She halted where she stood and said something quickly in her own language.

“Elliania, practice the farmers’ tongue. It goes with their dance,” he replied implacably.

“I don’t care to,” the girl announced petulantly. “Their flat language is as insipid as this dance.” She dropped her hold on her skirts, clasped her elbows, and folded her arms on her chest. “It’s stupid. All this stepping and twirling. It’s like pigeons bobbing their heads up and down and pecking each other before they mate.”

“Yes. It is,” he agreed affably. “And for exactly the same reason. Now do it. And do it perfectly. If you can remember the steps of a sword exercise, you can master this. Or would you have these haughty farmers think that the God’s Runes have sent them a clumsy little boat-slave to wed their pretty prince?”

She showed her very white teeth to him in a grimace. Then she snatched up her skirts, held them scandalously high to reveal that she was barefoot and bare-legged, and went through the steps in a frenzy. “Two-steps-to-the-side-and-one-step-back-and-spin -and-two-steps-to-the-side-and-one-step-back-and-spin-and-two-steps-to-the-side-” Her furious chant changed the graceful dance to a frantic cavorting. The man grinned at her prancing, but did not intervene. The God’s Runes, I thought to myself, and unearthed the familiar ring of the words. It was what the Outislanders called the scattered isles that made up their domain. And the single Outislander chart that I had ever seen did impart a runic rendering to each of the small pieces of land that broke their icy waters.

“Enough!” the warrior suddenly snorted.

The girl’s face was reddened with her efforts, her breath coming swift. But she did not stop until the man came suddenly to his feet and caught her up in an embrace. “Enough, Elliania. Enough. You have shown me that you can do it, and do it perfectly. Let it go for now. But tonight, you must be all grace and beauty and charm. Show yourself as the little spitfire that you are, and your pretty prince may decide to take a tamer bride. And you wouldn’t want that.” He set her down on her feet and resumed his chair.

“Yes I would.” Her response was instantaneous.

His reply was more measured. “No. You wouldn’t. Unless you’d like my belt across your backside as well?”

“No.” Her reply was so stiff that I immediately perceived his threat was not an idle one.

“No.” He made the word an agreement. “And I would not relish doing it. But you are my sister’s daughter, and I will not see the line of our mothers disgraced. Would you?”

“I don’t want to disgrace my mothers’ line.” The child held herself poker-straight as she declared this. But then her shoulders began to shake as she went on. “But I don’t want to marry that prince. His mother looks like a snow harpy. He’ll make me fat with babies, and they’ll all be pale and cold as ice wraiths. Please, Peottre, take me home. I don’t want to have to live in this great cold cave. I don’t want that boy to do the thing to me that makes babies. I just want our mothers’ low house, and to ride my pony out in the wind. And I want my own boat to scull across Sendalfjord, and my own skates of gear to set for fish. And when I am grown, my own bench in the mothers’ house, and a man who knows that it is right to dwell in the house of his wife’s mothers. All I want is what any other girl my age wants. That prince will tear me away from my mothers’ line like a branch is torn from a vine, and I will grow brittle and dry here until I snap into tiny pieces!”