“What was it like being dead?” That was Ingrid, the youngest and most irrepressible. “Did you go to Valhalla and meet the gods?”
A snort from practical Eydis. “He told us that he didn’t die, Sigrun. Twice.”
“Though I did come close when Fiona hit me in the head with a shovel.”
That revelation made her lever herself up on one elbow. “She what?”
“I did apologize later,” the woman protested.
Harald put his head to one side. “You know, I don’t think you ever did,” he remarked as she sputtered. Ignoring her protests, he bent down and lifted Freydis to her feet, and then to a bench opposite him. Fiona, she noted with just a hint of jealousy, was sitting close at his side. “I take it,” he said carefully, nodding to the wedding dress laid out on her bed, “that you had to accept Ulf’s proposal
