The Fjord of Evil Winds
Page 4
He built up the fire with more roots, glancing at the sack with the Danish man’s words, as he warmed his hands. The gash was almost stitched but not sealed. The hole was plugged but not whole. But the words were important. They had value, and a mischief about them that made Taatsiaq want to get rid of them as quickly as possible. But nor did he want to leave them behind. Magic, such as that, must never be untended. Like a tupilaq cast into the sea to work its mischief, it could fall into the wrong hands. It could be turned against the bearer. No, Taatsiaq thought, it was better to carry the manuscript to the ship, to give it to the people that could understand it, but the idea of a tupilaq gave Taatsiaq an idea.
He collected the bird skull from the beach, wrapping it in dried grasses, tying it with fresh thin roots tugged out of the scant earth. He fashioned a figure with broken roots for arms, a bird skull for a head, and a flat twig that he slipped between the roots tied around the grass the tupilaq wore as clothes. The stick was Taatsiaq’s paddle, and he smiled at the likeness. He had never seen the shaman bind a tupilaq, but he knew it must contain powerful magic – magic with meaning, if it was to protect him.
Taatsiaq looked to the sea as he thought about what magic he might seal inside the root, grass and bone figure in his hands. He glanced at the sealskin sack, placed the figure beside the fire and tugged the manuscript onto the grass. He untied the cords, carefully, and tore a small piece of paper from the first page. He only needed a little magic, and the corner of the title page had a few scrawls of ink on it – not whole words, but enough to finish his tupilaq. Taatsiaq wet the paper on his tongue and rolled it into a soft ball. He sealed the ball of paper inside the empty bird cranium and sealed that with a thumb of ash and earth from beneath the boulder. Taatsiaq wrapped the manuscript inside the three sealskins, tied it tightly and secured it inside the sealskin sack to the deck of the qajaq. Then he carried the tupilaq to the water’s edge.
Taatsiaq hoped the words sealed inside the skull of the tupilaq would be enough to satisfy the wind, for he had none of his own to add. He hoped too that the wind and the fjord would understand the message, that the tupilaq could treat with them and allow Taatsiaq safe passage. He cast the figure into the water, cinched his hood around his face, and carried his qajaq and paddle to the wind-wracked fjord.
The deck behind the cockpit bowed slightly with the weight of the manuscript, but it was a familiar weight. Taatsiaq slipped the blade of the paddle beneath the cords lashed across the deck in front of the cockpit. The paddle lay flat in the water, right-angled, rising and falling with the waves, and then pressing against the surface of the water as Taatsiaq slid onto the deck and then wormed his way into the qajaq. He fastened the ends of the skirt around the circle of wood, and then pulled the paddle free of the cords. Taatsiaq paddled towards the shore beyond the island.
The sea worked around the plug of sealskin. It seeped through the untreated stitches. Taatsiaq could feel the water chill his heels, his calves. When his toes started to freeze, he crashed through the first wave before the beach, slipped out of the qajaq and spluttered in the water as he carried his craft onto the shore. He built a fire, stamped his feet, clapped his hands, emptied the sea out of his qajaq and pushed a new plug of skin into the hole. He did this many times, as the light waned and the sun circled around the high peaks.
His ears, at least, remained warm, hidden inside his hood, sheltered from the wind’s bite and its shriek as it flattened grasses, swirled sand across the beaches, and foamed the sea into white scourges and creamy gobs of froth that clumped in the shelter of large rocks and small bays.
Those same winds, Taatsiaq hoped, would keep the last ship in harbour, so that these words might reach it. He could almost hear them, whispering and muttering in a strange language about strange things, about which Taatsiaq knew nothing, only that they were important, that they were valuable.
The tupilaq, for its part, had worked. The waves, though many, were smaller than before, and the wind, though strong was warmer. The light hair on Taatsiaq’s hands, almost invisible, lay flat on his skin. The wisps of his beard turned white with salt, as the wind dropped, and the sea slowed. Each dunking in the sea was easier, and the last three times before he spied the roof of the harbour building, had been almost dry, if he hadn’t slipped, if he hadn’t been so tired, if the patch had not needed stitching, and the sealskin cord had not been so difficult to trim.
When he recognised the roof for what it was, the wooden tiles and the masts beyond, Taatsiaq was too tired to smile, too tired to raise his head. He rolled his head to one side to measure his progress, frowning at the way the masts seemed to move further and further away, and yet the building was just there, right in front of him.
“Taatsiaq,” they called from the rocks in front of the harbour. “The ship is sailing.”
The children knew him and knew to look out for him. They might even have been given treats for the purpose, sugar cubes to suck at while they scanned the sea with the keen eyes and quick hearts of the young.
Taatsiaq lifted his head; it lolled onto his neck, rolling to one side, and then the other, as he stroked his paddle through the water. The breeze that blew offshore, the one that ruffled the sails of the ship as they unfurled, lifted the stern of Taatsiaq’s qajaq just a little before it pillowed the side of the sealskin sack and pressed against his back. Taatsiaq felt the push, the extra boost, and he straightened his back, he lifted his head. The children shouted for Taatsiaq. They shouted at the ship. The call was taken up by the fishermen and the hunters in the harbour, by the women flensing seals on the rocks, and by the dogs, some tethered, some loose, on the rocks just above the sea.
Now the town shouted, as the kajakpost drifted past the harbour entrance, and Taatsiaq worked magic into his muscles, with the thought of the words inside the manuscript at his back, and those pressed into the skull of the tupilaq he had offered to the sea.
The sails luffed, flapping as the captain of the ship steered to windward. Taatsiaq worked the paddle. He increased speed, knifing the daggered bow of the qajaq through the light waves separating him from the ship. He paddled on, encouraged by the shouts, whistles and howls at his back, and the face of the crewman that peered and pointed from the stern of the ship. The sheets were slackened, the sails idle as the captain ordered the crew to ready the ladder on the starboard side.
One of the crew, the same man who was first to see Taatsiaq, scrambled over the side; the last rung of the rope ladder had barely rattled the hull of the ship before he climbed down it. Taatsiaq paddled alongside. He grabbed the end of the ladder, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, slurring his words, as the crewman reached for the sealskin sack and unlashed it. The slim qajaq bobbed an inch or two higher as the crewman relieved Taatsiaq of his burden and carried Erichsen’s manuscript up the ladder and onto the ship.
The captain and crew stared at Taatsiaq as he drifted from the ship, the tanned skin of the qajaq was dark against the background of ice haunting the harbour. Taatsiaq slumped in the cockpit, as the last of his magic ebbed out of his body and beyond his reach. They sent an umiaq from Sukkertoppen, but he didn’t hear it. The women tugged him from the sea, but he didn’t feel it. Nor did he hear them slide his qajaq over the wooden gunwales or feel them slip his paddle beside his body as they rowed him to the shore. The foreign words were gone, and all that remained was the magic that had been and always will be Greenland.
The End
Acknowledgements
This story would never have happened without the support of Jurassic Poet Sarah Acton. Her words and approach to poetry have inspired me to think deeply about the words I use to describe Greenland, the people, the wildlife, and the environment.
I would also like to thank Christian Ringskou from Ringkøbing-Skjern Museum, for a private viewing of materials, maps, and not least the use of slides from the Danish Literary Expedition.
Chris
April 2020
Denmark
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I have written a lot of stories set in Scandinavia and the Arctic. Many of them are interconnected with characters making guest appearances across the different series.
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I look forward to telling you more about Greenland and the Arctic regions that I have fallen in love with.
Chris
About the Author
________________________________
Christoffer Petersen is the author’s pen name. He lives in Denmark. Chris started writing stories about Greenland while teaching in Qaanaaq, the largest village in the very north of Greenland – the population peaked at 600 during the two years he lived there. Chris spent a total of seven years in Greenland, teaching in remote communities and at the Police Academy in the capital of Nuuk.
Chris continues to be inspired by the vast icy wilderness of the Arctic and his books have a common setting in the region, with a Scandinavian influence. He has also watched enough Bourne movies to no longer be surprised by the plot, but not enough to get bored.
You can find Chris in Denmark or online here:
Christoffer Petersen
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The Fjord of Evil Winds
~ Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen ~
By Christoffer Petersen
Copyright © Christoffer Petersen, 2020
Cover Image © Ringkøbing-Skjern Museum, used with permission
AARLUUK PRESS
Christoffer Petersen has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events or organisations is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Christoffer Petersen
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