Norseman Raider (The Norseman Chronicles Book 4) by Jason Born

a bad color, but it wasn’t radiant.  The drabness could have been due to the fact that Aoife’s last bath may have been a year earlier.  She scratched at lice in the barley chaff on her head.
    Leif shrugged .  “I already told you that you need someone to take care of you.”  He patted Aoife on the shoulder before shuffling past me.  “As for ‘why her,’ I think you’ll see.  Don’t be too long getting acquainted with the girl.”  He grabbed Magnus by the arm and dragged the helmsman with him.  The two young men giggled like children half their age.  “Godfrey will be down shortly and then we run off for our first true command and adventure.”
    “Your command,” I mumbled.  “I command nothing , not even my own life.”  I wasn’t really angry about my lack of command, but I felt like being upset about something.  I peered down at the young nymph-like thrall.  I could hardly take care of myself and now I had to provide food, shelter, and clothing for a little girl – all with a few pennies.  Oh, that frozen bitch, Hel, and the norns were having a time that day!
    I heard a ruckus from up the hill toward the village, looked up, and saw that Godfrey was coming down to the dock.  Loki was next to him and carried a hudfat that was stuffed with the king’s armor and extra weapons.  Gudruna walked on the other side of the king, her arm locked in his.  The two , husband and wife, chatted easily.  The way her eyes looked up to his told me she loved or at least respected the man.
    The pair of royal lovers ignored Horse Ketil who ambled confidently after them swilling the day’s mead.  It was as if he held court of what he thought were his Manx citizens.  Men clapped his back, wishing him good fortune on his adventure.  One woman gave him a kiss on his cheek.  Only Ketil’s wife, Edana, was absent.  With all the fanfare the Manx noble garnered, I saw that Godfrey was truly only a sometimes-king.
    “Ahem,” came a high-pitched , though soft voice from below.  Aoife frowned while tugging on my jerkin.  By the time I looked down, the girl held her arms crossed in front of her chest.  I think her foot tapped.  She had to be a relatively recently made slave, I thought, in order to show her new master such insubordination.
    “Now you listen to me,” I started with a wagging finger.
    Aoife snatched the finger in her dirty hand and held it tightly.  “You listen to me,” she began in passable Norse with an accent that sounded a bit like Killian’s.  “Out of twelve children, I’m the twelfth.  My father’s a man who, other than managing to keep himself alive for too many years and broadcasting his seed into my mother’s seed bed with amazing proficiency, has accomplished something less than little.  My mother, tired and worn, is much the same.  When I was young . . .”
    “Young?” I asked the six year old.
    “Young.  Now don’t interrupt because I’ll say this just once.  When I was young I remember walking along the shore line to the great sea that stretches out forever into the setting sun.  My mother was with me and had just finished telling me for the fifth time that day that she and my father could hardly figure out how to feed themselves in their old age, let alone feed me.  I remember looking down in the basket that I carried and seeing how it was filled with whorled periwinkle for that night’s soup.  To me it seemed like enough food for a king.  Then my mother gasped.”
    “Because of a basket of sea snails?”
    “No, because that very boat right there was sailing up to the coast.”  Aoife pointed to Raven’s Cross .  “The old woman nearly died from fright on the spot.  I asked her, what was the matter, and she said that the men on that boat were pirates and would kill us all and take what they would.  My mother hiked up her skirts and ran home to warn the rest of the brood.”
    “And you didn’t,” I surmised.
    “Of course I didn’t!” she