Rigging thrummed, timbers creaked, wind shrilled, billows crashed. Again and again Firedrake lay nearly on her beam ends. Again and again spray burst white and bitter at the prow. Her hull swayed, swung, bounded, athrob with the surges she rode and clove. The yard rattled, the sail slatted each time she came about. Yet never a wave did she take. Hadding used the sea as he used the wind.

No steersman among the foe could point that close. Twice, those who tried almost swamped their vessels, which then rolled sluggishly till the crews got them bailed out. Once the Danes were past the spot where the strangers had aimed to meet them, they drew ever farther away. They whooped for glee.

Hadding sailed thus until well after the foe had dropped from sight. He said he wanted to make sure of not being overtaken, should the wind fail. Ragnhild smiled. “I think you’re having too much fun to stop,” she told him. Something flickered across her face. She looked elsewhere. “Yes,” she whispered, “there’s more joy for you in this than I can give you, or any woman.”

Still, she went gladly with him into his home and set about making it hers.

A while afterward she was brought to bed. As wont was, nobody stayed with her in the women’s bower but the midwife. Hadding feasted in the hall with his housecarles and guests. Noise, fire, and merriment helped frighten evil beings off.

The midwife came in at last. “It went hard, lord,” she told him. “The queen is slim in the hips. But she rests now. Behold your son.”

She stooped down, unrolled the blanket in which she had swaddled the bairn, and laid him on it at the king’s feet. Hadding waved other men back and looked close. Small, red, the newborn kicked and cried lustily. The father took him up onto his knees. So did he acknowledge that the child was sound and would be kept alive. Cheers thundered.

The midwife returned the bairn to his mother. Hadding followed. Ragnhild lay white and haggard, but she cast him a fighter’s grin. “You did well,” he said.

Back in the hall, he told them there that the queen was wearied and had lost much blood, but ought to regain strength in time. Now let them be as happy as he was.

“I will,” murmured Gyda. “For this little time! have you.”

Great was the naming feast a few days later. Hadding poured water on the babe’s head and dubbed him Frodi. That surprised some. He had already honored his forebears by naming his offspring by other women for them, but men had not thought he would call his queen-born son “wise.” When Eirik Jarl asked why, the father smiled. “I’m doing what I can to help him grow up wise,” he said. “The warlikeness he can make for himself.”