“Yes I would.” Her response was instantaneous.

His reply was more measured. “No. You wouldn’t. Unless you’d like my belt across your backside as well?”

“No.” Her reply was so stiff that I immediately perceived his threat was not an idle one.

“No.” He made the word an agreement. “And I would not relish doing it. But you are my sister’s daughter, and I will not see the line of our mothers disgraced. Would you?”

“I don’t want to disgrace my mothers’ line.” The child held herself poker-straight as she declared this. But then her shoulders began to shake as she went on. “But I don’t want to marry that prince. His mother looks like a snow harpy. He’ll make me fat with babies, and they’ll all be pale and cold as ice wraiths. Please, Peottre, take me home. I don’t want to have to live in this great cold cave. I don’t want that boy to do the thing to me that makes babies. I just want our mothers’ low house, and to ride my pony out in the wind. And I want my own boat to scull across Sendalfjord, and my own skates of gear to set for fish. And when I am grown, my own bench in the mothers’ house, and a man who knows that it is right to dwell in the house of his wife’s mothers. All I want is what any other girl my age wants. That prince will tear me away from my mothers’ line like a branch is torn from a vine, and I will grow brittle and dry here until I snap into tiny pieces!”

“Elliania, Elliania, dear heart, don’t!” The man came to his feet with the fluid grace of a warrior, yet his body was stocky and thick, a typical Outislander. He caught the child up and she buried her face in his shoulder. Sobs shook her, and tears stood in the warrior’s eyes as he held her. “Hush, now. Hush. If we are clever, if you are strong and swift and dance like the swallows above the water, it will never come to that. Never. Tonight is but a betrothal, little shining one, not a wedding. Do you think Peottre would abandon you here? Foolish little fish! No one is going to make a baby with you tonight, or any other night, not for years yet! And even then, it will happen only if you want it to. That I promise you. Do you think I would shame our mothers’ line by letting it be otherwise? This is but a dance we do. Nevertheless, we must tread it perfectly.” He set her back on her little bare feet. He tilted her chin up so she must look at him, and wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of one scarred hand. “There, now. There. Smile for me. And remember. The first dance you must give to the pretty prince. But the second one is for Peottre. So, show me now, how we will dance together, this silly farmer’s prancing.”

He began a tuneless humming that set a beat, and she gave her small hands into his. Together they stepped out a measure, she moving like thistledown and he like a swordsman. I watched them dance, the girl’s eyes focused up at the man’s, and the man staring off over her head into a distance only he could see.

A knock at the door halted their dance. “Enter,” Peottre called, and a serving woman came in with a dress draped over her arm. Abruptly, Peottre and Elliania stepped apart and became still. They could not have been more wary if a serpent had slithered into the room. Yet the woman was garbed as an Outislander, one of their own.

Her manner was odd. She made no curtsy. She held the dress up for their inspection, giving it a shake to loosen the folds of the fabric. “The Narcheska will wear this tonight.”

Peottre ran his eyes over it. I had never seen anything like it. It was a woman’s dress, cut for a child. The fabric was a pale blue, swooping low at the neckline. A gush of lace on the front along with some clever gathers drew up the fabric. It would help the Narcheska pretend a bosom she did not yet possess. Elliania reddened as she stared at it. Peottre was more direct. He stepped between Elliania and the dress as if he would protect her from it. “No. She will not.”

“Yes. She will. The Lady prefers it. The young Prince will find it most attractive.” She offered, not an opinion, but a directive.

“No. She will not. It is a mockery of who she is. That is not the garb of a God’s Runes narcheska. For her to wear that is an insult to our mothers’ house.” With a sudden step and a slash of his hand, Peottre knocked the dress from her hands to the floor.

I expected the servant woman to cower back from him or beg his pardon. Instead she just gave him a flat-eyed stare. She spoke after a brief pause. “The Lady says, ‘It has nothing to do with the God’s Runes. This is a dress that Six Duchies men will understand. She will wear it.’ ” She paused as if thinking, then added, “For her not to wear it would present a danger to your mothers’ house.” As if Peottre’s action had been no more than a child’s willful display, she stooped and lifted the dress again.