Rothgar surveyed the sprig of defiance with no more than a perfunctory interest. “It seems that you are the son of Frode the Dane,” he said in his heavy voice. “Frode was a mighty raven-feeder; for his sake I am going to support you until you can go well on your legs. Have you had anything to eat?”
As she shook her head, Randalin’s heart rather softened toward him. But it hardened again when the thralls had brought the food, and he had sat down and begun to share it. Seen in a strong light, his rich tunic proved to be foul with beer stains, while his great hands reeked with grease. His thick lips, his heavy breathing—bah, he was revolting! Before she had finished the meal, she had come to the conclusion that she hated him.
Perhaps it was as well that there was something to add firmness to her bearing. As he swallowed his last mouthful of food, Rothgar said abruptly, “Canute has put your training into my hands. It is his will that I find out how much skill you have with weapons.”
It was nothing more than she should have expected, yet it came upon her with the suddenness of a blow. She could only stammer, “Weapons?”
The Jotun’s voice rumbled hideously as he talked into his goblet. “Have you the accomplishment to wield a battle-axe or throw a spear? Can you shoot straight?”
He rolled his eyes around at her as he threw back his head to catch the last drop that clung to the golden rim. “Can you handle a sword?”
Randalin hesitated, uncertain how far her idle play at fencing with her brother would bear her out; she provided as many loop-holes as she could devise. “I think you will find my skill slight. I have—I have grown so fast that I lack strength in my arms. And I have not exercised myself as much as I should have done.”
“It is in my mind that you have been a lazy cub,” the warrior pronounced deliberate sentence, as he set down his goblet. “It is easily seen that Frode has been over-gentle with you. But you will pay now for your laziness, by receiving a cut each time I pass your guard. Stand forth, and show what your skill is worth. This sword will not be too heavy.” Selecting the smallest of the jewelled blades upon the floor, he thrust it into her hands.
It is good to have in one’s veins the liquid fire of the North, blood to which the presence of peril is like the touch of the Ice King to water. At the first clash of the blades, strange tingling fires began to flash through Randalin,—and then a hardness, that burnt while it froze. The first pass, her hands had parried seemingly by their own instinct; now she flung back her tumbling curls and proceeded to give those hands the aid of her eyes. They were marvellously quick eyes; for Fridtjof’s thrusts, consulting no rule but his own will, had required lightning to follow them and something like mind-reading to anticipate them. Three times her blade met Rothgar’s squarely, and deftly turned it aside. The big warrior gave a grunt of approval and tried a more complicated pass. Her backward leap, the sudden doubling of her body, and the excited clawing of her free hand, were not graceful swordsmanship, certainly, but her steel was in the right place. The next instant, she even drew a little clink from one of the Jotun’s silver buttons.