Excerpt:

That night was the last I spent in my village. It was the first and only night I spent with Bergþóra. She crept out while the moon rode high and brought me a blanket. Our breaths misted and mingled in the air as she told me to flee, begged me to leave and swore that she would go with me. She had clothes and food ready to go; the Swede and his guards were asleep or insensate from drink and wouldn't hear her leaving. Looking back now, I'd have traded all the silver and gold in the world to have answered differently, but I told her no, that my honour and her honour were paramount and that I would face Sweyn and defeat him. I was confident and, by all rights, I would have won had he not been the treacherous snake I now knew him to be. She begged me, and wept and still I said no. That I would have been less proud, less boastful, I'd be living there still, with my lovely Bergþóra and our children. But fate is written and there is nothing that we can do to avoid it.