Sigmund lay awake in the dark, fingering the chain around his neck. The sun would come up soon; the sky was already lightening, the first pale light of dawn peeking through the curtain. He and Magnhild would stay on the farm. It was unusual for the man to take the woman into his family home, but his family had the room, and couldn’t afford to lose him to a different trade in town. He had not been apprenticed to anyone, and there was no use for him to learn medicine or weaving or baking or ale making. Soledge already had all it needed, except farmers. There were never enough farmers.

               He rose from the bed as quietly as he could, dressing in the dark. His woman stirred. He thought about waking her, but decided against it. She woke anyway when she heard him creeping across the room to the door. “Where are you going?” she asked sleepily.

               “It’s time to get moving,” he said. “Things to do around the farm.”

               She sat up and stretched lazily, the covers falling into a pile in her lap. “And what do you want me to do?” she asked, yawning. She smiled brightly at him, almost playfully as she stood up.

               Sigmund suddenly did not want to leave the room to do his chores. “What did you do yesterday?” he asked.

               She grinned. “I chained you yesterday. I didn’t do any work.”

               He laughed, and she came into his arms. “What do you normally do?” he asked.

               “Eh,” she said. “I helped my mother with her plants and her herbs, but I don’t think she expects me to anymore.”

               “No?” he asked, tucking her hair behind her ear. He dipped his face, kissing her shoulder.

               “No,” she said. “She knew I was needed here instead.”

               “Well,” Sigmund said, thinking of all the chores he and his brothers did each morning. He thought about the things Astrid used to do, then had an idea. “What if you walked through the fields today, and picked what was ripe?”

               “Seems easy,” she said. “And what will you be doing?” She rubbed her face against his neck and his skin prickled from the touch of her lips.

               “I milk the goats, then Aelric and I take them to pasture,” he said.

               “I can milk goats,” she said, though from her tone and the look in her eyes, he wasn’t sure it was an offer to help with the chores. “And I could go with you to pasture?” she asked.

               He considered it, but Aelric might not like it, and there was no reason to change it. Other than his desire for his woman. He slid a hand up her back, and kissed her softly. “I think my mother could use the help in the fields, Magnhild.”

               She looked ready to argue, but then nodded her head instead. “If that’s what you want,” she said.

               “Get dressed. There should be breakfast soon,” he said. He watched her, feeling lucky that he had been chained by a woman he liked, and not by one the Bairns had chosen for him.

               Astrid was not at the breakfast table, but no one commented on it, not even Magnhild. The wild magic took her wherever and whenever it willed. He had not seen her at the party after the fire had been lit. He wondered what had happened to her.

               “Did anyone see Astrid last night?” he asked.

               His mother was spreading butter onto a bit of bread. She deposited it onto his father’s plate. “She was talking with Lodvik at the back of the house when I brought the boys home,” she said.

               “What were they talking about?” he asked. He had heard a rumor about his cousin that unsettled him. He wondered if Astrid knew too. Then he nearly laughed at himself, thinking that of course Astrid knew. She knew everything now.

               His mother shrugged. She was buttering a second piece of bread. She bit into it without saying another word about it.

               “Did she come home?” Sigmund asked.

               “Don’t think so,” she said.

               Sigmund tried not to let her answer darken his mood. He wondered what might have prompted her to stay out all night. He did not understand the wild magic. “Magnhild is going to help with the harvesting today,” he said.

               His mother brightened, looking at him for the first time since the conversation began. “Oh! That would be lovely Magnhild!” she said to his woman. “I can always use a hand, and the baskets just get too heavy for Josurr and Asmund. So most days it’s just me and Ulfarr.”

               “Yes, of course! You should teach me anything that you need help with,” Magnhild said happily. Her posture was stiff. Sigmund rubbed her back and she relaxed. His family would accept her easily, he knew. She did not need to be afraid. He caught Aelric’s look of mild annoyance from across the table. With only a slight raise of an eyebrow, he asked what was wrong, a gesture long-practiced at the table. Aelric gave a tiny roll of his eyes, another long-practiced gesture. Sigmund trusted they would unpack whatever was eating him as soon as they were in the pasture.

               Sure enough, as soon as they had shut the goat pen and begun to move after the herd, Aelric spilled. “She’s not going to be happy here,” he said.

               “What?” he asked. “Why do you say that?”

               “Just look at her face, Sigmund. She might be happy that she’s here with you, but she’s not happy about being in a house full of farmers.”

               “We need farms, Aelric. She knows that.”

               “Ah, but she had a choice, didn’t she?” he asked. “She could have picked one of the men who apprenticed. Someone who has a trade, so she could stay in town and not get her hands dirty.”

               “There aren’t that many,” Sigmund argued. “It’s not like she had a slew of other men to choose from.” Aelric only scoffed in reply. “Plus, most families in town still grow on their land. They have to.” His brother’s sourness only grew. “Why don’t you like her?” he asked.

               “It doesn’t matter what I think,” Aelric growled.

               Sigmund stepped in front of him, blocking his way forward. Aelric stopped short in surprise, his eyes narrowing. “Move!’ he said.

               “Why doesn’t it matter?” Sigmund asked.

               “Because I’m a man, Sigmund!” he said, his anger coloring his cheeks. “And so are you. Nobody cares what we think, or what we want. We’re just toys for the women. Ways to get more men so they can keep making new Bairns for the spirits to possess.”

               Sigmund clicked his tongue, narrowing his eyes. Aelric was wrong, wrong about everything, but he would never understand. “What do you want instead, Aelric?” he asked smoothly.

               Aelric rolled his eyes, but Sigmund didn’t move out of his way. He raised a hand towards the disappearing herd, and made a sound of defeat. “The goats, Sigmund,” he said.

               Sigmund glanced over his shoulder, then reluctantly began to follow them. Aelric fell in step beside him. The brothers were quiet for a time, the only sound in the air the wispy crunch of grass under their boots.

               The goats reached the pasture and as they began to graze Sigmund and Aelric went to the river’s edge. Aelric pulled up a stalk of grass, peeled the strands and tossed it into the water. Sigmund did not press him to talk, but he could tell by his stance and his occasional gaze that his thoughts were stirring.

               “I want to be free, Sigmund,” he finally said. “Everything that happens here…it happens because of the spirits, and the wild magic, and the Bairns. They control everything. They match up men and women in the hopes of making more boys, but all the pairs just end up making more girls too.” He shook his head, eyes staring downriver. “Sometimes I think they aren’t even trying to make boys. Maybe they’re trying to get as many girls as they can.”

               “Why would they lie?” he asked, Magnhild’s reading and his own running through his mind. “And their readings are usually right, don’t you think?” he asked.

               “They say the runes don’t lie, but something about it all is…off.” As soon as he said the word, Sigmund felt a chill run through him. “Think about it, Sigmund. What happened to us, that we can’t make boys now? What did the Freezing do to us?”

               Sigmund shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said heavily, a stone in his belly.

               Aelric sighed. He changed the subject. “I like Magnhild,” he said. Then he grinned. “But I’m glad you didn’t bring her with us to pasture.”

               Sigmund laughed. “Me too, actually. I like our time together, without women.” Aelric’s smile melted. “What?” he asked.

               “How long do you think it’ll be before I have chain around my neck too?” he asked weakly. His hand went reflexively to his throat, as if the chain he imagined choaked him.

               Aelric was seventeen years. He had some time before he began to be pressured, but not much. “Is there anyone you’d want?”

               He shook his head. “I haven’t looked. Haven’t been looked at,” he said.

               Sigmund thought he’d discovered the root of Aelric’s derision for the Bairns. He didn’t want them to pick for him. “Ask Astrid,” he said.

               “Astrid?!” Aelric gasped. “Ask her about what?”

               “To find you a woman, Aelric. Someone you wouldn’t object to.” He was shaking his head. “Would you rather have Freya or Sif do it?”

               His brother shuddered. “I’d rather do it myself,” he said.

               “Then you better start,” Sigmund said, “or else they will do it for you.”

               Aelric knew that to be true, and nodded fiercely. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll ask Astrid.” He rolled his eyes, yanking another stalk from the ground.

               Sigmund placed a hand on his shoulder. “She loves you, Aelric. She’ll want to see you happy.”

               “I know,” he said. “But she’ll use her witch magic to find a woman, and then how can I trust the suggestion?”

               Sigmund leaned closer to him, whispered his next words. “Because it’s Astrid.” Aelric nodded slowly, but he didn’t look convinced.