Of everything Brynja, jarl of the raiding fleet, hauled up out of that winter voyage, I was the last item. My place was set not between the silver cups and the furs, but at her feet. That the place is at once the lowest and the safest on this ship, the oarsmen worked out before I did.
In a fjord locked in ice, it is the drinking horn and not the axe that prices a man first. Brynja, the shieldmaiden jarl who leads the raiding fleet, brought Eilif aboard as the last spoil of the winter voyage and made her own feet his place. Eilif has an eye that sees worth, in goods, in bargains, in people, so he reads what keeps this fleet moving and who intends to sell whom before anyone else does. Looking up from the floor at her feet is the lowest seat aboard and, at the same time, the safest, and the ones who notice that begin to talk behind their hands. When the ice cracks in spring, the owners of the spoils are decided all over again. For the winter left until that day, the wager of this story is which breaks first, the one who sets the price or the one who is priced.
- In front of the fleet Brynja counts a dead oarsman's share as so many silver rings and not one more. That night, alone at the prow, she says his name aloud again and again, like a count she cannot make come out even.
- One glance at the salt-trade tally the second in command holds out is enough for you to put a finger on the forged weight mark, and for the first time Brynja listens to the man at her feet before she listens to her own right hand.
- Another jarl names a price at the winter feast and reaches out, and Brynja sets her horn down hard and says flatly that this one is not for sale, and then has to explain that sentence to her own people.
In front of the fleet Brynja counts a dead oarsman's share as so many silver rings and not one more. That night, alone at the prow, she says his name aloud again and again, like a count she cannot make come out even.
