matches with skalds over the interpretation of a verse.
    There was a moment in which I thought Frodi might turn and shout at Olaf, too. But thank all the gods, after a short moment he came round.
“My well-loved jarl reminds me that you are beneath my concern, you mewling brat,” he said, somewhat more calmly. “In future, do not let your familiarity with the women’s quarters induce you to produce verse worthy of a love-addled girl. Get out of my sight.”
Nearly collapsing with relief, Gunnar bowed multiple times and made as if to leave as fast as possible. But before he could, Harald, who had remained silent throughout the entire exchange, despite the all the insults towards him, suddenly spoke up.
“I do not think you are being quite fair, friend Frodi.” he protested, with an easy, courteous smile that nevertheless flashed his predator’s teeth.
“Oh?” said my father, a world of potential danger contained in that syllable.
“You saw how the boy’s song moved everyone here, unlike any other. Surely it is a mark of rare skill to make people weep for a woman so utterly evil and justly punished as the Lady Svava?Why, the man could be Helgi reborn! If anything, he deserves the prize, not our censure,” he said, raising his voice to make sure the entire room could hear.
There were murmurs of assent all along the tables. My father looked furious (this doubtless proved whatever spurious conspiracy between Harald and Gunnar he had concocted in his head) but he could not take back his pardon of Gunnar, or start to rage again, not when nearly everyone in the room, both his men and Harald’s, seemed to agree with this point of view.
“He will have no prize from me,” he merely said stubbornly.
“Very well. I would not dare to contradict a man’s will in his own hall,” said Harald.“But I have another honour in mind for the skald, if you will permit it?”
“If you must,” said my father, with bad grace.
Harald turned around and whispered something to his two bodyguards.  They disappeared towards where the weapons were stored and came back reverently bearing a finely worked blade, glittering with silver and onyx. Its hilt was carved in an intricate pattern of twisting vines laden with berries. He gestured and they bore it to the poet.
“This is the Mistletoe Blade. In its time, it was the most precious thing in all the world to the Lady of whom you just sang,” said Harald. “It is an heirloom of my kingdom. You may kiss thescabbard, if you like. I feel Svava herself would approve.”
“My lord,” said Gunnar, in reverent tones, his stutter noticeably lessened, “you do me honour beyond what I deserve.”
“It is no more than your due.” said Harald, “Do me the honour of accepting this.”
“My lord,” said Gunnar. Slowly, he bent down to kiss theblade, and rose, an expression of unparalleled contentment on his face. He was dismissed, and went to take his place with the other servants at the end of the hall in a happy daze.
 My father, on the other hand, had a face like thunder. Although some accident of inheritance meant that it had belonged for years to the kings of the West Fjords, he had always considered that blade his by rights. Prior to Harald’s dramatic ascension to kingship, he had intended to marry Gyda himself, and get hold of the blade as a wedding gift.That had been a large part in kicking off their quarrel in the first place.
 Therefore Harald displaying the blade in this way was a very carefully crafted insult. And what was worse, he had managed to win the entire room to his side with this generous gesture.
    One person, however, had not managed to grasp all the various subtexts flying around. Brother Justinius, Harald’s “wise man”, had a decidedly puzzled expression on his face.
“Friend,” I heard him say to one of my father’s men who was seated next to him, “Forgive me—  I was born over the sea in the Empire. I am not familiar with your strange Northern legends. Pray tell—who is this Lady Svava?”
My father’s retainer, a large man with a bushy grey beard, looked Brother Justinius up and down incredulously. He squinted at him through mead-befuddled eyes, as if carefully weighing up his response.
“Piss off, you poncey Southern milk-drinker,” He settled on eventually, in heavily accented Common Tongue, and returned to his drink.
Brother Justinius shook his head wearily, overwhelmed by the coarseness of it all.
“Barbarians,” he sniffed. He pursed his lips and took another sip of water.