When Hild stops jigging from foot to foot beside her, Astrid frowns. The girl is almost never still: even asleep she twitches and kicks like a dreaming hound. But as the keepers lead the unbonded dragons into the arena, Hild stands quietly, her freckled face as pale as her new kirtle. Astrid puts an arm around her shoulders. "Ready?" she asks.

Hild takes a deep breath, then pokes her chin out. "Born ready!"

They step forward together; nostrils flared, the dragons observe them curiously. "That's her," Hild whispers, pointing.

Grasping her daughter's hand, Astrid guides it to the Nadder's snout.

Author's Note: "The linen-oak" is another kenning from a lausavísa of Harald Hardrada, this one evidently composed while he was out raiding in 1048. It's the traditional steadfastness of oak that drew me to this image for a mature Astrid.

My thanks to the Skaldic Project Academic Body, without whose website Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages this sequence would have been much more difficult to compose.