ta, sar,'n she'll want a sight a' feedin'." "She will, I'm sure. But she can cook it for herself. If she is to eat with us she must work with us, and it will be better if we make that clear from the start." "Fer ya, ter, sar. Be a honor fer me, sar." "If Hela can cook her own meat, so can I." I unslung my bow, sat down before the fire, and accepted a stick. "Cut me some of that pork, will you?" "Yessar. Ain't slept, has ya, sar?" "No, and I should. I will when I've eaten something." Yet when Uns, Berthold, and Gerda slept once more, and even Gylf slept, lying upon his side and snoring, and of all those with me only new-come Hela remained awake, squatting at the fire with a piece of pork twice the size of my fist on her stick, I sat up with her, questioning her now and again, and often falling silent to consider her replies. "I'm not a maid of my tongue," she said, "to prattle pretty words and please men's ears. If I were, I'd soon be snug in a house, with hags and slaves like this fresh father to wait on me, and an ox for supper when I wished it." She laughed, and I saw that her teeth were twice the size of mine. "But I'm as you see. As you hear, sir knight. What Frost Giant would be hot to take me to wife? They like their own, stealing into their beds from Jotunhome. Else southern maids of poppet size, with clever little hands and honeyed lips. 'Oh, oh, you are so great! Ravish me!' So I sought men my size in the Mountains of the Mice, and found them, too, served as maid serves man, and was paid in blows." "Did they drive you out?" I asked her. "Hunted me, rather. You noted my knife?" I nodded. "He did not." Hela laughed loud and deep. "In the south, they say, there are some called men who pale at sight of naked steel. Fops and fools! 'Tis not that knife that takes life." "How old are you, Hela?" "Sage enough to know a cat from a catamite. Are you troubled that I've come running to Mother, sir knight?" She took her meat off the stick, sampled it, wiped her mouth on her arm, and licked her fingers. "No. You were hungry. No doubt I'd do the same if I had a mother to run to." "We watch the War Way, Heimir and I." Hela returned her stick and the gobbet of meat it held again back to the fire. "Some give us something, sometimes." "You did not beg of me, when I came up it." "Didn't see you, sir. How many horses?" "Pack horses, you mean? I had none." "What would you have given us, sir knight?" She smiled; although it was not a pleasant smile, I sensed that it was as pleasant as she could make it. "Not even beggars work for nothing." "Nothing is what I would have given you. Would you have robbed me?" "A knight? With horse and sword?" She laughed again. "No, not I! Nor Heimir. Small stomach he'd have for such a fight! It's reavers returning we like best, sir knight, with sulking slaves tied tight as sausages, and heifers and horses to drive before them." Hela's voice rose to a whine. "Bless you, true Angrborn all! Blessed be Angr, true mother who bore you! Many a smile you'd have from your mother, for many a morsel you've won down the War Way. One morsel for me from you, great men? A bit for my brother? No more than you'd lose in a tooth, my masters." High already, her voice rose again. "Morsel for me! Bread for my brother! Charity for children's the kindness of heroes! So we bawl, and follow to steal if they let us." She shook her head. I said, "That's no life for a girl. Not even for one as big as you are, though there are hundreds of beggar maids in Kingsdoom from what I've been told. What are you going to do now, once you've eaten?" "Follow you, sir knight, as long as you'll feed Momma and me. Dig for my dinner, if it's digging you want." She shook her head again, more vehemently, and I turned mine to look behind me. Gylf woke with a low growl. "I can milk and butcher and churn," she said quickly, "and bear more than your mule. Try me. And ifyou've no wench with you? Don't you shiver, sleeping?" Thanks to Cloud, my inner eye
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