Maidensong
Rika, a young skald (a Scandinavian bard), and her developmentally disabled brother are taken as thralls when their adoptive father, the famous skald Magnus, is killed in a raid on a community where they're performing the Norse sagas. Their captor, Bjorn the Black, takes them to his brother, an overly ambitious jarl (nobleman). Bjorn claims the siblings as his spoils and begins to woo Rika, preserving her maidenhood. In this tale of tenth-century of Viking life that will sweep you from the icy fjords of Scandinavia to the sun-drenched streets of Byzantium.