The Sea of Trolls

up a kitten. The short-haired boy scuttled off on hands and knees. The others scattered.

“I’m surprised,” said the monk. “Olaf usually lets a fight go through to the end.” The giant lumbered back across the sand with Thorgil tucked firmly under his arm.

“How can that be a girl?” said Jack. He’d known some bad-tempered girls in the village, but none of them would have thrown themselves into such a vicious fight. None of the boys, either, for that matter.

“She’s a shield maiden,” said the monk. “A little abomination who will certainly toast her heels in Hell for all eternity. She’s trying to make the grade with Olaf, so she’s twice as likely to pick fights as his men. And they’re no slouches.” The monk stared long and hard at the group. By now most of the warriors had collapsed on the sand in a drunken stupor. Only Olaf’s men spread cloths and lay down properly.

They formed a square as though, even in sleep, they were in military formation. In the middle lay Thorgil. Next to her, on a blanket, was Lucy. She had a real pillow and a richly embroidered cover that might have been taken from a church altar.

“What’s a brjostabarn?” said Jack.

“What a strange question,” said the monk.

“It’s what Olaf called Thorgil.”

“Ah.” The monk nodded in somber understanding. “It means ‘suckling baby’. He’s calling Thorgil that to make her angry. Making people angry is a favorite pastime of the Northmen.”

“And what is a—” Jack had to stop to recall the word. “—a kettlingaklor?”

The monk laughed bitterly. “It means ‘kitten scratch’. It’s what these people call a blow that knocks you flat. I gather you had one.”

“Yes,” said Jack.

“You seem no worse for it. Trust me, you don’t want to find out what a really big cat scratch feels like.”

With that, the monk withdrew into his own thoughts and refused to talk. Jack watched the flickering fires, the sprawled warriors, and the neat square where Olaf and his people lay.

The captives were guarded by three men, who had not been allowed to drink. Escape was impossible. Besides, Jack thought as he stretched out on the cold, damp ground, he couldn’t leave without Lucy. And there was no way he was going to rescue her from that ominous square of Olaf’s men.

They camped on the beach for several days. Boats went out and returned with booty. Finally, when the warriors had amassed as much as they could carry, the whole group sailed north.

It was extremely uncomfortable. Jack and the other captives were packed like trussed-up chickens. They lay faceup, able to see only the sky and to feel the cold water sloshing under their backs. The boats leaked continuously. Captives were freed in shifts to bail them out. When it was Jack’s turn, he was horrified to see how near the sea came to spilling inside. The boat was so heavily laden, one more roll of cloth could send them to the bottom.

That’s a girl, he thought, eyeing Thorgil. He now understood that her oar was a rudder used to steer the boat. Plying a real oar would have been beyond her strength. Jack tried to imagine her in a dress and couldn’t. She was too brutish. When the men tossed insults back and forth, she outdid them in malice. When they spat and farted, she joined in.

Altogether she was the most disgusting creature—male or female—Jack had ever seen. He had always to come between her and Lucy, for Thorgil’s greatest joy was to cause pain. She never—quite—drew blood, but Lucy’s arms were covered with bruises from pinches.

Jack wondered at the little girl’s ability to keep up her spirits. Surely by now she knew she wasn’t headed for a castle. At the very least she must miss Mother and Father. Yet Lucy picked herself up after every pinch, wiped her eyes, and found Olaf. She ordered him around like a favorite hound, and if the giant didn’t actually obey her, Lucy pretended he did. It was curious and disturbing at the same time.

Olaf wasn’t a safe companion. He dealt out punishment with a quick hand, breaking teeth or cracking a rib according to his mood. Seeing Lucy with the monster made Jack sick. But there was nothing he could do about it.

On the third day a storm rose. The boat rolled frighteningly and waves splashed over the side. All the captives bailed furiously while the oarsmen struggled to reach shore. The sad-eyed woman collapsed. She hadn’t been strong to begin with. Olaf dragged her up, and with a swift movement that made Jack cry out, he cut her throat and threw her over the side.

Jack and the others were frozen for one long moment. Then they redoubled their efforts before Olaf turned his attention to them. Even so, the shore remained agonizingly distant. The oarsmen were pushed back by the wind and lost two strokes of progress for every three they made. Thorgil clung grimly to her rudder. The sea attempted to snatch it out of her control, but she ground her teeth and fought back.

“May angels carry you to your daughter’s side,” whispered the monk as he toiled. “May your time in purgatory be short.”

He was praying for the poor, murdered woman. Tears rolled down Jack’s face, mixed with rain. He didn’t even know her name, and already her face was blurred in his memory. May the life force hold you in the hollow of its hand, Jack thought, repeating words he had learned from the Bard. May you return with the sun and be born anew into the world.

It wasn’t a prayer Father would have liked. He would have knocked Jack six ways to Sunday for saying it. But Jack thought it right and sensible to call on two religions, in case one failed.

Lucy was packed between rolls of fur and cloth. Jack could hear her crying over the storm, which was so intense now, he couldn’t see the stern of the boat. He tried not to think about the poor, dead woman. His duty was to see that Lucy didn’t suffer the same fate—if they didn’t both drown, that is. Jack no longer felt the sharp terror that had been with him in the first days of their captivity. The best he could manage was a dull, oxlike misery.

Olaf moved down the ship, handing out coins to the men.

“Now we’re in real trouble,” grunted the monk.

“Is he paying them?” said Jack, who was so exhausted, he no longer felt pain.

“He’s giving them gold so they won’t show up empty-handed in the halls of their sea god. Satan will take that gold off them and kick them straight down to Hell.” The monk smiled cheerlessly.

Even a little hellfire would be welcome now, Jack thought. The cold made him clumsy, and the bailing bucket kept slipping out of hands. He was so tired, he saw spots before his eyes. He was terrified of fainting. Fainting meant death.

“Land fyrir stafni!” someone shouted. A gap in the driving rain showed they were, in fact, quite close to shore. A moment later Jack felt sand under the keel. The oarsmen jumped out and wrestled the boat through the waves to safety.

They lay like so many drowned rats on the shore. No one, not even the berserkers, had the strength to move. They had dragged the boat as far from the waves as possible and then collapsed. Jack managed to reach Lucy and held her in his arms. The sea boomed, the wind howled, and rain poured endlessly. In the boat were oilskins to erect as shelters, but no one made a move to unpack them.

Presently, darkness fell. Sunset had not been far off when they came to shore. Jack felt Lucy shudder and tried to dig a hole for her in the sand. At least that would give her some protection from the growing cold. He sat up. A few warriors—Olaf among them—had recovered enough to rise. They bellowed orders, following them with kicks. Slowly, painfully, the captives struggled to their feet. Those who could not were dragged roughly to a field above the tide line.

By now darkness was almost complete. Jack felt a rope being tied around his ankles. He was hobbled to the others, but fortunately, Lucy was not taken from him. He held her close again and, to his relief, felt an oilskin settle over them. The berserkers were not going to lose their cargo to illness.

“There, there,” murmured Jack as Lucy continued to shake. His throat felt ragged from shouting over the storm earlier.

“Why won’t they take me to my castle?” she said between chattering teeth.

Jack was astounded. Surely she didn’t believe that anymore. He paused, uncertain how to answer.

Lucy began to cry. “I keep telling them again and again. They don’t listen.”

“Dearling, they aren’t knights.”