The dwellers had their pleasures too. In between the bouts of heavy toil, and in snatches throughout those whiles, free time was not scant. Seldom did it go in dumb idleness. Tales, riddles, verses, songs, ring dances, races, wrestling and other matches, ball games, draught games, or getting drunk filled it well. A man might carve twining vines on a clothes chest, or he might go fishing. Lads and lasses wandered off by twos, to come back flushed and bright-eyed. When Gudorm’s fellows called on him, or he on them, trenchers were heaped, ale flowed, and the merriment could last for days. When merchants pitched their booths at the fjord some miles off, men were wont to bring their women along to the fair. And then there were all the small, quiet joys that one took for given. Denmark under Hadding was happy.

Ulfhild was not.

She had borne herself well at the wedding. As mistress of Keldorgard she was stern with underlings but did not shout or strike at them. However, they learned to beg forgiveness and jump to her bidding when her voice turned cold. Among the neighbors she was ladylike, often winsome. They told Gudorm she was as fair to behold as she was highborn. She quickly found how to gladden him in bed. At first he reckoned himself a lucky man.

Thus it hurt him sorely when, month by month, she withdrew. Less and less did she talk to him about anything but the business of the household. More and more seldom did she give him back his kisses. When they had their first child, a healthy boy, she stood by at the namegiving, but never did she smile.

He let his pain come forth at last, in the close darkness of the shutbed, as she lay unstirring at his side. “Has the blood frozen in you? Are you sick?”

“Sick in my heart,” she answered.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“That a king’s daughter is bound to a farmer.”

“What? You knew what I was, you know what I am—a great landholder, formerly a guardsman of the king and now his reeve in this shire.”

“Bathe as often as you will, I always smell what you are.”

She gave him a few more bitter words and ended, “So shall our son be, and every child I bear you.”

He shuddered. “I could hit you for that,” he said raggedly.

“Do, and I leave you. You know the law. Nor will my father any longer be your friend. I’ll see to that.”

Gudorm’s anger broke. “We, we were blithe together in his hall,” he stammered. “We sat in the same seat, we drank from the same beaker, you were with me more than with any other young man. How have you come to hate me?”