could barely hear the blond giant's bull tones:
"Ha, easy there, lad. Methinks the sea horse road is too rough for yer
feet."

"Ulp," said Cappen. His slim body huddled on the bench, too miserable to
care. The sleet pattered against his shoulders and the spray congealed
in his red hair.

Torbek of Norren squinted into the night. It made his leathery face a
mesh of wrinkles. "A bitter feast Yolner we hold," he said. "'Twas a
madness of the king's, that he would guest with his brother across the
water. Now the other ships are blown from us and the fire is drenched
out and we lie alone in the Wolf's Throat."

Wind piped shrill in the rigging. Cappen could just see the longboat's
single mast reeling against the sky. The ice on the shrouds made it a
pale pyramid. Ice everywhere, thick on the rails and benches, sheathing
the dragon head and the carved stern-post, the ship rolling and
staggering under the great march of waves, men bailing and bailing in
the half-frozen bilge to keep her afloat, and too much wind for sail or
oars. Yes--a cold feast!

"But then, Svearek has been strange since the troll took his daughter,
three years ago," went on Torbek. He shivered in a way the winter had
not caused. "Never does he smile, and his once open hand grasps tight
about the silver and his men have poor reward and no thanks. Yes,
strange--" His small frost-blue eyes shifted to Cappen Varra, and the
unspoken thought ran on beneath them: Strange, even, that he likes you,
the wandering bard from the south. Strange, that he will have you in his
hall when you cannot sing as his men would like.

Cappen did not care to defend himself. He had drifted up toward the
northern barbarians with the idea that they would well reward a minstrel
who could offer them something more than their own crude chants. It had
been a mistake; they didn't care for roundels or sestinas, they yawned
at the thought of roses white and red under the moon of Caronne, a moon
less fair than my lady's eyes. Nor did a man of Croy have the size and
strength to compel their respect; Cappen's light blade flickered swiftly
enough so that no one cared to fight him, but he lacked the power of
sheer bulk. Svearek alone had enjoyed hearing him sing, but he was
niggardly and his brawling thorp was an endless boredom to a man used to
the courts of southern princes.

If he had but had the manhood to leave-- But he had delayed, because of
a lusty peasant wench and a hope that Sv