by Kris Tualla
A servant girl entered the room with a tray of cheeses and a pitcher of ale. Avery shooed her away and then served Jakob and Bergdis without trying to follow their quickly-spoken conversation. She caught enough words to be able to follow the gist of Jakob’s narrative and Bergdis’ questions, to know what the son was telling the mother.
Only when the story reached her handling of the ships, did their sentences slow and their gazes move to her.
“So now you are a merchant yourself?” Bergdis sounded impressed, though her expression evinced her doubts.
“Yes.” Avery’s tone held no apology. “I saved some dignity, and some hope, from the men who try to take all from me.”
Jakob grinned at her. “I cannot think of another woman who could think and act so quickly and be so correct in her decisions.”
Bergdis stared at her son. “So you married three weeks later, and then sailed immediately for Arendal?”
“We traveled immediately to London first,” Jakob corrected. “And after a few days we sailed to Arendal from there.”
“We are glad to arrive in time, Lady Hansen,” Avery offered.
Bergdis reached out a hand and laid it over Avery’s. Her skin was cool and dry. “Please, call me Bergdis. May I call you Avery?”
“Of course.” Avery flashed a quick smile. “Or daughter.”
Bergdis’ hand flew to her mouth, then moved to her throat. “May I? I have no daughters now and no hope for any more.”
“I would be honored, Bergdis.” Then Avery asked the question that Jakob had not yet voiced. “When will my husband be able to see his father?”
*****
Jakob could not decide whether to chastise Avery for asking the question, or fall to his knees and thank her. Both reactions held equal merit.
His mother rose slowly to her feet, rubbing her hands in a nervous response which he recognized with a shock of recollection.
“I do not suppose anything will be gained by postponing that moment.” Her eyes darted around the room as if searching for an excuse. “That is the reason you have come.”
Jakob stood and pulled one of his mother’s frantic hands from its nervous task and clasped it between his. He waited until she calmed herself somewhat and looked up at him, before he spoke.
“We came because you asked us to, Mamma,” he said gently. “We were not certain Father would still be alive, and even so, we both left our duties and traveled two months to see you.”
Something about his demeanor seemed to ease his mother. Jakob let go of her hands and reached for Avery’s. “Go on. We will follow right behind you.”
Jakob watched his mother’s back as she resolutely climbed the stone steps to the second floor. “How long has he been ill?”
Her answer tumbled back at him. “More than a year, I think. I was not sure for the first several months. Until his cough did not improve, no matter what we tried.”
Jakob felt Avery’s hand on his arm. Its warm, steady pressure seemed to anchor him as he imagined what his father used to look like—and prepared himself for what the man might look like now.
Even so, his dire preparations fell woefully short.
Fafnir Hansen was nothing more than a skin-covered skull topping a pile of blankets, which showed little evidence of a body beneath.
Jakob stared, watching for a sign of life. “How is he alive?”
Bergdis crossed the room where his father lay—the outer room of his parents’ apartment—and touched his forehead. “There is still warmth.”
Jakob stumbled forward and dropped to his knees beside the cot. “Is he aware of anything?”
“I cannot know. But I will tell you this.” She rested a trembling hand on Jakob’s shoulder. “When he took his worst turn, I finally told him that I wrote to you and asked you to come.”
Jakob did not take his eyes from his father, watching the man’s chest rise and fall in slow, miniscule breaths. “Was he angry?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “But I think he was angry with himself.”
Jakob looked up at his mother. “Why do you say that?”
Her brow twitched. “Because he has not yet died, though I cannot imagine how he survives.”
Avery knelt beside him. “Does she believe he willed himself to remain alive until you arrived?” she asked him in English.
Jakob translated the question for his mother.
Bergdis lifted one shoulder in a sad shrug. “Perhaps.”
“Talk to him, Jakob,” Avery urged. Her dark eyes met his in wide-eyed intensity. “Take ahold of his hand and say all of the things you need to say.”
Jakob felt his cheeks flush, and he glanced at his mother before returning his regard to his wife. “I don’t…”
“Say it in English. Or in Spanish. Your mother will not understand you.” She laid a hand on his thigh. “This is your chance to forgive him. He has waited for you.”
Jakob looked at his father’s paper-thin eyelids and sparse fringe of white lashes. All of the man’s veins were blue, as if his blood had already run cold. “I do not think he can hear me.”
Avery squeezed his thigh. “Does that matter?”
No. I do not suppose it does.
Jakob slid his hand under the blanket and linked his fingers between his father’s cold and bony ones. He spoke in a mixture of languages, saying the first word that came to his mind for each of the ideas he wanted to express.
“I am sorry, Pappa, but I had to leave. You were too stubborn to see what was best for your own sons, for Saxby and me. But I forgave you this, and I tried for years to make you understand that.”
Jakob glanced at his mother. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks as she stood rooted in her spot. The pressure of Avery’s warm hand on his injured thigh encouraged him to continue. He stared again at his father’s waxy face.
“And even though you never read my letters, Pappa, I want you to know that I always strove to make you proud. To bring you honor, as your son.”
Jakob sniffed and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “And I succeeded very well, Pappa. I succeeded very well. I only wish you could have shared my successes with me. This is my life’s single greatest regret.”
With a jolt, Jakob realized that was true; this regret was much deeper than Uma and the fire ever could be. And when her parents turned away from her, he now realized, their rejection mimicked his father’s rejection of him, and that was why it affected him so deeply.
But that other rejection ended with the death of their daughter. Their relationship could never, ever be restored, and that was a foundational component of his own pain and guilt.
Why had he not seen that?
Because I never understood the truth of my own loss until now.
Jakob lifted his father’s hand off the mattress and pulled it out from under the blankets. He pressed those chilled, knobby fingers against his lips and kissed them.
“I love you, Pappa,” he whispered in Norsk. “I always have, and I always will.”
Without warning, his father convulsed, his chest expanding in a sudden intake of air. A quick whoosh of expulsion was followed by a long, slow wheeze.
Fafnir Hansen did not breathe again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Neither Bergdis, Jakob, nor Avery moved. The only sound in the room was a chorus of wet sniffles, muted by either a sleeve, or crumpled squares of damp linen.
Bergdis crossed herself. “I do not know what you said to him, son. But it is clear to me that, whatever it was, he waited to hear it.”
Avery lifted teary eyes to Jakob’s mother. “I am sorry for your loss, Bergdis.”
The older woman wiped her eyes. “It is a blessing to see him finally go. He has been that miserable for these many months.”
Avery leaned forward and looked at Jakob’s wet, ruddy face. “Shall I leave you alone for a time?”
He closed his eyes and nodded.
Avery climbed to her feet and took Bergdis by the hand. “Do you need to prepare fo
r to bury?” she managed in Norsk.
Bergdis turned toward the doorway. “No, my dear. All the details have been arranged long ago. I only need to notify the priest.”
Avery glanced over her shoulder. “Did he have last rites?”
“Several times.” Bergdis led her into the hallway. “And unless he was still capable of having impure thoughts, he has not sinned since any of them.”
The women walked to the stairs and descended side-by-side. Avery felt a shift in her new mother-in-law’s mood. Her step was lighter and the lines which webbed her face moments ago were easing.
“I will send my man, Karsten, for the priest and the begravelsesbyrå,” Bergdis said as she led Avery toward the back of the house. “Would you care for more ale? Wine perhaps?”
“No, thank you. I am well. What is begravelsesbyrå?”
“The man who makes the casket and digs the grave.” Bergdis waved one hand. “The casket is waiting, of course, but the grave is not yet dug in the churchyard.”
Avery followed Bergdis into the kitchen and waited while she gave Karsten her instructions. Then the older woman lit a small lamp and faced Avery again.
Her mouth curved in a sad and wistful smile. “Come with me, Avery. I want to show you something.”
As Bergdis led her down a windowless passage on the ground floor, Avery noticed that once inside the manor the transition from the ninth-century tower to the fourteenth-century hall was not as disjointed as it was on the exterior.
Bergdis stopped outside an unusual door. Set deep into the wall, there were carvings around it depicting Christ and the Stations of the Cross. Bergdis turned the handle, the clank of its latch echoing down the hallway.
Beyond the door was a small chapel. The faintest smell of rot underlay the cold, damp odor of stone. Wooden benches sat in perpetual formation; faithful, waiting.
“You have a church,” Avery whispered.
Bergdis carried the lamp to the front of the little chapel and pointed at the gravestones set in the floor by the altar. “He built it.”
“Rydar Martin Petter-Edvard Hansen, born 1324, died 1401,” Avery read out loud.
“He came home from Greenland after the Black Death,” Bergdis explained. “No one from his family survived, so he reclaimed the land and reestablished the family.”
Avery read the inscription on the stone set alongside his. “Belovd Wyfe, Grier MacInnes Hansen, born 1328, Scotland, died 1401.”
Though the floor was paved with gravestones, these two were the oldest graves in the chapel.
“They had seven children, five that survived infancy.” Bergdis lifted the lamp and pointed to engraved stones along the outer wall. “Four sons and a daughter. They are all there, along with their wives.”
Avery gestured at the other engraved markers. “All are the Hansens who lived here after?”
“Yes. But as you can see, this is not a very large room. Now my husband’s family must either pave the hallway, or bury their dead in the churchyard.” Bergdis set the lamp on the carved marble altarpiece, stepped behind it, and squatted down. “But I thought this would be the perfect hiding place.”
Avery leaned over to watch as her mother-in-law reached inside the nook which would normally hold the Host and pulled out a wooden box. She looked up at Avery and smiled.
“Do you know what I have in here?”
Avery’s heart lurched. “Jakob’s letters?”
“Yes.” Bergdis handed the surprisingly heavy box to Avery before grasping the altar for support to regain her feet. “We shall take this to the great hall, where the light is good.”
Avery carried the box and followed Bergdis. The chapel door was closed and latched behind them before Bergdis dampened the lamp.
“Thank you, you show me this,” Avery said, pointing at the chapel door.
Bergdis waved one hand. “This house will never be Jakob’s, but he is a Hansen, and so are you, now. I hope you will always feel welcomed here, and that this house will hold no more secrets.”
In the hall, Avery set the box on the low table near the hearth, then reclaimed the same seat as earlier. Bergdis sat as well and pulled a key from her pocket. She held it up for Avery to see.
“He burned the first letter, you see. I had to be so very careful after that.”
Avery nodded. “I know this. Jakob reads me your letter.”
Bergdis unlocked the box. Jammed in tight vertical formation were more letters than Avery expected, though she realized of a sudden that they represented sixteen years’ worth of communications from a distant son to his estranged and silent parents.
“When was last one?” she asked.
“From København, just before he left for the Order.” Bergdis wagged her head sadly. “He did not write again, so my letter was sent to the palace, even though I knew he was no longer there.”
“The palace sends letter to London, where Jakob is with King Henry Eight,” Avery explained in her most valiant Norsk. “And London sends letter to Spain, to Barcelona Cathedral. Jakob owns it after.”
Bergdis looked surprised. “All that way?”
“Yes. I think God wants Jakob here.” Avery gave a little shrug. “And so Jakob is here.”
The front door of the manor creaked open and heavy boot heels resounded in the entry hall. Male voices engaged in an exchange which Avery could not understand.
“Johan is returned.” Bergdis turned in her chair to face the doorway. “I must tell him about Fafnir.”
A tall man strode into the room. Though his hair was more blond that Jakob’s and his frame was much leaner, their familial resemblance could not be mistaken. He stopped of a sudden when he spied Avery.
“I did not realize we had a guest.” Johan bowed politely. “Madam.”
Avery rose to her feet, unsure what the custom was in this land. She dipped her chin and said, “Good sir.”
Bergdis pushed herself to her feet. “Johan, this is Lady Avery Hansen. Avery, this is my eldest son, Johan Fafnir Hansen.”
Johan’s gaze swept over Avery’s obviously foreign style, pausing pointedly on her black hair and dark eyes. His brows rose and twisted with doubt. “Hansen?”
Bergdis nodded. “Yes. She is Jakob’s wife.”
Johan gaped stupidly at his mother. “Jakob? Which Jakob?”
“Your brother, of course,” she scoffed.
“How—when—I…” Johan strode forward. “Is Jakob here?”
“He is.”
“Where?” Johan spread his arms wide. “And why?”
“I wrote to him and asked him to come and attend your father’s deathbed.” Bergdis’ mood sobered. “He arrived in time to see your father pass.”
Johan straightened, his cheeks draining of color. “Father passed, finally? When?”
Bergdis wiped away fresh tears and glanced at the clock. “About one half hour ago.”
Avery watched the ensuing discussion between Bergdis and her son, not catching every word of their rapid exchange, but picking up every nuance of the emotions within.
Poor Johan had walked into the house and was immediately hit with news of his long-lost brother’s unanticipated return—with a foreign wife in tow—and his father’s death, all in a matter of seconds.
No wonder he was gob-smacked.
“Come and sit, Johan,” his mother urged. “Have a glass of ale to recover yourself.”
Johan approached slowly and his incredulous expression fell to the open wooden box. He pointed an accusing finger at its contents.
“What are those?”
In the face of Johan’s anger, Avery sank slowly into her chair, believing it was best that she minimize her presence in the room, lest she become an unwitting target of his wrath simply by being a present stranger.
“What are those, Mother?” he asked again.
Bergdis sighed. “Letters, Johan.”
Johan halted his advance when he reached the low table. “Letters from whom?”
“Jakob.”
“Lower your voice! What will your new sister think of you?” Bergdis lifted her chin in defiance of her son’s anger. “And so you know, there are sixty-two letters here.”
Johan glanced at Avery and visibly pulled back his reaction. “Sixty two?”
“Yes.” Bergdis sniffed wetly and crossed her arms. “There would have been sixty-three, but your father burned the first one.”
Johan’s cheeks sank and his shoulders fell as the barrage of information overwhelmed him. He dropped into the nearest seat and stared at the floor, murmuring, “Good God.”
Bergdis was now the only one standing. “God is good, indeed, Johan. He has restored your brother to us in time for your father to rest peacefully.”
Johan looked at his mother again. “Am I to understand, that for all those years Jakob wrote you these letters, and Saxby and I never knew about them?”
Bergdis lowered into her chair. “Yes. And I am very sorry about that. But if your father ever found out, they all would have been destroyed.”
Johan scrubbed his hands over his face. The words, “Good God…” emerged again from behind them, the sound hollowed by his palms.
“I thought I heard some crazed berserker barge in.” Jakob stood inside the room’s wide doorway. His eyes were red-rimmed, but he was grinning. “Will you not welcome your own brother?”
*****
Johan stood and turned to face Jakob. He stared at Jakob as if he was seeing a spectre. “Jakob? Is it really you?”
Jakob snorted. “Do I look so different?
“You look so old!”
As did Johan, truth be told; the difference between a lad of nineteen and a man of thirty-five was significant. “That may be, but I am still younger than you!”
Johan approached him warily. “Did you write letters to Mamma?”
Jakob glanced toward his mother and saw the wooden box stuffed with evidence on the table. He returned his gaze to his elder brother, and nodded. “Yes. Three or four times a year.”