Not firm, not fixed in sight, but fleeting hastily.

I broaden the embrace I brought so close before.

My girlish arms reach outward, but inward draw when huge.

My being twines between the twain of great and small.

To meet the strong I stand in stalwart mightiness,

But slight I am and slender when sleeping with a man.

As he gasped, she blurred to his sight. For a score of heartbeats he saw smokiness spinning and heard it whistle, like a whirlwind. Then Hardgreip stood again before him, tangle-haired, hard-breathing, but a woman, half a head less in height than he was. She laughed afresh, her voice now not deep but only low and husky. She pulled off her gown and spread her arms wide. Sweat gleamed on her breasts and belly. The smell of it overwhelmed him. He came to her and they enfolded one another. Her lips and tongue thrust at his. Her hands groped at his clothes. He scrambled out of them. She pulled him to the ground and bestrode him.

VII

Yet after a sennight Hadding said that now he would go. “From us, who raised you to manhood?” Vagnhöfdi asked.

“From me, who made a man of you?” Hardgreip laid to that.

Hadding’s back stiffened. “I would be less than a man did I abide when my father and brother lie unavenged and he who slew them sits in the high seat of the Skjoldungs.”

“My hope for aught else was faint,” Vagnhöfdi said, “and I cannot foretell what will come of it, but this I know, that something beyond the world of men is at work here.”

Nor was Hardgreip truly surprised. She and Hadding had talked in between tumblings. “You shall not go slime,” she told him.

Vagnhöfdi looked at her. The blood beat high in her face. “This is not unawaited either,” he said, “but for you, such a trek can have no good ending.”

“Would you rather I stayed behind?” she answered shamelessly. “My longing would set the woodland afire.”

Hadding reddened too and his eyes flickered elsewhere, but he said nothing against it. He could use such a waymate, both for pleasure and for the jotun might she could wield at need.

“Then this evening we will drink farewell,” Vagnhöfdi said, while Haflidi wept like a melting glacier. Hardgreip frowned at her mother and thereafter gave all her heed to her lover. As the mead cups passed around, they two became the merry ones.