Sture

Dark-haired and slightly built, Sture carries the look of an ordinary farm child of twelve. Nothing about his frame suggests toughness, yet his bearing during a moment of crisis reveals a nerve that outsizes his years.

Sture is defined above all by bravery and devotion to his family. Even with his hands trembling from fear, he places himself between his sister and danger, pleading for her safety rather than his own. When the household is sentenced to a beating, he steps forward to absorb Thora's share on top of his own, a display of grit that earns him Thorgil's respect.

Sture's father, Snorri, worked rented ground under Ketil until he set out one day to sell vegetables and never came back, abandoning a sickly wife and three small children. With no able-bodied worker left, the family had little hope of being taken in by neighbors, so Sture and Thora resorted to pilfering food from the farm to keep everyone fed.

Snake exposed the theft with a trick, claiming that flour sacks from the estate carried Ketil's name inside them and offering leniency if the siblings confessed before he emptied the bag. Bound and hauled before Ketil for judgment, Sture shielded his sister when Thorgil proposed cutting off an arm from each of them, begging that the girl be spared. After Pater suggested the family serve as laborers to clear their debt, the sentence was softened to ten blows apiece. Sture volunteered to take Thora's ten as well, and an impressed Thorgil struck him so hard in the gut that the boy was hurled to the ground, prompting a horrified Ketil to finish the punishment himself. Thora later nursed his injuries.