He was slumped against the rock, doing his best to stay still and rest. There was a time, long ago, when he had been fierce and vigilant. When he had snarled and snapped against his bonds to the delight and fear of distant on-lookers. He no longer cared to impress them.
Something shone across the plain, and he opened his half-closed eyes to see what it was. A woman was approaching, dressed in crisp white linen and richly colored wool. Her gold rings and brooches seemed dull compared to her thick blond hair. As she got closer he could see her patient, inward-turning expression.
She stopped perhaps a dozen paces from him and they regarded each other silently. When the sun sank and the twilight fog started to rise she turned and went back to way she had come. Her white linen looked almost blue in the dim light.
For three days she came and stood before him with that same patient expression. Finally he felt moved to speak. "My lady," he said, half-gagged with steel and his voice raspy from disuse, "your fair form is a welcome change from my usual view. Poor host that I am, I have nothing to offer you besides conversation."
She took a step towards him. "What would you like to talk about?'
"My step-mother's homestead... Is it being taken care of?"
She nodded. "Oh yes. Her kin look after it. The flocks increase, the wool is spun, the wheat is sown and reaped. They admire her."
He choked out a laugh. "They do not. They are merely glad her fortune is not theirs." His voice caught in his dry throat and he coughed and spat around the steel in his mouth. The scent of his own blood on the ground made him want to slink away and hide, but there was no shelter he could reach. She watched him for a moment, then turned and walked away in the twilight.
The next day she brought him water and told him the rumors of his kin, of his brother and sister and sons. Her expression, as before, never changed.
On the fifth day they had run out of words again. Her eyes traced the coils of rope that bound him and he was left with the puzzle of her calm face. Her arms and neck were white, but there was a scattering of freckles across her nose.
On the sixth day she did not come. All day he watched for her and cursed himself. Finally, when the world was blue with twilight he saw a white figure coming toward him. She was wearing a white shawl, and a white shift, and no jewelry to be out-shone by her hair.
She gleamed like a star, a sword blade, a silver ring.
She placed herself in front of him and put her hands on either side of his face so he could not look away. For the first time he could see beyond her calm face to the fire of pride in her eyes. "Sif," he murmured.
"Tell me old wolf," she demanded in a low, husky voice, "how much hate do you bear against my husband?"