The Wolf in the Whale

by Jordanna Max Brodsky

  My eyes burned with unshed tears. The wind slipped over the side of the boat to find me where I crouched; the loose black strands of my hair swam before my eyes.

  I will always remember that last glimpse of the shoreline—the screen of my hair, each strand grown huge in the Sun’s glare, masked the thin sliver of treetops just visible over the edge of the ship.

  The view slid away, and with it any hope for escape. Then I heard Ataata’s voice in my mind and found a grim smile. An Inuk can always make something from nothing. Why pray for rescue? Why despair? A good hunter examines his surroundings, studies his prey, and never gives up. A good hunter survives.

  The wooden ship was no monster, I reminded myself. Just a vessel built by men, not giants. Above me the narrow trunk of a huge, barkless tree soared above the ship, its top lost in the blinding glare of the sun. A mast, I remembered from Brandr’s dreams. The boat stretched many times the length of the longest umiaq, with decks laid high at either end. In between, piles of logs and skins jammed an open hold. A few sickly-looking animals bleated among the cargo. Beside them huddled several too-thin thralls in shabby woolen rags.

  As I watched, the crewmen, many with fur trimming their short cloaks and caps, struggled with the great white sail. It billowed and ruffled until they adjusted it to catch the wind. It snapped into a massive, taut square. The ship moved steadily now. From my spot on the stern, I could see the prow gently heaving as it cut through the swells far faster than any umiaq could manage. I had thought Sila sent the storm to bring Brandr and me together. Now Its breath ripped us apart.

  I scanned the faces around me. No Kiasik. No familiar black hair, broad shoulders, flashing eyes. Only pale faces, mottled with sunburn. Hair of yellow and orange and brown escaping from wool caps and hoods. Eyes of gray and green and blue. The colors of Sanna’s domain. The colors of ice. These Norse looked much like Brandr, but their cheeks were sharp with hunger and their gaze bleak with despair. They seemed a ragged bunch, scarred and broken from their journey to my lands. A young freeman had lost an arm—I remembered him from Brandr’s past, lying on the ground clutching his wound while the red men stormed through Leifsbudir.

  When the Norse looked at me, I saw only fear and hate.

  I summoned the memory of the night before. Of Brandr’s face, raw and open in the flickering firelight. Of the past we had just begun to heal, and the future we might build together. Had I left him behind forever—only to find that Kiasik was already dead? Then another grief: When Brandr wakes, he will think I abandoned him. He had feared that I’d leave if he told me what happened in Leifsbudir. I had just proven him right.

  A moan escaped my lips.

  Muirenn placed a chapped hand on my shoulder. “Hush. Get warm; get some sleep. There’s nothing you can do about it now.” Her voice was gentle. Pain shadowed her eyes. “When the Vikings come to take you, you best submit.”

  “She can’t understand a word you say,” my young guard scoffed.

  “Neither do the sheep. But still we talk to them, eh?”

  “What do you think Freydis Eriksdottir will do with her?” the boy asked, echoing my own thoughts.

  “Claim her as a thrall, I expect.”

  “Some thrall she’d make. She doesn’t even wear cloth. If her people are like the red skraelings in Vinland, they don’t know how to weave or spin. What use would she be?”

  Muirenn shrugged. “She could be taught.”

  He laughed. “If she’s teachable! If she’s even truly human!”

  “Oh, she’s human. Look at her eyes. She’s listening to everything you say.”

  I glanced away at her words, then realized my mistake and looked quickly back at her, schooling my face to an expressionless mask.

  The boy didn’t notice anything amiss, but Muirenn looked at me carefully.

  He prattled on. “She may be listening, but she doesn’t understand. I hope you’re right about her learning to do something, otherwise we’ve been wasting good cheese. Maybe if she’s useless, they’ll put her back onshore.”

  “Have you known the mistress to ever question one of her own decisions? No, she said the skraeling’s too dangerous to return to her people. You saw that boat of hers, faster than any rowboat. The mistress doesn’t want to risk a battle with a whole fleet of skraelings. If this one isn’t useful, she won’t be put ashore—she’ll be thrown right overboard.” Muirenn gave me a pointed gaze. A threat. Or perhaps a warning.

  I kept my face blank despite my racing pulse.

  From the far end of the boat, Freydis summoned the old woman. Muirenn creaked to her feet and moved unsteadily across the rocking deck. I was left alone with the curly-haired boy. Despite his youth, deep wrinkles scarred his forehead and shadows ringed his eyes. He slid his glance toward me with more curiosity than hostility. My ordeal in the water had exhausted me more than I realized, and so far the boy had caused me no harm. I let my eyelids droop. The bleating of animals, the creaking ship, the steady waves, all faded into a steady hum.

  “Snorri!”

  I jolted awake.

  The boy answered back.

  I knew that name. Snorri, son of Ulfar—the man who died with Brandr’s knife in his throat the night he ran away from Leifsbudir. More than anyone else on this ship, Snorri wanted Brandr dead.

  After that, I couldn’t rest for fear that the boy somehow knew about my connection to his father’s murderer and would kill me as I slept. A foolish thought, perhaps, but lying naked and bound beneath the blankets, I’d never felt more vulnerable. I watched the passing clouds and planned for my future. On the ship, I had no hope of escape; the cold water trapped me here as surely as the rope around my wrists. If we go ashore, I reckoned, I might flee, but without weapons—not even an ulu or a snare—I won’t survive the winter. And if I escaped, I’d never know Kiasik’s fate. He might still be hidden somewhere on the boat. I wouldn’t leave without him.

  By the time the Sun had set, I’d made my choice. To survive, I would make myself useful, just as Muirenn had warned I must. I would find the patience Ataata had always counseled. I would wait for sign of Kiasik. Eventually they’d untie me. And when they did, I could find a weapon, a tool, anything that might let me live when I finally returned to shore. As soon as the boat reached land, my milk-brother and I would run. And we wouldn’t look back.

  Ingharr Ketilsson’s laughter carried across the deck. The same laugh I’d heard the moment before he’d dangled Issuk’s son above the snow.

  A baby’s head crushed like an eggshell. A sword point through Kidla’s throat, her own blood painting her parka red. Uimaitok’s legs, twisted and still, in the entrance tunnel. Nua’s body in a pool of gore… her head a few paces beyond. Wherever the Norse went, destruction followed. Another image flashed before me, the one conjured by Brandr’s memories. A pile of corpses mounded higher than the living. Red streaking Freydis’s face. Galinn’s blood. And the blood of ambatts. Of thrall women just like me.

  No, I decided. When I found Kiasik, I wouldn’t run. Not right away.

  First Freydis Eriksdottir and Ingharr Ketilsson would die.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  To tell how fast we sailed, I needed only to look at Freydis Eriksdottir’s spindle whorl. When the round stone rocked swiftly, we crashed through waves. When it dragged and lulled, no breeze filled the sail, and we stood still. In the rough seas of winter, the lulls were few. We flew northward on cloth wings buoyed by the frigid wind.

  I couldn’t escape the ever-present spindles. And if I wanted to be worthwhile to the Norse, I had to learn how to use one. With my wrists tied, all I could do for now was watch. Freydis and Muirenn took armloads of sheep fur and brushed it into thick, fluffy ropes. They tied one end of the rope to a spindle—a short dowel weighted with a round leaden whorl. With an easy flick of the wrist, each woman rolled her spindle along her outer thigh, sending the whorl spinning faster than the eye could follow. The thick rope of fur twisted tight, transformed as if by magic into
woolen thread finer than any length of sinew. Freydis’s hands moved constantly—one holding up the fur at eye level and feeding it down into the spindle, the other running quickly along the thread to move the twist evenly up the rope. Then, before the spindle could start turning in the opposite direction, she rolled it once more along her thigh, starting the whole process over.

  It seemed a tedious chore to me—only slightly better than chewing hides. Still, if I learned their women’s skills, they might untie me. Even trust me. They’d already clothed me in a woman’s long wool dress and cloak. They’d returned my sealskin boots to me, but in every other way, I dressed as a Norsewoman.

  When the old thrall returned to feed me a few more bites of cheese at midday, I pointed eagerly to the round spindle whorl looped on her belt.

  “See, Snorri!” Muirenn exclaimed. “She already wants to learn.”

  The curly-headed boy affected disinterest, but I didn’t miss his fond smile as he watched the old woman scuttle off to ask permission to teach me to spin.

  “Well, you’ll have to learn now. The silly old woman will be disappointed if you don’t.”

  Freydis strode across the deck, Muirenn smiling in her shadow.

  “The old thrall says I should untie you.”

  I averted my gaze, attempting to look as passive and humble as possible.

  “You’re going to learn to spin, yes?” She cupped her hand under my chin and forced me to look into her eyes. They were dark gray in the middle, surrounded by a light halo like storm clouds backlit by the Sun. “Why would a woman who knows how to wield a spear want to learn how to spin?” She didn’t think I understood—it was not to me she asked the question. Her face hardened. “Much is unknown.”

  Despite her skepticism, she hunkered down beside me and held up a small stone pendant carved with a strange symbol: it looked like a tree limb with two short branches. She moved to tie the cord around my neck but stopped when she saw my amulet pouch. Frowning, she reached to pull it off. I scrambled backward, clutching the small bag with my bound hands.

  “You must wear a thrall’s torque,” my new mistress insisted. “You can’t wear that thing, too.” She reached again for my amulet, but I bared my teeth and growled like a wolf.

  She slapped me hard across the face. I gasped more in surprise than pain.

  “If I tell you to give it up, you must give it up,” she continued, nearly growling herself. “Snorri, remove that thing from her.”

  The boy pulled the thong over my head and pried my hands from the pouch. All the while, Muirenn tutted softly. “Maybe it’s sacred to her. Like a Thor’s hammer?”

  Freydis fingered an iron pendant around her own throat, shaped like a tiny ulu with an elongated handle, before dumping my amulets on her outstretched palm. My whole life lay on her white flesh like old bones discarded on the ice: the strange quartz blade, Kiasik’s seal carving, Ataata’s blackened bear claw, the tuft of Singarti’s white fur, the penis-bone walrus and its mate—Brandr’s wooden carving with its two perfect tusks. Freydis ran her thumb thoughtfully over the spiral whittled into the wooden walrus’s back.

  A gust of wind caught the tuft of wolf fur. I gasped and reached out as the ball of white flew from Freydis’s hand, hung suspended for a moment in midair, and then floated over the side of the boat. The ocean wind tore it apart, each bright hair glinting for a moment before drifting out of sight. I dug my nails into my palms to stop myself from leaping at the stormy-eyed Norsewoman and ripping my other possessions from her grasp.

  Freydis ignored my distress. Calmly she returned the other items to the pouch and tied it to the thin chain she wore draped across her chest between two large, oval brooches. A host of other small bags and strange metal tools hung from the chain. My history, my strength, my life—just one more ornament for her to flaunt.

  In place of my amulet pouch, Snorri tied the strange new cord tight and high around my neck. Freydis placed one finger lightly on the stone bead. “You belong to me now, skraeling. This is the rune for my name, so everyone will know.” She settled back on her heels and studied me for a moment. I breathed slowly, trying to will myself to look docile.

  Finally she nodded at Muirenn. The old woman untied my hands.

  I rubbed at the raw skin of my wrists for a moment. Then my mistress handed me a spindle. Thus began my first lesson.

  It had never occurred to me that women’s work could be so hard.

  I’d learned to hunt and fish with Ataata—even learned to sew and cook with Uimaitok and Kidla. But nothing had prepared me for learning to spin.

  An Inuit woman’s tasks were more complicated than a Norsewoman’s: the threefold looping of a waterproof stitch, the careful crimp of a boot sole, the perfect pressure of ulu on hide. I had never mastered the skills, but I had learned the basics, perhaps because I understood their importance. Spinning, on the other hand, seemed a useless exercise. Why work so hard to create woolen thread when fur and sinew were so much warmer than cloth? Still, I wanted to learn so I could prove my worth. Yet no matter how I tried, no matter how patiently Muirenn demonstrated her technique, I simply couldn’t keep the spindle going the right way. Before I could stop it, it would spin backward, unraveling whatever short length of thread I’d managed to create. Over and over the thread would break, and the spindle whorl would clatter to the deck. What little I spun was rough and lumpy.

  At the end of our lesson, with my arms aching from holding up the thread, my fingers greasy and covered in blisters, I’d created no more than an arm’s length of unusable thread. I feared Freydis might toss me overboard right then. Strangely, she merely smiled. “I suppose you hunt better than you spin. I saw you throw that spear. You almost struck Ingharr.”

  She rose to her feet and deftly started her own whorl spinning. “Tomorrow we’ll work more.” She gestured toward my spindle, miming the action so I could understand. “Keep practicing.”

  She left to walk the ship, her spindle swaying before her while she checked on her small flock of sheep. Muirenn stayed beside me, one eye on my work and one on her own. Her gnarled fingers flew as she spun a thin, strong thread. Snorri sat stiffly nearby, leaning against the ship’s side with his spear. He was no sailor; guard duty at least gave him a purpose. Occasionally he spoke with Bjarni, a blond, burly young bowman tasked with watching the shore for attack. Otherwise, Snorri usually kept to himself. When Freydis left, I noticed him reach tentatively for his throat. Muirenn noticed, too.

  “Don’t worry, my boy,” she whispered. “The mistress can’t know what you don’t tell her.”

  Snorri blushed furiously. “I don’t know what you’re…”

  “I’m too old for secrets, child.”

  “Do you think she…”

  Muirenn chuckled softly and ran her fingers nonchalantly down her thread, checking its smoothness through touch rather than sight. “Don’t worry. Freydis barely knows your name.”

  “You won’t tell her, will you?”

  “What purpose would that serve? I may be an old thrall, and you may be a young freeman, but we both know better than to make the mistress mad. You knew when you came aboard that your kind weren’t welcome here, and you came anyway. You’re a brave lad, or a foolish one. Be warned, Snorri Ulfarsson—Freydis Eriksdottir has eyes as sharp as an eagle’s. What’s around your neck should stay out of sight.”

  Intrigued and confused, I glanced back and forth between them, my spinning momentarily forgotten. Sure enough, the thread snarled wickedly around my dowel. My quick grunt of dismay attracted Muirenn’s attention; she turned to help me, her conversation with the boy seemingly forgotten. But I saw Snorri clutch at some object beneath his shirt.

  I watched him more closely after that. When he bent to retie my hands for the night, I glanced beneath the collar of his tunic. “Sorry, skraeling,” he muttered, tying the ropes as loosely as he might to afford me some comfort.

  He was soon asleep, but I lay awake, unable to forget the hidden pendant I’d seen a
round his neck: a small cross with four arms of equal length. From Brandr’s descriptions, I recognized the carven figure of a man with arms outstretched upon the wood. The Christ.

  I tried to sleep, matching my breathing to Snorri’s, but my mind spun like the whorl, faster and faster until my fears for the future became a tangled nest, then lurched in the opposite direction, unfurling into the past—then knotting once more. I plucked at my blankets with my bound hands, trying in vain to wrap the coverings more tightly around me. I longed for White Paw’s warm flank against my back. As I finally drifted in and out of a restless sleep, I was plagued with vague nightmares of drowning and death—usually my own, sometimes Kiasik’s. Brandr appeared only as a dim figure on the periphery, unable to help me, unable to hear my burbling screams.

  Right before I awoke in the weak dawn light, a thin, black-haired man staggered through my dream. He walked across empty, pale sand that glared as bright as snow in a relentless summer Sun. A wreath of thorns drew trickles of blood across his brown forehead.

  An instant later, I saw him pinned to a cross of wood. He hung there, his life leaking out through the bloody holes in his hands and his side. Yet all the while, he smiled softly.

  As if he knew something that his tormentors did not.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  As the days passed, I succeeded in transforming myself into something resembling a Norsewoman. But inside, I resented the ever-present spindles that branded me a woman as surely as my ulu had. My manhood, so carefully cherished through my long sojourn with Brandr, was stripped away once more.

  Still, my plan was working. Snorri and Muirenn still kept a watchful eye on me when I walked along the ship’s deck, but they no longer bound my hands when I slept. I listened as I walked; I peered into every corner of the ship. No sign of Kiasik. But I’d heard the men speak of a second boat—the larger knarr stolen from Finnbogi the Icelander. Somewhere behind us, it followed our course north. I had to believe my milk-brother was on board. It was all that kept me going.