The ship was pushed off the dock by the people on that side of the ship, which was crudely and haphazardly rowed out a few hundred meters. Hralding dropped anchor, and began to speak to the crew about the fine art of carving speed from the waves with these their wooden chisels; he explained that everyone needed to row in unison, totally synchronized and harmonious to each other. He began to teach them their first rowing song, which would help them keep the beat with each other as they sang it. The lyrics regarded a man who, knowing that his lord was wanted by the king for crimes unpunished, cut off his lord's head and delivered it to his king, and then had his own head cut off for treason against his leader. Both men's heads were hung beside each other from the same city gate. Some of the sailors knew the song already, and their eyes glazed over as the novices caught up to their expertise.

"It stops hurting after a week or two," Hrífa had said, though his own eyes had turned glassy long before these harangues began. He already knew how to sail, so he stared out disinterestedly over the vast, limitless horizon, wondering how far away was the edge of the world, and hoping perhaps to see a family of puffins darting around the rocks. Almost instinctively he rubbed his fingers together, and though he wore wool mittens, he knew his calluses had faded away long ago. He, too, would hurt. But it was a strangely soothing pain, a pain which spoke of the ship's progress. When a rower's hands seemed bitten by frost and friction, he knew he had worked hard that day. They were badges of honor, those patches of toughened skin.

Nevertheless he hoped for a blessing. His oar was to be rowed by a young girl; and though he was a man, he was a scrawny one, withered away in his solitude. Hrífa hoped the ship would not lean with their weakness. He looked behind himself again, wondering if their half of the crew would compensate. The wind felt good and strong but for their sail to capture it, and bloat with its whispers, its direction would need to shift westward a time.

Ásdís had heard the song once or twice before but never in detail or length and never for the purpose of learning it herself. While the red head had a good memory and enjoyed singing as much as the next lass, the story itself was gruesome (albeit fair) and had Ásdís cringing from time to time as she fumbled over the words. If she were beheaded for being disloyal to her lord and yet loyal to her King Ásdís would at least hope her head wouldn’t be set next to that of the person she had killed.

And what a funny thought that was… How could someone at once be loyal and disloyal? Didn’t that argue the definition of loyalty? And had the man been Loyal to himself? Loyal to his morals and codes? Did that even matter?

Ásdís shook her head trying to clear it of such unusual and deep thoughts. What did it matter?! She was not in that position and likeliness was she’d never be, so why ponder uselessly after something that would never come to be?

Disturbed by her bleak wonderings she was actually glad the rat eater had spoken, sharply looking over at him. Her hopes died quickly. But perhaps she could draw him into conversation…?

“Oh good. It’s not that I’m so vain or afraid of pain, so much as I am concerned the blisters would lessen my competency.” Flushing at this she hurried to clarify. “Not that I won’t work through the pain. I’ll be an excellent rowing partner don’t you worry…”

Ásdís sighed as the boat rocked with a wave. Not out of the harbor and she was already behaving foolishly. Turning her green eyes to her companion she smiled forlornly. “Do you think if you were beheaded as the man in the song was, would you like your head to be placed beside that of your previous ruler who you beheaded yourself?”

Though he gave her a queer, sidelong glance, hurriedly Hrífa searched elsewhere for his answer, away in the distant clouds. If he was honest, he was searching for birds again. "Once my head has been cut, I probably won't much mind what happens to my body," he confessed in a hushed whisper, as though Hralding was on the other side of the ship, at the aft, steering the rudder, the witch saw no cause to disrupt his lessons. "If I do, I'd like to see it eaten."

"By animals," he added clumsily, as if that was in doubt. But why not? Every tree-nut he ever ground to flour may have belonged to a mouse, who fancied the gaunt intruder rather like a towering thief likewise! Then all his life he had breathed air which belonged to terns and gulls, and gulped water which was the house of many fish. He was remorseless and really rather selfish in his taking of those things which his physiology demanded—unapologetic—but this came too with the stipulation of debt. Some day he hoped to return to the earth what he had borrowed, and rotting in a tomb, this was not possible; hanging from a king's gate, he was out of reach for all things but the ravens. He did not fancy that fate fair and just to the other critters who held him in their debt, the others he owed a pound of his flesh.

What he loved about this place he called nature, and all its inhabitants, was that it obeyed its own laws, and these laws cared not for the whimsies of men, as men were encapsulated within these laws, and they too obeyed this code, even when they thought they rebelled against nature by erecting walls and hiding behind them, building keeps high into the sky to escape the floods, and pits deep in the earth to avoid the winds. Men's laws were just different. Hrífa obeyed them (most times) despite disagreeing with them; he knew well why Håkon deserved death at the hands of Þormóðr Karkr, and why the slave in turn was deemed a traitor: the dishonor of his treachery outweighed the heroics of his vigilantism. But who was a man to declare who "deserved" what? Who owned that infallible right to deliver his fellows to the afterlife?

The world claimed its dues without fretting for these highfalutin abstracts, often enough. Supposedly wicked men lived and supposedly good ones fell like birch limbs to wicked axes. But eventually all men paid the same debt, and the witch, while not anticipating his day with any enthusiasm, also did not fear the time when his caught up with him. He would pay it gladly.

“Eaten?” Ásdís repeated uncertainly. She hadn’t much thought of her own death, it was foretold and it would happen when it would. So she hadn’t considered much either what would happen to her remains. Now that she thought of it Ásdís was surprised that Hrífa wanted such a thing. Shouldn’t he prefer his body to be burned?

But at least he didn’t want to be consumed by people. The red head couldn’t trade seats at this point and it would be a fair awkward ride to their shared destiny if Hrífa wanted to be eaten by other people.

Deciding silence was the best course she ducked her head and concentrated instead on rowing.

"Returning to the world what stuffs I've taken from her," said the Rat-eater. He could not help but let his eyes, softly grey, to percolate upward like from a chimney. Were he nearer to the water, one could imagine him dipping his hand into it, cupping it in his spindly fingers; yes, some day he would return to the sea and to the soil. Even if he only fed worms, those worms would feed birds later, and on it went. Where would he go as a pyre, a pile of smoldering ashes? He would be useless then, except as an ingredient in soapmaking.

Anyway, perhaps it was a shout, or the silence which followed, but something helped Hrífa to realize that Hralding had ended his lesson. The witch blinked back to consciousness, and guided the shaft of the oar gently away from his lap, dipping the blade back into the boiling waves.

"If anyone needs a pair of mittens, I've brought a spare pair. Let's go," said Hralding, who took his place at the rudder. Besides the fact that Hrífa had brought his own, a thick and well-loved pair that was yellow with the mother sheep's lanolins, he felt like their captain was testing them: the first person to ask for the gloves surely was the weakest on deck, and the one on whom Hralding thenceforth would keep the closest eye. Damn his cleverness! He would have warned Ásdís, if he only knew how nervous she was. Her façade of intrepid bravery had fooled the witch.