Wolfskin

by Juliet Marillier

  There was no more hunting that summer. Eyvind spent the rest of the season flat on his back in bed, the broken leg held up by a strong hempen rope, which the bonesetter had passed over a high beam; from the rope’s other end hung a heavy stone like a roofweight, which dangled in the air beyond the foot of the bed, stretching the limb straight. Eyvind’s skin itched and his leg ached and he could not sleep, and the days seemed endless. As the season passed with infinite slowness, he begged the gods that the limb would mend straight, and that he would be strong again. A man who could not run or march or stand fast on the deck of a longship in stormy seas could never be Thor’s warrior. A lame man could not be a Wolfskin. So he lay quiet and prayed, and let Somerled try to teach him board games, and recite to him passages of law and wickedly clever verses he had made up about everyone in the household, and at length the summer was over. The weight was removed, and the bonesetter pronounced himself well pleased. The limb had mended straight and clean. Karl presented Eyvind with a fine walking stick fashioned from oak, but Eyvind did not use it. The sooner his leg learned to do its job again, he reasoned, the sooner he might be ready for Thor’s trial.

  Ulf sent an escort to bring his young brother back to court. Ingi had been furious with the two boys, saying no more expeditions up there until they were at least sixteen. Now she kissed Somerled on both cheeks, and Karl shook his hand. As for Eyvind, he felt somewhere inside him a change that was bigger, deeper, more monumental than any that had ever occurred in his life. When he had made his vow to Somerled, he had done so because the boy was lonely and sad, and it had seemed to Eyvind that everyone in the world deserved at least one friend whom they could depend on. He still believed that, but over the summer of lying on his bed, while Somerled, with infinite patience, sat by his side devising one small entertainment after another to while away the tedious time of healing, Eyvind had come to realize the bond between them was far more than simple friendship. It was no lightly made promise, to be discarded or forgotten once the season was over. It was deep and binding, solemn and lifelong: an oath between men, the men they would someday become.

  Another year, they went up to the shieling, the summer pasture high in the hills, where small huts allowed a lucky few to stay the season out, tending the herds and flocks. There were six boys and three girls, with a couple of shepherds and Oksana the thrall-woman, her small fair children in tow. Some guarded the animals they had driven up the hillside, and some milked sheep and cows and made cheese and sweet butter. Eyvind’s job was to provide a steady supply of game for the pot. Long hours out of doors give folk hearty appetites. Ingi had warned them that summers at the shieling were no holiday. All must do their share.

  The days were indeed full of hard work, but it was a good time. The weather stayed fine; they found time to swim in the stream, and they made a rope swing, and ate their supper out of doors under the pale sky of long summer evenings. Winter-white skin turned golden brown under the sun’s warm touch. Sigurd put flowers in Ragna’s fair hair, and she blushed a delicate pink and did not scold him at all. Oksana kept her babe close by her, watched over by one of the girls, but the other children rode here and there on the shoulders of obliging lads, and learned to catch a ball, and fell asleep the instant they’d finished their supper. It was a happy time.

  There were two huts on the mountainside, one for the girls and one for the boys. The boys’ hut was bigger, with a central hearth for cooking. The shepherds slept here by the fire, with the lads at either end of the hut on shelf beds built against the walls. The place had not the privacy of Ingi’s longhouse, where wooden partitions divided the sleeping areas. Oksana supervised the girls’ hut. This was not so surprising, although she was a thrall, for it was known that Ingi had given her the chance to earn her freedom. This summer’s responsibility was part of that. Ingi had made it quite clear to them, before they left home, that the girls’ hut was out of bounds to the boys. Anyone who broke that rule would never be allowed up to the shieling again. Eyvind was surprised his mother thought it necessary to warn them thus. Surely it was the sort of rule people understood without being told.

  They talked about it one night, lying on their shelf beds: Eyvind and Somerled and the two other lads who slept at the south end, Ranulf and Knut.

  “Which one do you think’s best?” Knut asked in an undertone. “Halla or Thorgerd?”

  Nobody answered; it was late, and they were tired.

  “I think Thorgerd,” Knut said. “I like the way she walks. And her laugh.” In conversations of this kind, nobody ever mentioned Ragna, who was without doubt the prettiest of the three girls. She might be only thirteen, but Sigurd had established a sort of unspoken ownership, which all understood well. And Sigurd slept not so very far away at the other end of the hut.

  “Bet I’ve seen something you haven’t seen,” Ranulf whispered to Knut.

  “Bet you haven’t. What?”

  Ranulf whispered again. Knut snorted in disbelief.

  “Shut up, will you?” said Eyvind. “Some of us want to get to sleep.”

  “What have you seen?” Somerled’s crisp voice challenged.

  “I’ve seen Halla with her gown down to her waist; I’ve seen a pair of rosy apples that’d be sweet to taste. The girls leave their candle burning when they undress. You can see right in through the window at the back; there’s a crack in the shutters.”

  There was a brief silence. Eyvind knew he should say something; there was no doubt what his mother would think of such talk. But his mind was showing him an image of glossy-haired Halla, brown locks drifting over pale skin in the flickering candlelight, and the involuntary stirring of his body silenced him.

  “That’s nothing,” said Somerled.

  “What do you mean?” Knut hissed.

  There was another silence.

  “Never had a girl, did you?” Somerled asked casually.

  Eyvind’s jaw dropped. The others stared round-eyed. Then Ranulf found his voice.

  “You mean…? Don’t be stupid, Somerled. Of course we haven’t, and I bet you haven’t either.”

  “Ah,” said Somerled. “But I’m not a farm boy, am I? Things are rather different at court. Don’t believe me? I’ll tell you all about it, if you want.”

  One of the shepherds rolled over in his sleep, muttering something about keeping quiet or he’d give them what for.

  “Go on, then,” whispered Knut, edging closer. And Somerled did, in considerable detail. By the end of it, Eyvind was feeling very uncomfortable in more ways than one. There was the hardening of his body, something that did happen to him sometimes, now he had passed his fourteenth birthday. There was a thing you could do to make that go away, but he could hardly do it now, with the rest of them there. And he felt a growing unease, for although Somerled’s tale had the ring of truth, there was a wrongness about it that troubled him.

  “Somerled?” he whispered, when it seemed the account was finished.

  “Mmm?”

  “What if the girl went and told her family? What if you got her with child? There would be compensation to pay. That sort of thing can be the start of a blood feud if you’re not careful.”

  “Oh, dear, Eyvind. So serious. It doesn’t take much to secure a girl’s silence, believe me. I cover my tracks very well. You should know that. After all, it was you who taught me about hunting.”

  Eyvind lay thinking. In a way, he was impressed. It did appear Somerled had done what none of them expected to try before they were fifteen at least. But Somerled’s account had troubled him.

  “Somerled?” he murmured. The others seemed to have fallen asleep.

  “Mmm?”

  “The way you said it, about the girl struggling and—well, it sounded as if she didn’t want to…to…you know.”

  “So?”

  “Then you did something wrong.”

  Somerled gave a weary sigh. “If a fellow held back because of that, the race of mankind would come to an end, Eyvind. It’s a fact of life.”r />
  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll learn in time. Women aren’t made like men. They simply don’t enjoy it, not the way we do. They only submit because they’ve got no choice.”

  “But—”

  “But what, Eyvind?” Somerled was starting to sound a little testy.

  “What you said—that doesn’t make it all right to force a girl. To do that is…it is lacking in honor.”

  “Odin’s bones, Eyvind, where do you think you’re living, in some hero tale? That’s not the way life is in the real world, my friend. It’s high time you traveled beyond the farm and broadened your horizons a little.”

  “What you did was wrong,” Eyvind said doggedly. The more he thought about Somerled’s tale, the more it worried him.

  “I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it if I were you,” Somerled advised, his voice a murmur in the strange, cold light of the summer night. “I’m sure Eirik doesn’t.”

  The next day, Eyvind offered to check and mend the shutters on both the huts, part of the summer maintenance of the buildings, and Knut and Ranulf called him a spoilsport, but he did the work anyway. That night he moved down the other end where Sigurd and Sam slept, and Somerled narrowed his eyes at him but said nothing.

  Somerled was supposed to help with hunting, but he had wrenched his ankle and was confined to camp until it mended. Eyvind was pleased to be on his own, and took to spending all day away, returning with his spoils only in time for meat to be prepared for the pot. That way he could put his skills to the test, stretching his body, challenging his senses, listening, in the silence of the forest, for the voice of Thor whispering in his ear, Be strong, be ready, so you can endure the trial.

  One evening when he came back, Oksana seemed edgy and cross, and Ragna was absent from supper; she was sick, and abed early, the other girls said. The next day, the three girls were very quiet at breakfast. Halla chewed her lip, and Thorgerd would not look up from her platter. Ragna sat between them like a pale ghost, her blue eyes ringed with dark shadows. Oksana was grim and silent, ladling the porridge. When Eyvind came home at the end of the day under a rosy sky, with a hare and three rabbits slung over his shoulder, the first person he saw was redheaded Sigurd, chopping wood for the fire. Only Sigurd was not chopping, exactly; he halved the log with a single savage blow, and quartered it, and then instead of throwing the pieces on the wood pile and starting another, he smashed the axe into the chopping block, and wrenched it out, and smashed it in again, and Eyvind could see that his amiable, broad face was blotched, and his eyes wet with furious tears.

  “Sigurd?”

  He had to say it three times before the other boy heard him.

  “What’s wrong? The way you’re going, there’ll be nothing but splinters to put on the hearth. What’s happened?”

  Sigurd scrubbed a hand across his face and turned away. “Nothing,” he growled.

  “It’s not nothing,” Eyvind insisted. “What are you so angry about? What’s happened?”

  “I’m not the one you should ask,” snapped Sigurd. Then he seized another log and began to swing the axe again with such ferocity that Eyvind was forced to retreat to avoid injury.

  When he came up to the huts, he saw that there were horses there, and the other boys were sitting on the rocks outside, quite silent. There was no sign of Oksana or the children, or of the girls. A moment later his brother, Karl, appeared in the doorway, his expression very grim indeed. Karl was armed with sword and axe; his shoulders were set squarely and his voice cut like a well-honed blade. “Eyvind, come inside.”

  He faced Karl across the space of the hut, both standing.

  “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” The strangeness of it all had Eyvind on edge. “Is Mother all right? Are we under some threat? What is it, Karl?”

  “Be quiet.” His brother was calm and stern; even so did he look when arbitrating in disputes at the Thing—that great assembly where matters of law were decided—or settling arguments among his workers. Eyvind fell silent.

  “I’ve spoken to all the boys; you’re the last. Now I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re to answer them truthfully.”

  “Of course.”

  “Very well then, Eyvind. There are rules for behavior up here, and you all understand them, I know. I want you to tell me if you’re aware of any of the lads breaking these rules while you’ve been up here.”

  Eyvind shook his head.

  “Speak up,” said Karl.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Can you speak thus for yourself? Have you conducted yourself as you should at all times?”

  Eyvind felt a twinge of anger. “Of course I have!”

  “I accept your word,” said Karl gravely. “I did not doubt you. But this must be fair in all respects. What I ask the others, I must also ask you. In fact, you are already cleared of any suspicion, for I have several accounts that you spent all day away hunting yesterday, and could not have been involved in what has occurred. The quarry you brought back last night proved that. Now tell me. Has there been any talk among these lads of—any talk that might suggest someone was thinking of mischief, of breaking the rules in some way?”

  Eyvind swallowed. “It would help,” he ventured, “if you could tell me what has happened. Has someone been hurt? Insulted? Where are the girls?”

  Karl’s mouth tightened. “Oksana has taken the girls home. No more need be said. Now answer the question, Eyvind. If you know anything, you should tell me.”

  “No,” Eyvind said. “I don’t believe anyone would break the rules. Sometimes, at night, we do talk about…about girls, and that sort of thing—but all the lads want to stay up here; they wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything that would get them in trouble.” He remembered Sigurd, and the fury of those axe strokes. “Karl?”

  “It’s not a matter for public airing. I’ve given these lads instructions not to talk about it. Tell me, have you seen any strangers here these last few days, any men who do not belong on our land? Perhaps when you were out hunting? Think carefully, Eyvind.”

  “Nobody. You know as well as I do, we’re the only ones who hunt up here. I wish you would tell me—”

  “That would serve no purpose. As I said, you boys are not to discuss this. Now, you’d best bring in what you’ve caught for the day and make up the fire, for we still have to eat. I have not got to the bottom of this, for you all tell the same tale of innocence, and there’s not a shred of evidence. I don’t like it; but I’ve enough work on the farms, and cannot take more time now to delve further for the truth. Call the other lads in, do what you can for supper.”

  “Are the girls coming back?” Eyvind ventured.

  There was a brief silence.

  “No,” said Karl heavily. “We’ll send a couple of women up to do the milking and prepare the cheeses. You’ll have a particular job here, Eyvind, one you’re well suited to, and that’s keeping your friends out of trouble. Some of us will come up before harvest and help you bring the stock down. Perhaps this matter is best left to sort itself out.”

  They all had an idea what had happened. But as to who had done it, that remained a mystery. The boys obeyed Karl’s orders; nobody put the thing into words. Without evidence there is no crime. No man accuses another without witnesses and without proof, for such a charge cannot stand when it is brought before worthy men for consideration. Indeed, if one tried to bring such a charge, one might well attract talk of vexatious litigation. You didn’t have to be a law speaker to know that. But the matter that was unspoken hung heavy among them. It was in Sigurd’s sudden, violent rages, and in Eyvind’s dark dreams. It was in Somerled’s crooked smiles and narrowed eyes, and it was there every evening when they sat by the fire and felt the absence of the girls, of shapely Halla and giggling Thorgerd and sweet, blushing Ragna with her hair like ripe corn. One day Eyvind found Sigurd with his hands around Somerled’s neck, and the other boy backed against a tree trunk, purple-faced and gasping. Eyvind wrenched them
apart, gripping the wild-eyed Sigurd by the arms, forcing him away.

  “In Thor’s name, what do you think you’re doing? You could have killed him!”

  “I’m all right,” Somerled croaked, fingers gingerly exploring the red collar of bruising on the pale skin of his throat. “Leave it, will you?”

  “Leave it? How can I leave it? What if he tries it again? Sigurd, I don’t know what’s come over you. Now come on, walk with me to the hut and tell me what the trouble is. And promise me you’ll leave Somerled alone. He’s no warrior, and he’s a guest here. Besides, you’re twice his size.”

  Sigurd spat in the dirt at Somerled’s feet.

  “If you’ve got something to say, best say it plainly.” Eyvind kept his voice calm.

  “Huh!” Sigurd snarled. “Blood brothers, aren’t you? You’ll always be blind to what he is.”

  After that, Eyvind’s misgivings began to plague him so badly that he broke his brother’s orders and asked Somerled outright, one morning when the two of them were alone together.

  “About Ragna, what was done to her—was it you?” The question was bald; there was no other way to ask such a thing.

  Somerled’s brows shot up in astonishment. “Me? Hardly. Why would a fellow mess about with children when he could have a real woman? The idea’s laughable.”

  Eyvind did not like his friend’s manner, but he accepted his words as truth, and slept a little more easily. Somerled would not lie to him. The oath they had sworn in blood made that impossible.

  Sigurd grew more and more aloof as the summer drew to its close. He ceased to help with the sheep, and seemed instead to be practicing axe hurling and spear throws, and sharpening knives. For a boy who had never wanted to be other than a housecarl like his father, this was surprising behavior. Eyvind suggested if he felt the need to strangle somebody, he might try it on him, since a Wolfskin could never have too much combat practice.