Contents
Chapter Three: Orka
Overview
Orka and Breca deliver Asgrim and Idrun’s bodies to Fellur, where Guðvarr announces Jarl Sigrún’s impending return and urges allegiance to Queen Helka. Orka challenges claims that vaesen killed them, insisting men did. Thorkel returns, reporting the killers escaped by river. With Guðvarr’s lukewarm response, Orka chooses to leave.
Summary
Orka and Breca guide a wagon bearing Asgrim and Idrun’s corpses down from the hills toward Fellur, while Thorkel pursues tracks into the woods. Orka steels Breca with the task of leading the pony and stays alert for the killers she believes still nearby.
Arriving in Fellur, they find the village gathering as Guðvarr, Jarl Sigrún’s nephew, announces her near return and advocates swearing to Queen Helka. Orka reveals the bodies and declares the deaths the work of men, not vaesen. Guðvarr sneers and blames the victims, inflaming tensions as villagers murmur about other stolen children.
Orka restrains her rising fury, stating she brought the bodies for proper rites and warning of killers and child-stealers. Thorkel arrives from the hills, defusing the standoff. He reports tracking the culprits to a riverbank where three boats had landed, concluding they escaped by water toward the Skarpain.
Guðvarr promises vaguely to look into it, offering no concrete plan. Assessing his posturing and Sigrún’s absence, Orka decides the village will not act swiftly. She turns away with Thorkel and Breca, choosing to leave rather than be drawn into Guðvarr’s politics.
Who Appears
- OrkaProtagonist; delivers the bodies to Fellur, disputes vaesen blame, controls her anger, and decides to leave after Guðvarr’s posturing.
- GuðvarrJarl Sigrún’s nephew; announces alliance talk with Queen Helka, belittles the dead, and offers only vague action.
- ThorkelOrka’s husband; tracks the killers, reports their river escape via three boats, and reunites with Orka in Fellur.
- BrecaOrka’s son; leads the wagon, reveals Harek’s abduction, and watches the tense exchange with Guðvarr.
- VirkInjured fisherman; challenges Guðvarr’s rhetoric and notes other reports of taken children.
- AsgrimMurder victim; his body is brought to Fellur, prompting the confrontation and investigation talk.
- IdrunMurder victim; laid beside Asgrim, symbolizing the human, not vaesen, nature of the killings.
- HarekMissing child; abducted from the steading, likely taken by the killers who fled by river.
- Jarl SigrúnAbsent ruler of Fellur; away at Queen Helka’s court, her return and Althing promised by Guðvarr.
- Queen HelkaSovereign of Darl; invoked by Guðvarr as the strong power Fellur should swear to.