by Ines Thorn
“The sun shields against the clouds;
Its shining rays, piercing,
Destroy the icy shroud.”
Jordis’s brow creased with doubt.
“What were you thinking of when you chose it?” Etta asked.
“Arjen,” Jordis admitted. “I’m always thinking of him. Day and night.”
“He betrayed you,” Etta replied. “When you needed him most, he betrayed you.”
Jordis didn’t answer, just lowered her eyes and kept spinning. Deep inside she knew Arjen hadn’t done it of his own free will. No, she never could have been so wrong about him. But she didn’t know why he had spurned her, and she didn’t know anything about Arjen and Inga’s marriage because no one in the village spoke to her anymore.
Etta patted her on the shoulder. “The sun rune, Jordis. That means everything will be all right. You must only be patient.”
Jordis nodded, but for the first time in her life, she didn’t believe her grandmother. How could anything be right if Arjen wasn’t by her side? Without Arjen, life couldn’t be good at all.
“I’m hungry.” Arjen came through the door, kicked his boots off into a corner, and sat down at the table. Inga stood by the stove, stirring a pot.
“I made mutton stew,” she said. “There’s fresh bread to go with it.”
Arjen didn’t reply. He stared at the table until Inga put the bowl down in front of him. Then he took the spoon and ate without looking once at his wife.
“Do you like it?” she asked kindly, but somewhat fearfully.
Arjen didn’t answer.
“I baked bread today. Three loaves. Two for us and one for my father. I was at the parsonage, he’s doing well. And you? How was your day?”
Arjen remained silent.
Inga sighed. “Would you like some grog?”
Arjen nodded but still didn’t look at her.
Inga filled his cup with the warm liquid and put it in front of him on the table. He pushed away the bowl, reached for the cup, and drank in long drafts until it was empty. Then he stood, washed his hands and face, undressed, and lay down in the box bed. Inga waited until he’d closed the doors, and then she washed herself too, brushed her hair, and put on a lace-trimmed nightshirt she’d received as a wedding gift. She opened the door to the bed and lay down beside her husband. She could smell his scent, and his long hair tickled her shoulder. She heard his shallow breathing and knew he wasn’t asleep. She put a hand on his arm and stroked his bare skin. She longed for him, but he didn’t react. He’d slept with her only once, on their wedding night, because Inga had made it a condition to consummate the marriage. It was a fast, coarse, and humiliating experience. He didn’t look her in the eyes, penetrated her briefly, and pulled back before he spilled his seed. Then he leapt up and washed himself as though she had covered him in filth, returned, and held out his hand. “The rune.”
Inga tried to play for time. “You haven’t even kissed me. And you didn’t dance with me at the wedding either.”
“The rune! Now!”
“Why should I give it to you? Why should I keep my word, when you haven’t kept yours? We are man and wife. You swore before God to love and respect me.”
Arjen gave a short, ironic snort of laughter. “I swore nothing. You know that! Now give me the rune.”
Inga got up to fetch the stone and pressed it into his hand. “Shall we start over? Now’s a good time for it, since we’ve finished our business.”
Arjen laughed scornfully. Then he disappeared into his workshop, spread a few sacks on the floor, and lay down to sleep. Inga shed a few tears and thought about Arjen’s words before the wedding. “Don’t think for a moment I will ever be able to love you,” he had said.
Now she lay beside him and stroked his arm and back, while he remained unresponsive. She leaned over him and kissed him gently on the cheek. He moved his hand defensively and almost struck her in the face. It felt like a slap, though there had been no physical contact.
“Lie with me,” she begged him. “Please, I want a child.”
Arjen rolled over and glared at her, his eyes filled with loathing. “You want a child?” He shook his head. “You will never have a child of mine. That I can promise you.”
CHAPTER 14
In just a few weeks Inga became dissatisfied. It was no longer enough to have married Arjen. She could sense he wasn’t truly hers. She had less of him than ever, and someone was responsible for that. Had she not done everything a wife should do? Had she not kept the house tidy, made sure that the laundry was clean, the floors shined, and good food was on the table? Did she not ask him to talk about his day? Was she not ready in his bed every night for the things a man should do with his wife in the dark? Inga was sure she had done nothing wrong. True, Arjen had loved another, but had she not proven to him over the last three months that she could be a good wife? There could be only one reason it wasn’t working: there must be a curse on her marriage. Jordis must have hexed her. Jordis and Etta. Even though Inga believed in one God, she knew that the old gods lost their power only if their emissaries on earth were rendered harmless. And their emissaries were Etta and Jordis.
Inga was doing laundry. She filled the wooden tub with hot water, added soap flakes, and removed one piece of clothing after another from the soak. She scrubbed each piece with a brush and rubbed it over the hard washboard. Her back was sore from hunching over, but she had plenty of time to think. How could she stop Jordis? Jordis had once been her friend and now was her enemy. It was Jordis’s fault that Arjen rejected her. So she had to be gotten rid of. But how? Inga took one of Arjen’s nightshirts from a pile on the ground and tossed it into the water, then squeezed and wrung it until the seams creaked. She handled it roughly while she thought about Jordis, scrubbing and beating it until soapsuds flew.
It was the end of February. Clouds hung low and gray over the island. The day before, a little snow had fallen, which now covered the landscape in a fine, clean white layer. The air smelled of beech smoke and burnt sheep dung, and despite the cold, there was laundry hanging outside in the yards of other houses. The next evening was the Biikebrennen, and the day after that was the council meeting. The council would hear Jordis’s case. The council would put an end to Jordis’s power. The age of witch burning was past, but Inga still dreamed that Jordis would be burned and her ashes strewn to the four winds. Until recently, it would have been enough for her if Jordis had been banned from the island, but now she realized that her adversary’s hold on Arjen hadn’t been broken. But he probably wouldn’t think of her if he didn’t see her every day. First, Jordis had to be tried before the council. Inga tossed her husband’s nightshirt back into the dirty water. She pushed her hair back with her forearm, dried her hands on her skirts, and went inside.
Arjen was in the smithy, and Inga was alone in the house. She needed to find the rune stone she’d given Arjen on their wedding night. Arjen had hidden it somewhere. She had to find it if she wanted Jordis to be tried before the council. She searched through cupboards and drawers, dug in trunks and boxes, and even shook out the quilts and pillows, but she couldn’t find it. She looked inside the grandfather clock, searched the pockets of Arjen’s oilskins, reached into every shoe and every pocket, but the rune was nowhere to be found. Inga collapsed onto the kitchen bench and looked around. This kitchen in Arjen’s house was exactly as she’d always imagined her kitchen would be. The walls were covered in blue-and-white delft tiles, and the wooden floor was decorated with colorful rag rugs. The kitchen bench was covered with pillows made of sturdy linen. Spotlessly clean sheets lay tidily folded in a cupboard. Over the fireplace hung several cast-iron pots and pans, and there were two large tin lanterns on the table. There was a set of well-sharpened knives in a wooden block, and in a cupboard next to them were plenty of forks, spoons, ladles, and skewers. Next to the fireplace were two baskets filled with beech wood logs, and the cupboards were so well filled that she’d never seen anything like them in her life. Sh
e slept on a feather bed stuffed with goose down that kept her warm even on the coldest winter nights. The larder wasn’t overflowing but was well stocked. On a shelf stood half a dozen sacks filled with lentils, beans, and barley. A little barrel of sauerkraut stood on the floor below it, and beside that hung a few smoked herring.
The whalers who had returned that autumn to spend the winter on the island had bought many harpoons from Arjen, as well as plumb lines, locks, and latches for their sea chests. Arjen and Inga had plenty of money. They weren’t rich, but it was enough to be comfortable. Sailors’ families had come through the winter well enough despite the devastation caused by the autumn storms. Everyone else was surviving meagerly, and some of the more fortunate villagers had brought the poor small bundles of firewood, pots of lard, or loaves of bread. Nevertheless, some of the poor now lay buried in the graveyard. Inga, too, had given charitable gifts and had even brought a few things to her father.
Jordis was among the poor, but still she had brought healing potions and herbal infusions to those who were ill. She wasn’t received gladly in the village, but people forgot so quickly. Inga sighed out loud. Hardly anyone mentioned the cross that had fallen in the church anymore, and barely anyone remembered who had caused that storm to rage on the island that autumn. When Inga had occasionally tried to shift the conversation to those events, at the store or when she spoke with other women in Rantum, several of them had dismissed her. The day before yesterday, one woman had even told her to leave Etta and Jordis alone.
Inga had gone to her father. She’d told him about her marriage and that Arjen was refusing to do his part to fulfill the duty of a married couple to produce children. Her father listened impassively. Even when Inga broke into tears, he offered her no comfort. “Jordis and Etta have been banished,” he said after a long silence. “Witches need someone to hex, and that hasn’t happened. They are leaving the villagers alone. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t still a thorn in my side, though. I, too, would be glad if they disappeared.”
“They put a curse on Arjen. Isn’t that enough?” Inga asked.
The pastor laughed unkindly. “Do you want the whole world to know that your husband won’t touch you? Do you want the men in the tavern to joke about you? To see the smirks of other women when they pass you?”
Inga swallowed and shook her head.
“You know yourself that you’re no beauty. And you know, too, how your marriage came to be. The villagers aren’t stupid. They don’t know anything for sure, but they suspect it. It doesn’t make you any more liked.”
Inga grimaced painfully, swallowed again, and buried her face in her hands. But her father didn’t take pity on her. “Compare yourself to Jordis. She is tall, slender, and well formed. She is cheerful and gentle in character. And you? You’re short and heavyset. Your hair looks like wood shavings. You have neither grace nor charm, and you can’t even offer your husband a pleasant disposition.”
Inga knew all of that, but it still hurt to hear it from someone else, especially her father. “But what can I do?” she whimpered desperately.
“Starting gossip won’t solve your problems. You need proof that they are still casting spells, serving the Norse gods, and consulting the oracle. But this isn’t the first time I’ve told you this.”
Inga looked up, her face streaming with tears, her eyes red. She looked so pitiful that her father turned away. “I had proof,” she said, and there was a little hope in her voice. “I found a rune stone. But Arjen insisted that I give it to him on our wedding night.”
“And you gave it to him, you foolish ninny?” The pastor grunted.
“Yes. After we consummated our marriage. He demanded it.” Inga wrung her hands. “What else could I do?”
“What did he do with it?”
Inga shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.”
“Then I can’t help you. The governor isn’t stupid. If I come to him with accusations of witchcraft, he’ll want proof.”
Then Inga went back home. Arjen was already there, sitting silently at the table, waiting for his dinner. But she didn’t rush to do his bidding the way she usually did.
“Arjen, must we live this way forever?” Her voice trembled as she spoke.
Arjen remained silent.
“I love you,” she said. “Every moment you punish me with your disdain stabs at the center of my heart. I am withering before your eyes. You can’t treat me this way forever.”
Arjen didn’t answer.
“Can’t we try to have a normal marriage? I want a child. I want one so much. Make a child for me, and I will leave you in peace. And then you can be certain Jordis won’t come to harm either. If you want, after that I’ll even stop sleeping beside you. Let me have a child. A son. Your son.”
Arjen broke his silence, gazing dispassionately at his wife. “Leave Jordis out of your games,” he said slowly and clearly. When he looked briefly into her eyes, Inga realized that Arjen no longer hated her, but she mattered less to him than a fly on the wall. She would get no child from him. Even now, other women were glancing curiously at her stomach.
“When?” they would ask, their heads tilted. Inga knew exactly what the one-syllable question meant. So far, she had always shaken her head and gazed at the ground.
“Don’t worry, it will happen soon enough,” one had said.
Another had asked, “Are you ready for him every night? You must be, at the beginning of your marriage, you know.” Inga had nodded.
“Perhaps Jordis hexed me because I married the man she was betrothed to.”
But the other woman had only raised her eyebrows. “If she had such powers, why didn’t she just stop the wedding?”
Inga had to admit it was a good point. But for her it was a worse punishment to live with a man whom she loved without ever having his heart.
Now she searched the house. She tapped every single floorboard in the hopes of finding a loose one. She knocked on the walls, searched every nook and cranny, every box, every bag. But she found nothing. So she went to the workshop. She stood waiting in the door, watching her husband, who was sitting at a table with his back to the door, drawing something with a goose-feather quill. In front of him was a strange triangular-shaped device. He was working intently, his head bowed, and Inga was overcome by such longing for him that she could barely stand it.
Finally, he noticed her. He lowered his quill and covered the paper with his arms. He didn’t say a word, just looked at her.
“What did you do with the rune?” she asked.
Arjen didn’t answer, just dipped his quill in the ink bottle and returned to drawing.
She approached him and tore the quill from his hand. Her eyes glowed, not with passion, but with desperation. “Where is the rune?”
Arjen pushed her away. Not roughly, but firmly enough that she had to step backward. “What rune?” he said calmly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
All at once, Inga realized that the rune truly didn’t exist anymore, and so there was no proof that Jordis was a witch. She left the smithy, walking back to the house with her head hanging. But then she had an idea. An idea that could save her.
That evening she was at her father’s door again. “I have what you want. I have the proof.” She opened a small white handkerchief and pulled out a poorly carved rune stone colored with dried blood. Her left thumb had a tiny fresh cut in it.
Her father frowned and pointed at her bandaged digit. “You made it yourself. You’re stupider than I believed.”
Inga shook her head. “No, I’m not stupid. I know myself that this rune isn’t perfect. But to prove it doesn’t belong to them, Jordis and Etta would have to show their own runes. They won’t do that. So it doesn’t matter what it looks like.”
The pastor looked into his daughter’s eyes. “Maybe you’re not so stupid after all. Give it to me.”
Inga held it out to him, and her father put it in his pocket. “Go now,” he said. “I have things to do.”
CHAPTER 15
The village boys knocked on every door to collect fuel for the Biikebrennen bonfire. Their laughter and cries penetrated the thickest walls. Etta was sorting supplies in the larder. “We don’t have much left,” she said to Jordis, who was carding wool. “It’s time you went to the beach again one night.” She smiled as she said it, but her granddaughter didn’t react. She hadn’t been beachcombing for a long time. Not since Arjen had asked for her hand in marriage. She had thought she’d have to prove she was worthy of him. If she’d married him, she wouldn’t have had to rely on beachcombing, because Arjen would have provided for her and Etta. But how could two women survive on the island alone? They couldn’t fish like the men. They owned only two sheep and a few chickens. They still had their nice home and some beautiful things because Jordis’s father had been a whaling captain, but he’d died a long time ago, and it was harder and harder for them to support themselves. In the spring, Jordis collected seagull eggs in the salt marshes, and in the autumn she picked sea buckthorn berries, but what could they live on in winter, if not beachcombing? There were several other poor widows in Rantum, but they were cared for by their families. Jordis and Etta had no family on the island. What else could they do? How would they survive if they didn’t gather what they needed from winter shipwrecks?
When Arjen had broken their betrothal, the sorrow hadn’t just eaten at Jordis’s soul, but also taken away her courage and drive. Since then, she’d done only what was absolutely necessary for survival. Her grandmother was right; she had to go back to the beach. Maybe even that night. It was the night of the Biikebrennen, and the whole village would be out dancing at the fire. No one would miss Jordis. Tonight was a good opportunity. The day before yesterday, a large ship had run aground on the rocks. Yesterday, the storm had still been too strong to get to the wreck. But she would try tonight because the wind and waves had lessened.