The priest sat down. The widow dipped the comb in the bowl beside her and combed his hair. Cold water trickled along his throat and dripped onto his collarbone. The skin drew together in small bumps. He hated having his hair cut in winter. She took a strand of hair between her fingers and snipped it above his collar.
“Your journey to the coast,” he said.
“Mm-hm?”
The widow ran a finger down his scalp, gathered another lock.
“You said you visited family?”
She didn’t respond.
He half-turned his head but couldn’t see her. The chtt, chtt of the scissors made him sleepy.
“I thought you didn’t have any relatives,” he said.
The widow stopped cutting. There was a pause, and then she walked round in front of him. Behind her the window was a black tablet framed by green cotton curtains. “No.” She looked straight at him and crossed her arms. “No, I don’t.”
“Then why did you lie to me?”
Her mouth fell open. “Lie? I didn’t lie to you. You assumed I had gone to see family, and I did not correct you.”
“I think that counts as a lie.”
She shook her head and walked to the back again. Her fingers tugged at his hair.
“In fact, I went there for you,” she said.
He tried to turn, but she pushed on his cheek. Not very gently.
“You are too young and too good to waste away here.” She let go of one tress and took the next. Efficient now. “I couldn’t understand why Karl-Erik wanted you to investigate Eriksson’s death and not the authorities from the coast.”
“Maybe he wanted to avoid spreading fear,” the priest said.
“That may be, but by not telling the authorities, he is, in fact, culpable of a crime. And a bishop who commits a crime can be replaced.”
Her voice was mild, as if to lessen the impact of her words. She still shocked him. Accusing somebody higher up in the order established by God was like accusing God Himself. Moreover, he had thought the widow and the bishop were close.
“Enquiries could be made by people in the right places to see whether a younger priest, a former court priest, might be more suitable for the role.”
The priest turned around, and this time she let him.
“Who? The King …?”
“Friends of my late husband,” Sofia said. “Friends of mine.”
He had to admit to feeling disappointed.
“Close your eyes,” she said and combed his bangs down. The cold edge of the scissors pressed hard against his skin as it moved across his forehead.
“My husband was here by choice,” she said. “He felt he had a calling. But there was a time before, when he was more driven, and we made a lot of connections.”
Her voice was neutral, but the priest could imagine it would have been a real disappointment, this novel calling of her husband’s.
“There is no need for you to stay here, but you do need new friends,” she said. “The King is not the most … steadfast of men when it comes to his friendships.”
The priest remembered once a new man in their midst, the King gushing over this novel acquaintance. The priest hadn’t liked the newcomer. Ambition had shone brightly out of his eyes. At dinner one of the others, Maximilian, had caught the priest’s eye. “Don’t worry,” he’d said, smile on his lips. “The King tires quickly. He’ll be gone soon.”
Instead, it was the priest who was gone.
The widow tapped him on the shoulder and put the scissors on the kitchen table. As she walked across the room to pour the water bowl out, her purple dress flowed over the floor. Her hair had come undone and was falling over her shoulders. New allies, he thought. Allies who were certain to come with obligations.
“So what would you suggest we do?” he asked.
She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled.
“The markets at the coast are held a few weeks before ours—the coming one and the one around Lady Day,” Sofia said. They were sitting together on her settle. She was balancing on the edge, one leg crossed over the other. She had spread her drawings out on the table in front of them. “People from the south come to trade with birkkarlarna, who then come to trade with us. This year I decided to go, to meet up with old friends, and ask for the news.” She smiled at the priest. “I talked about an amazing new priest in the Lappmark who ought to go far.”
He cleared his throat.
“I also took my drawings.”
Sofia’s foot with its heeled shoe bounced in the air. The fire crackled. She shook her head. “There was something about him, Eriksson,” she said. “He was completely insolent. Even though I was a priest’s wife, he’d hold my gaze just that little too long when we met.”
She scoffed and looked at him. The priest knew he was supposed to feel angry, but he didn’t.
“The people on Blackåsen were afraid of him. I always wondered what hold he had on the others. I realized that a bit more knowledge of the settlers’ pasts might do us good. And I must say, what I found out was rather amusing.”
She touched Gustav’s drawing and lined it up straight with the others.
“So what did you learn?”
Sofia picked up the drawing. “A lieutenant acquaintance of my husband’s recognized Gustav as a soldier in his regiment. He was assumed dead in the Battle of Fraustadt.”
Fraustadt. Gustav and the priest would have been in the same place. One of Sweden’s greatest victories. Yes, hundreds of fellow soldiers died but, against that, thousands of Slavs from Sachsen, Poland, and Russia. Gustav would have either deserted or been captured.
“His widow and child were later forced to leave the croft. They died in the plague.”
Poor sod. The priest wondered how Gustav had found out about his family.
She picked up another drawing. Nils was glaring out at him from within it.
“Nils was a public official. His father was ennobled under the King’s father. But what is interesting is Kristina …” She searched among the drawings on the table and found it, a large, blonde woman with steely eyes. “Kristina is from one of the oldest aristocratic families,” Sofia said. De la Gardie, she mouthed.
“Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie?” he asked, incredulous.
Sofia laughed. “Her grandfather.”
The priest chuckled. The de la Gardies had been the family most affected when the King’s father reduced the nobles’ privileges. Their fall from grace had been spectacular.
“And what about Nils?”
“Bribes,” she said.
Ah, the influences on the crown were many. Everybody wanted a piece. The priest had sometimes agreed with those who argued that while the King fought battles abroad, the real war was being lost at home. Treason, the King called that kind of talk. Believe in me, or you betray me.
“My friend said Nils went too far. At one stage he seemed to be in charge of Stockholm, before the King put a stop to it.”
The priest thought about Nils having requested a village to be built on Blackåsen. An attempt, most likely, to create a new little kingdom for himself.
“Anything else?”
She shook her head. “I asked them about the bishop. They know of him, of course, as he is on the Privy Council, but nobody had much to tell. They said that in the Council he mostly keeps silent. The King seems neutral in his regard. Someone said others were impressed with him down south, said that not many men of the Church knew to show such mercy. Otherwise, nothing. Nothing about Henrik or Daniel.”
“What circumstances?”
Sofia tilted her head. “What?”
“The bishop having shown mercy—in what circumstances?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said.
“De la Gardie,” he said again and shook his head.
They sat in silence. The priest thought of Gustav. So the dead reappeared on Blackåsen. It didn’t surprise him in the least.
“So what do we do?” he said after a
while.
“We make friends,” Sofia said. “At our market I will introduce you to some people—the tax man, Mårten Broman, most importantly. He knows everyone down south. In the meantime perhaps you go and see Nils and Kristina. The world of the nobility is so small. They are bound still to have connections.”
She put her hand on his arm. He stiffened and didn’t look at her. Instead, he stared into the fire.
“I’ll empty the traps,” Frederika said to her mother.
“I only set them yesterday.”
Frederika kicked her shoe against the doorpost. “I want to see that they are still working. And who knows …”
“Fine,” her mother said. “Dorotea stays here, though.”
“Ah.” Frederika tried to sound regretful.
Her mother was watching her. Frederika grabbed her hat and pushed it down to hide her eyes.
“Bye,” she breathed.
She walked across the yard, ears tense, half-expecting her mother’s voice to call for her to stop. When she reached the forest, she began to run. She didn’t like to lie to her mother, and before, if she ever tried, her mother had known. But lately Frederika had discovered, with a mixture of excitement and regret, she was getting away with it. Perhaps her mother was growing old or perhaps her mother’s mind was busy with other things, but she both saw and heard less than she used to.
Frederika was not far from Elin’s homestead, but she had to slow down. Her arm was throbbing, and she was worried that the wound would begin to bleed again. She had cleaned it and pressed the sides of the cut together while binding her arm tightly with a piece of cloth, but it was a large gash, and she wasn’t certain it would hold. Otherwise she would have to tell her mother and they’d have to sew the wound. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She had to rid herself of Eriksson before something worse happened. She had to find out what happened to him. And it seemed Eriksson wanted her to begin with Elin.
Frederika stood for a long time looking at Elin’s house, wondering if she dared. Then she thought of Eriksson and sighed. It had to be done. She crossed the yard, and nothing moved. In fact, it was much too quiet. She steeled herself and walked faster. She ran up the stairs to the porch, not certain whether the worst evil was inside or outside.
The cottage had frozen in time. The floorboards were a solid white and didn’t squeak and moan as she walked on them. They were just mute. The walls glittered. There were ice roses on the windows. The fireplace gaped black. Frederika shivered. Elin had found something out, something that had destroyed her. Was it who had killed Eriksson? But then why hadn’t she just told someone?
Frederika opened the cupboards in the kitchen and lifted the cutlery. Nothing. There was a wooden hamper on the floor by the kitchen settle with wool thread, a pair of scissors, and needles. She lifted the flower pots with their shriveled plants, with her fingers she combed through the frozen shoe grass in its wooden chest, searched among the wood in the wood basket. She touched the settle, stroked its back with her fingers.
How did you find out whatever it was that shocked you? She sent the thought to Elin. It seemed like you and your children didn’t leave your homestead much after that time I met you by the river. You didn’t come to harvest the sedge. The only time anyone saw you was at church, and then nobody spoke with you.
She looked toward the bedroom. She didn’t want to go in there. Her mother had said that was where it happened. What if something was still in there? She bit her teeth together hard and advanced toward the door. She looked in, heart beating, ready to run. But the room was so empty, it seemed quite possible nobody had ever lived there. There was no telling that this room had seen despair, and whatever blood there had once been had now faded to matted brown.
The bedding had been removed, but Frederika lifted the stained mattresses one by one to see underneath them. There was nothing. She opened the cupboards and took out the clothes and shook them. She did the same with the bed linen. Nothing. On a windowsill were some stones and sticks that the children had probably played with.
Frederika thought about what Eriksson had said, about “those of her sort” having gifts. She put her hands flat on the cold house wall. She breathed and closed her eyes. Who did Elin meet? she asked the timber. Did someone come to visit? The walls were silent.
Oh, this was silly. She pushed off the wall.
Besides, nobody would have come. People were afraid of Elin after her husband’s death.
Apart from the killer, she thought then. He would have known there was nothing to be afraid of.
You found something out, Frederika thought again. It destroyed you, but still you didn’t tell anybody. You must have been really frightened.
The light was going fast. The air was dusky when she knocked on the door. Eriksson had talked of that which was damaged, she thought. And there was one more person she thought of as damaged.
Gustav opened.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
The scar underneath his nose kept his mouth open. She took a step forward, and he let her into his hallway.
She ought to have planned what she was going to say. “I’d like to ask about Elin,” she said.
He stared at her.
“I didn’t know Elin,” he said.
He could be lying, she thought. Frederika tried to catch his eye like Jutta had taught her, to see what was inside. “Relax,” Jutta had said. “Try to float into me and tell me what you see.”
Lake-summer. It was warm and the small flies droned above them.
Frederika had giggled.
“Serious, now,” Jutta said.
Frederika concentrated.
“No,” Jutta said. “Not like that. Don’t try so hard. Float. Relax.”
Frederika had tried and tried. Then she’d given up and lain down on her back. Jutta’s head above her was covering the sun, her thin hair swaying around her head like the halo on Maria in the painting in their church. Frederika smelled her hair—algae, chamomile. She wanted to put her nose in it. And then she just slipped into Jutta’s eyes and there was red love and a little girl named Frederika.
She had laughed. Jutta smiled, but not for long.
“Use this gift with care,” she’d said. “Secrets are most often awful.”
Now Frederika looked Gustav in the eye in that same way. She smiled at him. At first Gustav’s eyes were blue. A sea. The rings from a jumping fish.
Not rings. An opening. A hole in the earth. A den of an animal? Shackles attached to a stone wall. The iron soiled black.
Pain. Pain so huge she hadn’t known it existed.
Frederika walked backward. And then she ran.
She ran as fast as she could, along the lake, into the forest. Her throat ached. Her gasps for air sounded like sobs.
Not far from home two hands grabbed her and she howled. It was Antti. She still screamed. He swirled her around and wrapped his arms round her.
“I see Eriksson,” she yelled.
His body stiffened, but he didn’t let go of her.
“I see him,” she repeated. “And I hear the mountain speak.”
He was silent.
“Eriksson isn’t nice,” she said after a time.
He released his grip. No longer held, she felt cold.
“The dead are supposed to travel,” he said. “If they stay, it brings problems.”
“But what’s holding him?”
“You see him, so you are.”
That was an awful thing to say. He pushed her to start moving and kept pushing to make her go forward.
His voice, behind her: “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You asked questions. … If the spirits are calling you, Frederika, you have to respond.”
She tried to shut out his voice.
“It’s about protection for all of us. The signs are so bad. You can help us.
“Fearless used to have a drum,” he continued. “It helped him travel between worlds. It was his most important weapon. It kept him alive. But
he burned it when he became a Christian.”
They reached her yard, and she kept walking because she knew he wouldn’t follow. He remained in the shadows.
She turned once. “Eriksson is mean. Why did Elin go with him?” she asked.
She imagined Antti shaking his head. When he spoke, his voice was hesitant. “In summer some of the reindeer don’t want to leave when it’s their time to roam. Perhaps Elin felt safer in captivity.”
Unable to see it, she knew the wound on her arm had begun to bleed.
In November it became yet colder, though that had hardly seemed possible. The air was so cold that their nostrils stuck together when they inhaled. They had frost spots on cheeks and earlobes, and the hair on the goats’ necks grew thick and long as a dog’s. The days were still shortening. Every morning night lingered, loitered by the steps of the porch, stuck to the icy branches of the spruce trees. Every evening it returned earlier.
“How much more?” Frederika asked. “I want it to end.”
“Night will take over,” Maija said. They were in the woodshed. Maija had been thinking that later, if need be, they could put sawdust on the kitchen floor to absorb damp and place another layer of planks on top of that. “Only for a few weeks. Then it turns and we creep toward summer.”
That creeping in itself would take several months. She didn’t say that. What had she been thinking, telling Paavo to leave them here?
She whacked the ground. Just hold it together, she told herself. You’re not doing too badly. The paths from the house to the sheds and the barns were cleared of snow. The animal bins were stuffed with dried grass. There was still frozen food in the storage place, enough for another couple of weeks, maybe three if they rationed. They had managed to snare two pheasants. And now, with the plates of frozen sawdust thawing in the kitchen, their home smelled of summer—chopped wood and cool water. No, not too badly. Apart from Dorotea’s feet, that was. While her younger seemed in good spirits, the decay of her flesh continued. That thought crushed all the others.
Dorotea opened the door. “Mamma,” she said. “Someone is coming.”
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