“It is the unfortunate folly of men that you believe women can be controlled the same as any other resource.” She sighed, pressing her thumbs into the crease of a plum. Its skin gave way beneath her fingers. For a moment, the longhouse was silent save the sound of the meat peeling away from the pit, a ripping cra-ack.

Queen Fredegund’s envoy did not flinch. Aslaug watched him from beneath her pale eyelashes.

“God saw fit to give us dominion over women,” he began. But whatever he intended to waste his next breath on was interrupted.

“God?” She scoffed.

Somewhere in the gloom, a shieldmaiden laughed.

The envoy seemed to recognize his mistake too late. Perhaps it was his first venture into the land of the Danes.

“That is to say,”—he cleared his throat, brows rising momentarily in a betrayal of his building discomfort—“We are all of us part of his creation, and with that divine design comes…” His voice trailed away. She watched him tilt his head as he searched for the proper words. It would be a wonderful opportunity to interrupt him, but she had long since learned that, sometimes, it was more interesting to hand a doomed man a length of rope just to see what he did with it.

“A natural order,” he finished, a smug undertone in his voice.

“You are correct in that,” Aslaug conceded, leaning back against the high, carved back of the throne of Uppsala. “There is a natural order to things.”

“Yes,”—he was bolstered by her acquiescence—“God, man, woman, beast.”

Agnar, standing at his step-mother’s side, shot her a look of exasperation. He was ready for her games to end. For mercy. Not for the envoy, but for himself. He was growing bored of the Frank’s prattling. His language was grating to the ears.

Aslaug pushed herself up to her feet, free hand resting against the swell of her belly. Her fourth son rode low. She imagined he would be larger than his brothers.

“So you agree,” she hummed, stepping down off the dais to meet the envoy where he stood. Agnar and the rest of her guard followed in her wake, faithful like her own shadow. “Women are holy?”

A well-worn crease formed between the man’s eyebrows. It was clear that he did not agree with her conclusion, nor could he follow the path she had taken to reach it. He watched her carefully, seeking some semblance of clarity in her expression.

She afforded him none.

Eventually, reluctantly—

“Yes.” His spine straightened as she came to a stop in front of him. “As are all of God’s creations.”

“Walk with me, Wulmar.”

She watched the color drain out of his face as she waited for him to take her outstretched hand.

He had never given his name, only introduced himself as a messenger of Queen Fredegund of Neustria. Perhaps she had sent them a fool on purpose? Was it an insult, or a dismissal?

Wulmar was silent as he took her arm. His hand was steady against her sleeve.

For now.

“Women are not holy in the way that rivers or fields of grain are holy,” she began, leading the way down the length of the longhouse. Bright midday sun slipped through the edges of the double door ahead, framing it with a thin, pallid glow. “We are holy like lightning.” She gave his forearm a pat, just as she would when imparting some sliver of wisdom onto one of her young sons. If Wulmar realized he was being condescended to, he made no indication of it. “Like the sea.”

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As they drew closer to the exit, so, too, did they grow closer to the muffled rumble of voices outside. Wulmar’s arm stiffened beneath her grasp. She pretended not to notice.

Instead, she gestured with her plum-laden hand, as if illustrating the possibilities of the proverbial sea that lay before him.

“We may permit you to cross over our surface. You may even believe you have mastered us because we allow you safe navigation of our waters.”

The guards posted at the entrance, swathed in Yngling blue, pushed open the double doors.

Cold silver sunlight spilled across them into the mouth of the longhouse. Wulmar shielded his eyes. Aslaug looked high into the overcast sky to speed the widening of her pupils. The air smelled of ozone and salt. Wind kicked across the yard, whipping the raven banners into a frenzy.

“But there will always come a storm,” she offered, calmly.

Wulmar was already struggling against her grasp. She released him to keep herself from dropping her plum.

He recoiled back, only to meet the wall of Agnar behind him. The envoy barely managed to steady himself before he lost his footing completely. Aslaug ignored him, returning her gaze to the wide yard that stretched out beneath the longhouse.

A crowd had formed along the periphery, watching as warriors in Yngling blue tied bloody sacks to the saddles of five freshly dressed horses.

One sack to each side, for balance. Ten in total.

Wulmar had been delivered to Uppsala by a troop of ten Frankish soldiers.

He was beginning to make unsightly noises. Whatever eloquence he had been valued for had fled him.

Agnar shoved him down the stairs into the mud.

Somewhere in the crowd, a voice rang out.

Kráka asueltir!

It didn’t take long for the chant to catch. Hers were a musical people.

Agnar offered her his hand to guide her down the stairs. She accepted it, lamenting the way her son made her back ache.

Wulmar had not found his feet, but he had managed to turn himself over, propping himself up in the mud on the heels of his hands. His chest was heaving with terror. The whites of his eyes flashed as he split his attention between the crowd and the gore-covered sacks.

Kráka asueltir!

Kráka asueltir!

Aslaug came to a stop by Wulmar’s side, taking a bite of plum. The meat was tart on her tongue. She watched one of the men in the crowd throw a fist into the air.

“They are calling you a crow-starver,” she explained, voice calm.

She looked down at Queen Fredegund’s envoy at her feet. He met her gaze, eyes flooded with fear. Perhaps he knew enough of her people to understand. Their warriors were hrafngrenner, Raven-Feeders. They called their enemies kráka fóðr. Crow fodder.

“A coward.”

Whatever inclination he’d had toward begging died, visible in the way hope seeped out of the lay of his shoulders.

“Do you know what my name is, Wulmar?”

He stammered, lips forming around the ah. His queen knew her as Aslaug. It was the name her birth parents had given her, but not the one her people favored.

She stopped him.

“Kráka.”

Crow.

Her people would sooner see him killed for their entertainment than watch their queen show him leniency. She couldn’t blame them.

But she had a message to send.

“Take your queen’s men back to Francia,” she instructed, tossing the half-eaten plum into his lap. “And tell her: when I am done, she will beg for the mercy of my husband’s sword.”