'It is a great land.'

Everyone is looking at Sansa's latest drawing. Ragnar woke her up early and, before she was allowed to eat her day-meal, placed bark and charcoal in front of her and bid her make the shapes of her land, that one that had begun to whisper in his dreams. West-er-os.

'It is a little like England,' Athelstan says. 'But perhaps longer. Thinner. And mucyh larger. I don't know any of these place names.'

She had shown them where her own tall house was, pointing up and left. She is a Northern person, in her own land.

'How do you know it is a great land, father?' says Bjorn.

'Because she told me how long it would take to travel from here –' he places his finger on the place where she had said 'home,' and runs it down the spine of the land to the inlet where her eyes had grown darker. He had not believed her when she had said, with Athelstan's help, that one would have to travel for at least two circles of the moon to reach this place.

'How many people?' says Rollo. 'We would need to know how big the village is.'

Ragnar turns to his brother, and smiles a smile full of teeth that bite. 'It is not a village.'

'It is a great city,' says Athelstan. 'There are many people.'

'How many?' says Rollo. 'Two hundred?'

Athelstan looks up simply. 'Not even two thousand. Many thousands, maybe.'

Floki sucks in a breath, and lets out a giggle.

'But where is it?' Ragnar says slowly, staring at the map as if it were a golden, jewelled cross, or a decorated silver flagon. He hits Athelstan on the shoulder.

Athelstan slides over two other pieces of bark. On one, he has drawn what they know of their own North, and the lands to the east and south. One another, he has drawn the leaning leg-of-lamb shape that is England and its north. Slowly, he moves them around, as if planning a battle with armies. He places England west of your lands. This you all know.

'She does not seem to know our lands, anymore than we know hers,' says Athelstan. 'It must be further west, perhaps very far.' He places Sansa's land to the north and west of England, with a great amount of wooden table as the sea. 'I think it must be here.'

Once Ragnar had understood who she was, Sansa was banned from helping in the way that she had before. 'No cooking,' he had said, giving her the sort of smile that seemed to say he would slice her arms off if she disobeyed him. 'No cleaning.' Teeth-flash. It meant that she either worked on learning their tongue, alone or with Athelstan, played with Hvitserk and Ragnvald, or sat, watching the arc of the bay, wondering what path her life would take now. Her time at the Red Keep seemed a winter away, and Winterfell another season before that. What was her purpose now? What was her fate? Was it simply to live?

One day, looking at the red and green stitching on Princess Aslaug's cloak, Sansa remembered at least something else she could do to pass the time. Something she was good at, and wouldn't be told off for doing.

'Three sails, Ragnar. Three sails. Think of the speed. The size.'

Floki has done nothing but talk of ships for days. He sits next to Ragnar as they eat. 'I think the boats are lighter. The wood is not stacked –' he places the fingers of one hand on the palm of the other, as if about to clap – 'but joined, each one next to the other.' He lines up his hands, forefinger against the other's little finger, before ripping a piece of hare-thigh off with his teeth and speaking through a mouthful of food. 'It is fascinating.'

'How long?'

Floki shakes his head. 'It will take many moons. Many men. To build a boat this size. To build more than one.'

'This summer?' He does not think he can wait more than the other side of winter.

'Ragnar.' Floki's voice becomes light, dancing. 'We do not have the money.'

Ragnar is watching his son, who is sitting next to Thorunn at the end of a table, grinning at her and eating the end of a carrot out of her hand. 'Then we will find it.' He gets up.

V*V*V*V*V*V

'Hello.'

The bench bowed slightly under Bjørn's weight as he sat down.

Sansa greeted him in return. 'Will Thorunn not come?' she asked. Thorunn had her chin propped on her hand and was looking at them. Bjørn waved. She screwed her nose up at them and began talking to the girl next to her.

'No. Father said I _ come and talk to you but I am not sure what I _ talk about.' He looked a little embarrassed, leaning over on his elbows and gazing at a plate. For once, he did not seem to know what to say next.

Everyone talked at mealtimes. Sansa had eaten at many meals where the only sounds were that of metal on metal as fork scraped plate, where long silences were only filled with the thoughts of Cersei planning what venomous barb to say next. But here, it was a time to celebrate being with friends and family, and people swapped seats halfway through a meal, breaking conversations to hurl themselves into new ones.

'Do you like it here?' she said. She had understood from Athelstan that Bjørn had been away from Kattegat for four years.

His face cleared. 'Yes,' he said. 'It is right for me to be with my father. But I am sad not to see my mother every day.' He picked at the wood of the table.

Sansa thought once again of her own mother, a pull in her stomach like a fishing line. 'Your mother is very strong.'

'She is. You _ like her.' Would like her? Are like her? His expression lightened again, the sun through clouds, and he spoke quickly. 'You _ have more women-friends. Thorunn wants to spend more time with you. You have not left Kattegat yet. Thorunn _ take you to the mountains.'

Sansa looked over at her. Thorunn caught Bjørn's eye, grinned through a mouthful of bread, and put her tongue out.

V*V*V*V*V*V

'Tell me of the people at Kingslanding,' your brother said.

You and Athelstan sat either side of Sansa and you tried not to think about having sex with them both. It was not a good thought.

Her chin went down to her chest. 'Bad,' she said.

'Why were you there and not in your home? In Win-ter-fell?'

Her face was very still and she did not answer for some time. 'To marry,' she said. 'A prince. A king.'

Your brother sat back, and his eyes changed shape from longboat to one-man rowing boat. 'Who is this king?'

'Dead.' Her colour had gone. White as whalebone.

'Who is king now?'

'I don't know. His brother.' Her eyes flickered to you for a heartbeat.

Ragnar looked at you. You stared back.

'But it is his mother who is queen. Who –' she looked blank and wagged her finger at everyone sternly. You tried not to smile. It was not very convincing.

'Rules,' said Athelstan.

'Rules,' she repeated. She made a breath that had been cut at with a dagger, put both of her hands flat on the table and rose as if to leave.

Your brother leaned over, put a hand on hers. 'Would they trade with me?' he said. 'Would they let me have land?'

She stayed half-standing, still as a carving, as Athelstan put it into different words for her. Her eyes travelled to you, to Floki, to Athelstan, and to Ragnar. 'No,' she said. 'They would kill you all.'

Your brother looks at you again, and this time his look is both warm and cold, the way there are pockets of warmth in the sea when the sun is out. 'Well, then,' he said. 'That is good to know.'

V*V*V*V*V*V

Sansa knocked on the door of the house at the far end of the village.

'Come,' she heard.

Siggy was placing a large-bottomed kettle over a fire. Sansa was glad not to see Rollo there. He had acted in the longhouse as if nothing had happened.

'I – have something. For you.' She held out her gift to Siggy. It had taken her three days to find enough differently-dyed wool and convince the two women she had gleaned it from that it was for dressmaking. She had embroidered a tall, jagged mountain rising from a lake, with pale, thicker wool darned into a waterfall.

Siggy looked at it for some moments, before folding her arms. 'No. Thank you.'

'I –' Sansa put her hand on her chest. 'Make – made this. For you.' She had wanted so much to thank her for caring for her over those first few days. Every time she had awoken, Siggy had been there, helping her drink, smoothing her hair away from her brow.

But now Siggy's eyes hardened, like a crust of bread in an oven. They swept over Sansa's shoulders, her hair, her face. 'I do not want it. You may go now.'

Sansa had carefully folded up her sackcloth, imagining her heart folding up in the same way, nodded, and left.

Later, Athelstan explained to her that these people did not make art to be looked at. 'Everything has a use,' he said. 'Chairs and tables are _ ,' he mimed carving, and clothes _ ,' he showed her sewing, 'but it is all for a reason.'

Sansa thought of Rollo's proposition again, and his warm, proud look. 'How long - Rollo and Siggy – married?' she asked.

'No. Not married,' he said. 'Only – together.'

This surprised her. She had assumed they had been long married, somehow. Perhaps it was alright in this place to ask someone to have sex with you if you were not married, no matter how long you had been together. The thought of it brought a fire-prickle to her cheeks.

'May I see it?' said Athelstan. He took the sackcloth from her, gazing at it as if it were the last page of a long story. A lock of his hair fell over his face before he looked up. 'It is beautiful,' he said, looking up.

She wondered how he had got the small fleck-scars across his forehead, the dark marks on his hands. Then I would like you to have it. 'You. For you,' she said.

A tiny smile ghosted in. 'Thank you,' he said, with sincerity, before nodding his thanks again, trying to catch her eye, make her smile. She gave him a small one back. 'I do understand,' he said. 'I used to make art.'

But how could he have, if he was a Northman? Then Athelstan told her, for the first time, of his old life, and who he had been.

V*V*V*V*V*V

You found her sitting over her bark-pieces, the ones covered with Athelstan's marks, her mouth moving, though she was not eating. She was saying 'I can. I could. You can. You could. He can. He could.'

You sat down next to her. She looked alarmed, and shifted slightly further away from you, placing her bark pieces into a pile, putting her hands in her lap. Like a strange girl-monk.

You take the stale piece of bread on the end of the table, chew. 'I have something for you.'

She watched you like a mouse on the ground that knew an eagle was right above it. You reached behind you, pulled out a short sword.

'I – a sword,' she said. Eyes like clear ice-pools. 'For me?'

You nodded. 'To fight.'

'I –' she looked at her bark. 'I cannot fight.'

This didn't make sense. 'You know boats. You know swords. You showed us.'

She looked at the breadcrumbs you had left everywhere. 'No, I am - I cannot fight.'

You felt only disappointment, bitter as birch-bark. 'You are like Aslaug. A princess who does not fight. A princess who -' what was the word for it again? You gestured at her charcoal-stick, pretended to make shapes.

She didn't say anything.

'A woman should fight,' you said, wiping your mouth.

'I –' she looked like she wanted to say many things. 'I cannot,' she said, for the third time.

'You can.' You took her bark from her, pointed at the marks, though you didn't know which one was which. 'You could.'

Sansa didn't understand Rollo at all. Not just his words, which were often fast, impatient, but his manner, too. He didn't seem the slightest bit embarrassed about their conversation a few days ago. Until the discussion in the longhouse, she had studiously avoided him, veering into the nearest doorway if she saw him striding down the street and sitting as far away from him as possible at meals. She was beginning to wonder if Siggy had known about what he had said, and that was why she was angry with her, and felt deep shame.

And he had brought her a gift. Of sorts. How could he think her a fighter? She had begun to understand that women fought here – that someone like Brienne of Tarth, the huge woman who had returned to the Red Keep with Jaime, would not have seemed out of place. Lagertha was spoken of as a skjaldmær

- a shieldmaiden - and Thorunn was often seen training by the bay.

She saw Arya, tearing towards her from the heavy curtains of the woods at Winterfell, small wooden sword in hand, yelling her head off. She thought of Dacey Mormont, who had come to Winterfell once when Sansa was much younger, clad in bearskins and carrying a greatsword.

Rollo had not looked angry when she had told him she could not fight. He had simply told her that she should. Spoken as plainly as if he had said 'a woman should give birth', or 'a woman should love.' She could.

Þú kunnuð.

NOTES

Old Norse school:

Þú kunnuð = you can

Old Norse boat-building school:

Floki talks of the overlapping wood hulls of the Viking longships, called clinker-built. These were around as early as the 4th century A.D.

As ships developed over the centuries, they became carvel-built, meaning wooden planks were streamlined, used less heavy timber framing and displaced less water, therefore being lighter.