"It will be fuller," grinned the monster. "Stuffed with hot coals while yet you live." She glanced back at the girl. "What, are you not working yet, you lazy tub of lard? Set up the spit, I said!"
The girl shuddered back against a heap of wood. "No," she whispered. "I cannot—not ... not for a man."
"Can and will, my girl," said the troll, picking up a bone to throw at her. The girl shrieked a little.
"No, no, sweet mother. I would not be so ungallant as to have beauty toil for me." Cappen plucked at the troll's filthy dress. "It is not meet—in two senses. I only came to beg a little fire; yet will I bear away a greater fire within my heart."
"Fire in your guts, you mean! No man ever left me save as picked bones."
Cappen thought he heard a worried note in the animal growl. "Shall we have music for the feast?" he asked mildly. He unslung the case of his harp and took it out.
The troll-wife waved her fists in the air and danced with rage. "Are you mad? I tell you, you are going to be eaten!"
The minstrel plucked a string on his harp. "This wet air has played the devil with her tone," he murmured sadly.
The troll-wife roared wordlessly and lunged at him. Hildigund covered her eyes. Cappen tuned his harp. A foot from his throat, the claws stopped.
"Pray do not excite yourself, mother," said the bard. "I carry silver, you know."