"Leave us now." Griffith slinked outside. "He holds to the old religion more than most," Emrys explained. "Sometimes I worry about him. Too much like his ma, all air and dreams. I don't know how I'll get him ready."
"For what?" Remo said.
Emrys put down his hammer and stepped back to admire the bloody pelt on the wall. "Why, for his turn at the Master's Trial, don't you know."
"What? I thought that was all over."
Emrys looked surprised. "Between us? How could it be over? 1 like you, Remo. Don't get me wrong now. But both of us are still alive. That's against the rules."
"Nei skynugur," Jiida muttered, bursting into the room with another rabbit hanging limply between her fingers.
"What's that you say, missy?"
"It is a Norse expression describing what I feel about the precious Master's Trial. Translated, it means 'bull-dookey.' "
She cleaned the rabbit expertly, tossing the intestines out the window, inches from Remo's face.
"Do you mind?" he said testily.
"Mind what?" Jilda asked.
Remo prepared himself for an explanation of the social unacceptability of slapping one's associates with animal organs, then waved the idea away. Even the most rudimentary forms of etiquette would be wasted on Jilda. He winced as she pulled off the rabbit's skin with a jerk and tossed it to Emrys, who nailed it happily to the wall.
"The Trial was originally begun so that our people would not make war on one another," she said. "1 believe that was because someone thought that one day we might all need to band together.''
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"Live with a bunch of bloodthirsty Vikings?" Emrys said, genuinely surprised.
Jilda's dagger was out of her belt in a flash.
"Whoa," Remo said. "No murders till after dinner, okay?"
Jilda replaced the knife scornfully. "Anyway, I was saying we ought to be friends."
"Great start you've made," Remo said.
"But abolishing the Trial," Emrys protested.
Jilda thrust the rabbit onto the spit over the fire. "It's a stupid tradition. Maybe it served a purpose a thousand years ago, but it's time we ended it. I have given this thought, and I, for one, will not kill strangers who have done me and my people no harm."
"Bingo," Remo said. "I've reached the same decision."
"But my father was killed by the great Chinee," Emrys said.
Jilda cut him off. "So was mine. That doesn't change anything."
"Well, I don't know. I'll not be called a coward."
"Don't you see?" Jilda said, waving Griffith inside. "If all three of us refuse to fight, it won't be a question of cowardice. And your boy will be spared from having to do battle."
Emrys jutted out his chin. "You talk like you think Griffith would lose."
Griffith walked in, laughing lightly. His hands were cupped. He opened them to reveal a tiny green tree frog, which bounded out the window to the boy's cries of joy.
"Well, look at him," Jilda said, obviously annoyed. "He's a kind and clever boy, but even you can't think he'd make a decent warrior."
"I'll not have you speaking that way in my house, missy."
"That's all right," Griffith said gently. "She's right."
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"You keep your peace."
"But I'm not a good fighter. I'll never be. I'm small, and my hands aren't fast."
Emrys threw down his hammer with a crash. "By Mryddin, I never thought I'd live to see a member of my family call himself a coward."
"Hey," Remo objected. "He's not a coward. He was willing to take • me on himself to keep me from fighting you. That might be what you call a coward, but I'd rather have one guy like him on my side, alive, than a hundred terrific fighters who've gone to their reward during this asinine Master's Trial."
Emrys deliberated, his glance shifting from Jilda and Remo to the boy. Finally he said, "Well, I suppose you're right. Seeing as how we're about to share a meal together, there's not much reason to fight."
"Oh, Da," the boy said, hugging him.
Jilda nodded. "Then it's settled," she said. "Now we eat."
Remo sat a little apart from the others, contenting himself with a bowl of roots and wild grasses from the forest while they stabbed hungrily at the roast rabbits.
"Will you not have any?" Griffith asked.
Remo shook his head.
"Is that part of being a Chinee, eating no meat?"
"Sort of."
Jilda laughed, her eyes changing from blue to bright green. "Don't ask the Chinese to claim our Remo. He's an American. But his soul belongs with us."
Remo spoke to the dancing green eyes. "I feel as if I do belong with you . . . all," he added, flustered.
"We know," Emrys said.
Remo felt sleepy. The warm cabin, the safety of the woods ... It all seemed so homey, and yet in the same room with him were a man who could hold him in a
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