“Arm wrestling?” The big Rimmersman laughed loudly and mimed with his bent arm. “Like this? There’s not a man here who could best me, including any of that puny lot of yours.” His gaze slid from Astrian to Porto and lingered on Sir Olveris, who was not quite as tall as old Sir Porto but far more well-muscled, then he spat on the straw covering the floor. “I am Lomskur the Smith. I broke a bullock’s neck with my hands when I was but a boy. I won’t waste my time on any of your friends.” He scowled at Morgan, who edged back a bit farther on the bench. “I don’t want the duke’s men to put me in chains for troubling that cream-faced boy. So go back to your foul mountain, ice-goblin, before I throw you there.”

Several of the others laughed and cheered, but one warned, “‘Ware, Lomskur! That’s the High King’s heir.”

The big man snorted. “I’m not troubling His Very Highness, am I? It’s his lapdog that’s troubling me.”

“Qanuc are not dogs for anyone.” Little Snenneq wasn’t smiling any more. “Is this meaning that Lomskur is feared to hand-wrestle with me?”

“You?” The bearded man was genuinely astonished, but it seemed to make him even angrier. “Look at you! I could use you to pick my teeth.”

“No. Just hand-wrestle.” The troll vaulted onto the bench beside Lomskur with surprising nimbleness and extended his arm. “Here. Now.”

Lomskur’s friends and acquaintances in the alehouse were all shouting, most in favor of crushing the troll on the spot, but the bearded man stared at Little Snenneq’s outstretched hand. “For true?” He frowned. “No tricks? I don’t want to get a troll knife in my gorge when I only came in here to pass the time.”

“No tricks. On the honor of the prince.” Snenneq kept his arm out.

Morgan started to rise but Astrian reached out and grabbed his tunic, holding him back. “Let it be, Highness,” he said softly. “Do not spoil the joke—whatever it may turn out to be.”

Lomskur turned and straddled the bench to face the troll. It took a while—each one of the bearded man’s legs looked as wide as a normal man’s waist. Finished positioning himself, he thumped his elbow down on the table, making the crockery jump. The troll did not sit down, but knelt on the bench opposite Lomskur so that he could rest his elbow and still reach the other’s hand. The difference in their sizes was so great that the Rimmersman had to grasp the small man’s hand at an angle, with his arm low to the table; the troll’s hand almost disappeared inside the Rimmersman’s grasp.

The bearded man suddenly began laughing. “You are no coward, I see. If you live, little snow-beetle, I will buy you a pitcher all for yourself, to wash away the pain.”

Snenneq nodded, still not smiling. “And the same I will be doing for you. If you live.”

Everybody in the place seemed to be watching now. Even the ostler had come out from the back room, and stood, worriedly wiping his hands over and over on a dirty cloth.

“Start!” yelled one of Lomskur’s cronies.

It should have been over in an instant, and nearly was. With a scowl on his red face, Lomskur bent Little Snenneq’s arm until the back of the troll’s hand quivered just a finger’s breadth above the table. Most of the Rimmersmen in the alehouse were so certain of the outcome that they dared not turn away to take a drink, certain they would miss the ending, and instead fumbled blindly for their bowls. But Snenneq did not collapse. He made what looked to Morgan like a few small adjustments of his knees and back and shoulders, and although Lomskur leaned far to his left to keep the pressure on, somehow the very small man withstood it. Snenneq shifted again and pushed his elbow closer to Lomskur’s, and for some reason the tiny change of angle brought an expression of discomfort and surprise to the big man’s face.

Moments became longer moments. The faces of Lomskur and Little Snenneq settled into fixed masks of effort. Every time it seemed the much bigger man must finally overcome the resistance of the smaller, the troll moved again—never more than a little, but always enough to keep the giant on the other side from being able to force his hand down against the table.

The spectators were beginning to worry now, not so much at the incredible spectacle of a troll holding off a man almost three times his size, but over the notion that a trick must be involved. Some shouted to look under the table, that the little man was bracing himself in some way, or being otherwise helped to cheat, but of course Morgan and the rest hadn’t moved from their own table, and Snenneq’s legs were still curved beneath him on the bench. The whole thing seemed a sort of magic, and more than a few of the drinkers looked around with superstitious alarm, as though the sequel might be a Norn raiding party or a dragon or some other legendary menace crashing through the door.

At last, and to the complete astonishment of everyone, Morgan and his friends most definitely included, Lomskur began to tire. Sweat coursed down his face and dripped from his beard, and his face turned the color of a baked Aedonmansa ham. Little Snenneq began to lean back, slowly pulling Lomskur’s hand toward him, increasing the angle of their mutual grasp until the big man’s entire arm was stretched only inches above the tabletop.

Then, with almost no warning, the troll twisted his wrist sharply to one side and Lomskur let out a bellow of pain; a split-instant later the back of the Rimmersman’s hand was pressed against the tabletop.

For a moment the room went silent. Lomskur was clutching his wrist, in too much pain to say anything; Morgan and his fellows were too startled even to cheer.

“By all that’s holy,” said Astrian wonderingly, “why did I neglect to wager on this?” As Lomskur squeezed and chafed his aching wrist, Little Snenneq dropped down from the bench and walked to an ale cask that stood beside the ostler. A couple of large stone tankards had just been filled for someone else and then left on the cask until their foamy exuberance subsided. The troll pulled a coin out of his hide jacket and dropped it on the barrel top, then took a tankard in each hand and walked back to Lomskur’s table. He held one out to the big man, who looked up at him with reddened eyes and an expression of utter bewilderment.

“I was promising to buy for you an ale,” said Little Snenneq.

Lomskur goggled at him for a moment, then his already red face became even more enflamed, as if he were a baby about to howl, and he lashed out, knocking both the ale tankards out of Snenneq’s hands. “Cheat!” he roared. “Little devil! I don’t know what trick you played, but . . .”

Without finishing his sentence, he swung a huge fist at Snenneq’s face. The troll dropped beneath the blow so neatly that for a moment Morgan thought the little man’s head had been knocked cleanly from his shoulders. Lomskur swore loudly and tried to drop on him. Morgan had no doubt that if he did, no trick in the world would save the troll from being crushed to death, but Snenneq had somehow already rolled out of the way, grabbing the handles of the two overturned tankards as he went. Lomskur, on his knees, seemed to have lost the use of words completely. He snarled and swung, but Snenneq kept dodging. Lomskur grabbed a heavy bowl from a table and flung it at him, but the troll simply ducked. Now the Rimmersman clambered to his feet once more, roaring like a wounded bear, but something glinted in his hand.

“ ‘Ware!” Morgan shouted. “He has a knife!”

Many of the customers nearest the door decided this would be a good time to leave, but the rest of the crowd seemed unable to move or look away as the huge man swiped at the troll with a long, crude-looking blade. None of Lomskur’s friends or fellow Rimmersmen made any move to stop him, although they could hardly be blamed.

At first Little Snenneq simply backed away, but he was beginning to run out of room. Lomskur, despite his lumbering, clumsy steps, was steadily backing the troll into one corner of the room. Even using the two heavy mugs as shields would not protect Snenneq when that happened, the prince knew, and for the first time he realized what kind of utter disgrace he would be in if something happened to one of his grandfather’s troll friends.