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Matilda stares. She shakes her head. “I can't even swim.”

“You'll learn that, too.”

“I can teach you that,” says Thyra.

“What about food?” asks Matilda. “We have to eat; we're not like the god Óðinn.”

“Ah!” Grima, the slave of Queen Tove, slaps her hand to her chest in sudden realization. “The boat is well stocked for at least ten days.”

“How do you know this?” It is the king's slave Osk.

“I just know.” She looks down. “Believe me.”

“And the king knows nothing about this?” asks Osk.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Just how did you get a boat?”

I look from face to face. “You don't need to know that. None of you. And it's better if you don't.”

“Better for you?”

“Just better,” I say.

“And what's supposed to happen to us once you do find your sister?”

“That's up to you. You will be free women. You will decide.”

“Free women.” Osk shakes her head. She stands. She looks hard at Grima. She has clearly figured out that the queen had Grima stock the boat with food. She sees it all as treachery. My heart beats erratically. It was a mistake to invite all the women household slaves and servants. Of course some of them would be loyal. Of course. I stuff the back of my hand in my mouth. What an idiot I am. What will happen to Queen Tove now?

Osk looks at me at last. “What do we need to bring?”

I fall forward on hands and knees in grateful relief. “A cloak for sleeping under. It gets cold at night on water. An extra shift if you have one. A pouch. And whatever else you want. An ax if you can get your hands on one. A dirk. But don't invite suspicion. Don't carry anything you can't account for should someone ask.”

“If we had men with us, they could bring axes and no one would question them,” says Ragnhild. “I know one who speaks Russian. That would help if we're going after a Russian slave dealer. That would help us, Alfhild.”

“I can speak with Russians,” says Osk.

Ragnhild's face crumples.

“Ragnhild.” I put my arm around her. “When we are finished, you'll have money enough to buy a slave. Whatever slave you want. We can send someone to buy him for you, and then the two of you can go wherever you want together. We can't risk the lives of all of us because of any one person's needs.”

Ragnhild wipes tears away. “I know. I was just being stupid. But I know.”

“Hurry, everyone. Tell no one. Meet me by the fjord bank where they slaughtered the whales. If you don't show up, we'll leave without you. We have to put as much distance as possible between us and town by the end of the evening's feast. We cannot wait.”

“With luck,” says Jofrid, “they will all fall into drunken stupors till morning, and then wake with pounding heads and be unaware of our absence till midday.”

“I've never counted on luck in my life,” says Ingun. “Don't make me start now. Race, everyone. Race.”

Over the past seven nights and days, the landscape has changed from flat grasslands to hills to more meadows and now to low rolling hills. We have sailed under full wind. If any among us has misgivings, we don't voice them. Maybe we're simply too busy for misgivings—learning the new tasks of sailing, staying alert to both land and sea, surviving.

We turned out to be only nine in the end: Ragnhild and Thyra, Unn, Ingun, Grima, Jofrid, Matilda, Osk, and me. All of them were part of the king and queen's household except Jofrid. The four women who said nothing at our meeting never appeared at the fjord bank. None was part of the royal household, so there's no reason for anyone to suspect they might have information about us. If they simply continued to say nothing, no one in Heiðabý would know anything about us beyond the fact that a boat went missing.

But even if those women did talk, it's clear the kings' men must have gone looking in the wrong places. Perhaps they followed the coast to the north, or went to nearby islands,
or crossed the sea to Skáney. We, instead, went south and then east—east and east and east. That's the direction the Russians come from, after all. We hug the shoreline, attentive to small settlements. They hold nothing for us—no one in a small settlement could afford a slave, at least not a beautiful, full-grown slave woman as Mel was seven years ago. But once we get to a big town, we'll stop and look around. I'll knock on every door and look in the face of every slave woman if I have to. I'll find my sister.

We anchor only in isolated bays with no signs of people. We swim there, which turns out to be decent bathing, since the water of this sea is barely salty. If there's a creek that empties into the bay, we fill up on fresh water. We always fish when we stop. And for the past two days we have relaxed enough for me to go off hunting with Grima, who is new to bow and arrow. We brought back hares to roast on sticks over open fires.

We never anchor for long. The wind is our friend, but I know what a fickle friend she can be. So we make use of her day and night. There has been a growing moon, and that helps us steer safely at night—or as safely as anyone can at night.

Four ships have passed us, all in daylight. But all were going the opposite direction, and all traveled farther from
shore than we did. Still, each time we passed one, we then headed straight north—out to sea—and once we were far out there, we took down our sails and drifted for a while, hoping to be less than a speck on the horizon should the ship have decided to come back and take a second look at a boat full of women.

At night, though, no one passes us. The wisdom is that it's foolhardy to sail close to shore at night unless you know every outcropping of boulders, every underwater reef. But we have to be foolhardy—it's that or increase the risk of being caught.

Ingun is at the helm tonight. The others lie on the open deck. An overlapping spread of cloaks covers them. They sleep hard and deep, the sleep of the exhausted.

I stand at the prow and look ahead. The wet air laps my face. The wood of the gunwale eases against me. Even the floor of the ship presses up at me. That's how I feel these days, as though the world touches me instead of me touching it. That's how I have felt since Alf slid into the tower room. He thunked on the floor. Every day that
thunk
assails my ears. The smell of his sweat invades my nostrils. The bulk of him clouds my eyes.

I rub my eyes now, to rid it of that bulk. No use: There is still something big ahead—bigger than a rock, given the distance it's at. I strain forward. It's a dwelling. And then
another. There are many along the coast ahead. Many! Finally.

“Osk! Unn!” I wake them with a hand on their shoulders. “Lower the sail.”

Ingun has already pulled up the rudder and is waking the others.

We peer through the dark. “There's a city ahead,” I say. “It has to be Trusø, no?”

“It couldn't be anything else.” Osk cups her neck with both hands and rubs. “I knew we were close. It's the biggest city along this shore. The huge river Vistula runs through Vendland and empties into a large lake called Estmere. From the east comes the river Elbing; it flows into Estmere too. The city is on the bank. Traders bring amber from the Baltic Sea and travel the Vistula to the south.”

“Traders bring slaves, too,” I say. “Right?” But I know it's right. I've listened carefully in the Heiðabý slave market. I know it. Still, she has to confirm it. “Right?”

“Yes.” Osk hugs herself now. “I was captured somewhere along the Vistula. I was brought north. We passed a few days in Trusø. I was ten years old.”

Ten. That's two years older than I was when the slave dealers stole me. I touch Osk's shoulder and speak firmly. “We passed a small creek a little while ago. Let's turn back and anchor there. Out of sight from the sea. We can sleep
the rest of the night, and then tomorrow we can go into town by foot.”

Thyra squeezes my forearm. “If anyone's still following us, that will give them a chance to catch up.”

“They're not following us,” I say with conviction.

“How do you know?”

“Tonight, as you slept, Ingun was at the helm. The king would be astonished to see that. Osk and Unn just lowered the sail, fast and efficient as men. The king would never recognize them doing that. All of you can take to the oars and row like mad. No one back in Heiðabý would believe we could do that. No one knows any of us have knowledge of sailing. They probably figure we have foundered and rest on the bottom of the sea by now.” I touch her hand. “I don't think they're following us.”

Grima pokes her face in mine. “But if they are?”

“Does anyone have a better idea?”

“I do.” Ingun leans forward. “Let's sail past the harbor to the next creek on the east side of the city. If anyone's following our ship—anyone from Heiðabý—they will surely stop at Trusø. This way there's no chance they'll see our boat. And if we go carefully, very, very carefully, tomorrow, when we approach the city, we'll see them before they see us.”

We don't even discuss it. We simply raise the sail, and
soon we are past the town and sliding into a small bay surrounded by forest. It's ideal. No one could see us from the water unless they fully entered the bay. We anchor near a stretch of beach in water shallow enough that we'll be able to jump overboard when we want and wade to shore easily. Everyone settles down to sleep again.

“Leave the guarding to me tonight, Alfhild,” says Matilda. She stands and goes to her personal chest to sit. From there she can swivel to get a view in every direction. “I don't want to go into town tomorrow anyway. I'm afraid of these Slavs. In the morning, I'll go on land and crawl under a bush and sleep the day away.”

I hesitate. Then, “Thank you.” And I'm dead asleep in an instant.

In the morning Matilda finds a thick bush, and Ingun stays with her. After all, someone needs to guard her as she sleeps. They are Norse—servants, not slaves—perhaps this has made a special bond, for they are close friends. Nevertheless, it makes me nervous to leave Ingun behind. Ingun is smart. We'd be safer if she came with us.

We walk in two groups. The lead group has four—Ragnhild, Unn, Jofrid, and me. The other group—Thyra, Osk, and Grima—follows close enough to come at a call for help but far enough to escape if something horrible happens to the first group. Since Ragnhild and Thyra are
clearly Norse, if need be they can behave as though the others in their group are their slaves. We have only two axes, one per group: Osk and Unn carry them. We have two bows, one per group: Grima and I carry them. All have dirks we can pull out quickly.

It feels strange to walk as groups on land after all those days at sea. Slow and clumsy. As though we're sick. We head inland, with the plan of turning west and following the river into town, so that no one will know we came by boat. It just seems sensible. Or it did when we first decided it. Now, as we walk, it seems stupid. If we didn't come by boat, how else could we have come?

I wish Ingun was with us.

We step around broken branches on the ground and I think of Hakon, obliterating that bush with his wooden sword. I imagine him gripping a stick tight and marching with us. Búri, too. For an instant I can smile. My little brothers are with me in spirit. I pick up a stick and hand it to Ragnhild. I hand another to Jofrid.

After a long while, my group comes out of the forest onto a dirt road. We turn west along the road.

We come to a pile of clothes, men's clothes, in the center of the road. How odd.

“Let's take them,” says Ragnhild.

We look around. The second group emerges from
the woods way back along the road. We wave to them to retreat into the woods again. Then we snatch the heap of clothes and run back among the trees. We race, hidden by foliage, until we find the other group.

“What are you doing?” says Thyra. “We're supposed to stay separate.”

“Look what we found.” Ragnhild dumps her load on the ground. We all do. “Men's clothes. We can put them on and pretend we're men.”

I think of my Ástríd—how she wore men's clothes and pretended to be Randolf and it worked—it actually worked with people she was living with day after day. I think of Mel and me, dressed as peasant boys on the Russian slave ship.

“What do you mean, found them?” asks Grima. “We're not thieves.”

“They were sitting in a pile in the road.”

Grima's eyes are troubled. “That doesn't sound right. Why would anyone leave clothes in the road?”

“You're right.” Jofrid looks at Ragnhild and Unn and me. “We have to return them.”

Osk hits her forehead with her palm. “Hide!” She lies flat in the undergrowth. “Fast. I don't know how much time we have. Lie down. Keep your eyes on the road.”