Kushiel's Dart

warriors, and farmed by their carls, who I took to be a class of peasants or bondsmen. For this privilege, they supported the thanes and paid a tithe in herds and grains to Gunter. When Gunter and his thanes were not out raiding or hunting, they spent their time carousing in the hall, wagering on contests of strength and song.
    For all of this, Gunter was not a bad lord as such things are reckoned. The Skaldi have an elaborate system of law, and he heard complaints twice a week, deciding fairly and impartially as he could. When a decision went against one of his thanes and he was ordered to make reparation to one of his own carls for the unlawful stealing of a yearling bull-calf, he did it without grumbling.
    These things I observed over time; then, on that first day, I merely kept my eyes open and my mouth closed, trying to make sense of it all. Of Gunter himself, I saw nothing during the daylight hours. His thanes abounded in the hall, honing their weapons and working thick bear-grease into their leather footware, laughing and joking. They made comments aplenty, elbowing each other and eyeing me, but made no move to molest me, so I ignored it, silently thanking Elua that it seemed I was Gunter's property alone, and not to be held in common among his men.
    While the men idled and jested, the women worked tirelessly. There is a great deal to be done to keep the great hall in a steading functioning smoothly; tending the hearths, preparing food, cleaning up after drunken warriors, mending and spinning and sewing. There were housecarls who helped with the heavier work, but much of it the women did themselves. Hedwig ordered them about with a tone much accustomed to being obeyed, not shirking to labor herself. When I asked her what my duties were to be, she waved me away, saying it was for Gunter to say. I asked then if it was permitted for me to leave the hall, for I was concerned for Joscelin and wished to find him. She bit her lip and shook her head. Of her own accord, I think, she would have permitted it, but she dared not cross Gunter so far as that.
    So I was confined to the hall, and the attentions of Gunter's thanes.
    One of the youngest-Harald the Beardless, who had given me his cloak-was the most daring of them, and a skilled poet in the bargain. If my heart had been less like a stone in those days, I might have blushed at some of his verses, which gave an exceedingly detailed inventory of my charms.
    It was amid one of the latter that Gunter burst into the hall, attended by a couple of his men, shouting for mead. I don't know where he had been all day, but he was glowing with the cold, snow clinging to his cloak and leggings. When he unclasped his cloak and slung it aside, I saw Mel-isande's diamond about his neck and gasped aloud.
    It was an incongruous thing, that glistening teardrop lying in the hollow of his powerful throat. I hadn't even had the sense to wonder about its loss; it had been amid our baggage, it seemed, as untouchable to d'Aiglemort's men as Joscelin's Cassiline weapons had been. No small wonder, I thought. I would sooner steal from the Cassiline Prefect than Melisande Shahrizai. The sight of her diamond drew exclamations, and Gunter laughed, running one thick forefinger beneath the black cord.
    If I had thought about it, I would have welcomed its disappearance; but here it was now, again, dangling from the throat of my Skaldi master. I felt Melisande's presence in my life like a touch, and despaired.
    "D'Angeline!" Gunter shouted, catching sight of me sitting by the fire. I rose with an automatic curtsy, awaiting with bowed head as he strode across the hall. "I have a powerful hunger upon me!" Strong hands closed about my waist and he lifted me into the air, planting a loud kiss on my less-than-willing lips. Gunter roared with laughter, holding me suspended. "Look at this!" he shouted to his men. "These D'Angeline women weigh no more than my left thigh. Think you she knows what a real man is?"
    "Nor like to, at your hands," Hedwig retorted sharply, emerging from the kitchen with a ladle held in one hand like a sword. "Put the child down, Gunter Arnlaugson!"
    "I'll put her down, flat on her back!" he declared, setting me back on my feet with another resounding kiss. I had never known such a hairy man, and it was strange to be kissed by him. "There! What do you think of that, D'Angeline?"
    I had never hated any patron, having entered every contract freely, in homage to Naamah. I hated this