Ivar frowned. He was a lean, sharp-faced man with brown hair and beard turning gray. His sea-worn wadmal and leather were offset by a gold chain about his neck, from which hung a small silver hammer “Not well, lord,” he answered. “Woe is upon us. The shame to come will be worse”

Hadding straightened. “Say on!”

Ivar had foreseen he must, and readied his words beforehand. “You may know that a jotun hight Jarnskegg has long dwelt in the wild uplands of the Dofra Fell. That’s three or more days’ stiff trek from the great fiord. Hardly anyone lives around there, and they lowly folk with naught worth reaving. So we formerly had little or no trouble with him. He was hardly ever even seen, striding along a ridge against the sky or in the pine gloom of some deep dale.”

Hadding nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard tell of such a one” He did not add that that had been at his fosterers’. Vagnhöfdi had never met Jarnskegg, only gotten word of him. Those few giants who abode in Midgard wanted aloneness.

“But I don’t suppose you know about King Haakon’s daughter, Ragnhild,” Ivar said. “She’s a young woman now, very fair to behold, but on the reckless and stubborn side. Always she loved the mountains and sought to them. Her father let her. She’s his only living girl-child and he cannot easily say her nay. Of course, he sent guardsmen along, as well as her serving maids.

“Last year, up in those wilds, it befell that Jarnskegg came upon her. She stiffened with horror at the sight of him, but he was smitten with her, it seems, unless this was a whim of his. I should think he might well go a bit mad after so many human lifetimes by himself. Be that as it may, he bawled at her to come with him. Her following drew close around her, weapons aloft. Maybe they were too many for him, maybe not. He’s not in any way a warlock, as I’ve heard some giants are. What he growled was that he didn’t want a fight in which she might be hurt, but that she would be hearing more from him. Then he stalked wrathfully off toward the heights.

“A while after this he found a cowherd grazing his kine. He told the man to bear word to the king for him. If not, he would kill the beasts and burn the little homestead. Of course the man obeyed. For token he brought a wisent’s skull, roughly set with quartz rocks in the eye sockets, which Jarnskegg gave him to give Haakon. The word was that the giant wanted Ragnhild. If he got her, he would fight for the king whenever need arose.”

“That in itself shows he’s not quite right in the head,” murmured Hadding, remembering Vagnhöfdi.