Her instincts brought her luck once again, and the arrow reached its goal unerringly. The young animal fell at the spot, and the rest of its kind escaped the hill, scattering with the speed of the wind. Vierra ran to her catch and turned the young animal’s neck with all her strength until she felt it give away under her knee. After that, she cut open the fawn’s neck artery. As the bright red blood flowed to the rocky ground, she spoke her words of thanks to Mielikki, the mistress of the forest.
Mielikki, mother of forest
Take this offering of blood
Dripping in your holy ground
Luck and game for me let flood
Mielikki please give me prey
Let not your servant starve
Bring your hunter broader pack
Let me thrive, my fortune carve
After the words had faded away, Vierra opened the deer’s stomach, took out its gall bladder, and poured the sour fluid on top of the blood that had soaked into the ground.
Tapio, ruler of the forest
Catcher of the strongest gall
Grant for me now the largest game
Fill my stock now for the fall
Now were the holy words said and the sacrifice given. Vierra lifted the carcass on her shoulders and started her journey back to the glade. In her mind she was rejoicing; rarely did a ritual hunt succeed this well. Plenty of time was left in the day for celebration, and fawn meat would join the trout in the fire.
Vierra went straight towards the glade. After a short trek, she arrived at a small opening in the forest that was covered in large rocks. Here and there between the rocks grew long patches of grass and a few withered trees, their fragile branches waving in the light wind. Black-gray adders were bathing on the rocks in the sun, hissing at each other. Vierra was already getting ready to go around the glade when she saw a movement across the opening. It was a small, hunchbacked man. His green clothes were like hanging lichen, covering his withered and skinny body. Astonishingly agile he was, though, jumping from rock to rock, and when he came closer, Vierra saw his crooked shoes hitting the rocks, and blue will o’ the wisps and sparks flew in the air. No adder would bite him, even though he ran over them as if mindless of them altogether. The man ran straight towards Vierra, crying from far away.
“Vierra, Vierra, why were you hasty and why did you not give the proper sacrifice to the Seita?”
“What Seita?” Vierra had always honored her ancestors’ holy places, even though her sacrifices and prayers were often directed to the new gods, as was the custom these days. She wondered how the man could know her name. She’d had no time to tell him, and she had never seen him before.
“The Seita who lives on the top of the hill. It was malicious and bitter even when I was floating helpless in my mother’s womb.”
“I saw no Seita,” Vierra defended herself. She was annoyed by this strange and truculent man, but she kept a polite tone towards her elder.
“You didn’t even try. Of Mielikki and Tapio only were you thinking, you wench, while drawing the gall bladder to Seita’s rocky side. They were the ones who took the gall from under Seita’s rocky nose. Those bastards are southern gods, of those who root the earth and bite hay. Pthew!” The old man drove out a long wad of spit from between his bony jaws. Vierra was dumbfounded by the outburst of this complete stranger. He walked closer while blabbering, causing Vierra to flinch and take a step back. He smelled bad, of stale urine, of unknown, deep earth and forest.
“Seita will have her revenge and so will I. Whose belt have you around you? My belt. Give it to me and bow before me for mercy, and I might forgive you.”
Vierra’s spirit flared up. Who did this man think he was? That kind of behavior went beyond all understanding, and even though he was older, it was inappropriate for a man to speak thus to a woman.
“The belt is not mine but my husband’s, so I cannot give it to you. And I am not responsible to you for my doings. My chieftain is a woman like was my mother and my mother’s mother. Go away and leave me alone.”
The man stared at Vierra along his large nose.
“We shall see about belts and mercy.” He let out a cackling laugh and started running surprisingly fast through the rocky glade, disappearing into the forest on the opposite side.
Vierra looked after him and tried to figure out what had just happened. After he vanished into the forest, Vierra continued her journey. Dark thoughts rose up from her mind, one after another, bothering her travel and making her instinctively speed up her step.
Blood
Vierra had seen longboats many times before. This one, however, burned itself into her mind forever as she caught sight of it from the hilltop. The proud-bowed vessel had been pulled to the shore of the festival glade, and Vierra felt a hollow, strangling feeling churning in the bottom of her stomach. Those wayfarers had many names: persecutors, the tall men, the bearded men, the iron men. Vikings. They came from the west shore of the sea with their long boats every spring, bringing iron, salt, cloth, and silver. They were interested in the furry coats of the animals that the Kainu hunted, as well as the fish that they dried. The Kainu were happy to trade but stayed cautiously in large groups and areas confined by the trading posts. Everyone, even Vikings, honored them, as they were signs for peace and trade, and slaying another man in their area would mean a curse for the villain and his family for seven generations. In other places, these men did not always pay, but reclaimed their purchase with axes, swords, and slaughter of the careless. Why they had come this far from the market places, Vierra did not know. Fear for her loved ones hurried her step toward the glade. Even though she moved as swiftly as she could, her hunter’s instinct forced her to also move silently and stealthily in the forest. If the persecutors noticed her, the hunter would immediately become the prey.
Vaaja, as a trader’s son, had had affairs with the Vikings in his earlier days. In springtime, he was in his game, in the marketplaces, and the Kainu soon sent him to negotiate in other places as well. Vaaja had explained that it was always best to do a fast trade and change the goods immediately after the deal had been closed. If the oppressors had time to drink too much of the beer that was served in the market, they became unpredictable and arrogant. Vaaja even knew bits and pieces of their language, and with this knowledge, the Kainu had made worthwhile deals for many years.
Soon, Vierra’s green eyes caught sight of the festival glade from the shade of the forest that surrounded it. The strangers were going back to their ship, and her frantic gaze moved over the clearing, combing the space for her husband and son. She noticed a vague tangle near the edge of the forest. She rushed toward it, crouched on the grass, and every step increased the despair and horror in her mind.
A big tangle there was, and a smaller one, both with more than one arrow sticking out of them. Vierra turned them over and her world collapsed. There was Vaaja, his yellow hair stained in blood. There would be no more stories from the southern lands. They had been eternally silenced by the persecutors’ arrows. There was Vaalo, the child’s gaze of his eyes broken. No more would laughter tinkle, no more would a small hand reach for his mother. No smile would come from that round face.
Vierra did not cry, she couldn’t. The blow was too heavy, the cut too deep. In her mind, she saw the face of the First Mother and remembered what she had said. Deviously, the words had started to come true. The Mother’s face disappeared, only to be replaced by a gray she wolf. The animal growled, and blood flowed from its exposed fangs. Only the anger was left, a dark, destructive anger towards everything. Anger and then death. And now it was fixed towards the murderers who were sneaking away. The child killers, the robbers, the cowards.
Vierra rose, the bow turned to her hand like a thought. It obeyed her order eagerly and sent arrow after arrow toward her enemies. Green eyes directed every one of them to their goal with an unerring accuracy. And every one of them bit deep into the flesh of the persecutors. Luckier ones took shelter from the deadly rain, behi
nd the rocks of the beach. One of the men gave orders to the others, and they spread out to the glade, closing in on Vierra from behind their wooden shields, moving from one shelter to another, avoiding the arrows that brought them death. Vierra did not even try to hide, she just kept sending arrows on their way. Some hit the shields, but many times she managed to pass them and the wolf inside her was rewarded with a hoarse yell of pain. Finally, the arrows ran out, and Vierra descended to embrace her dead son for the last time. Off her lips came an old lullaby, which she had often used to lull her little son to sleep. The son who would now sleep forever.
The persecutors ran towards the singing woman, sensing that she wouldn’t be a danger to them anymore. Just before they reached Vierra, she drew her scramsax, letting out a primal yell. It was full of anger, despair, and disappointment. So ghastly was the yell that the approaching men stopped for a moment, as if hesitating. When the scream died away, Vierra thrust the blade deep into her stomach, expecting to soon see her son and husband on the river of the underworld. The hot, searing pain convulsed in her stomach but was extinguished by a blow of a club that struck her head, sending her consciousness into a bright sea of stars from which it fell into an impenetrable, all-engulfing darkness.
She smelled the fresh forest, heard the spring wind whizzing in her ears. Hints of hut smoke that went with the wind mixed with the smell of the forest.
“The forest of the Underworld,” escaped from Vierra’s lips, and she didn’t dare open her eyes.
“Yes, my child,” a voice boomed in her head. Vierra couldn’t tell the direction it was coming from, but with the same certainty she knew it was true she also knew that it belonged to the Seita, whom she had passed and ignored when she was hunting.
“Apologize for passing me by, sing a song in my honor, and I will let you go. Soon you’ll be with your husband and son. Can you already feel the smell of the smoke? There they are, cooking fish and waiting.”
Vierra was ready to answer on the same breath, to weave a song that would release her from the pain. When she opened her mouth, though, the voice didn’t do what she wanted. It was the voice of the wolf and it didn’t plead, but asked,
“What about the First Mother? I am not supposed to end like this.”
Friendship faded from the Seita’s voice, and its note froze Vierra’s blood.
“I will not be asked or denied! Beg for mercy, or do you want to return back to the cold world, broken? There, only endless suffering will await you. Soon you will finish off what you started with your knife, and come back to ask me for passage to your family. And I will laugh at you and send you to the cold Underworld of the men of iron, where gray spirits moan in endless despair. There, nobody will be your blood or know your songs. Beg and plead now when you still can.”
“You were the one that took my son and husband. Toward you I only feel hatred, and I promise that by my own hand I will never bring myself to you, now or never! When I finally come, you will apologize and bow before me.”
Vierra spat the words from her mouth with quick anger. They would haunt her for a long time in years to follow.
***
A longboat was moving slowly down river and towards the ocean. It had done its duty, and the men were relieved to get away from these unfamiliar waters. The old man standing on the bow had a happy expression on his wrinkled face. A leather belt, pitch black and ornamented with white bones, was wrapped around his waist.
The Roots of Evil
A new dawn
Vierra loved the morning and waited for it. That short moment when she was about to wake up, but the dizziness of sleep forbid her from remembering where she was. That one moment gave her the strength to keep on fighting. The bleak sun of early autumn forced its way in from the crevices of the walls, and Vierra once again awoke to reality. The moment was over.
Lying next to Vierra in the dark were the two who shared her destiny, still asleep. She was always the first to be awake, together with the dawn. In the early morning gloom, Vierra looked at the faces of the sleepers. Slumber had momentarily stripped them of their masks of pain.
Alf, a skinny young man, was snoring lightly. His protruding teeth and slim forehead were clearly distinguishable, even in the gloom. He did his chores quietly and without complaint, as did Vierra. And when he didn’t work, he minded his own business.
Beside Alf lay the man they called Oder. They had once asked if it was his real name. It wasn’t. His skin was as dark as that autumn morning’s twilight, which shrouded the scars and bruises covering his face. Oder was from somewhere far away, where the sun scorched the people’s skin dark.
Sensitivity to omens was in Vierra’s blood. The day before, the sky had darkened suddenly and the brightest day had turned to a dusk similar to evening. Chilly wind had carried whispers, the message of which Vierra didn’t want to hear any more than to understand. A chill went down her spine. The future looked like a darkness unknown. It was like black water that had stayed still for a long time, but suddenly stirred.
From underneath a bundle of cloth that Vierra used as a pillow, she heard a familiar voice. These days it spoke to her every morning.
“Take me out.”
Vierra obeyed. From underneath her sleeping underlay she pulled a long, badly rusted blade.
“Try me.”
Vierra tried. She had kept the blade in as good condition as it was possible. With her thumb she felt the hard, unforgiving edge.
“Shall we do it today?” the blade asked. Its voice had a waiting, anxious tone. “How easily would I cut flesh, draw blood. Set free.”
Vierra didn’t say or do anything. When the blade had presented the same question for the first time, she had thrown the weapon away and forgotten it for a few days. Finally she had set it back under her mattress, though. From that day on the decision had been harder and harder to make.
“Tomorrow,” she finally sighed and put the knife back under her berth. She had said so yesterday and the day before, actually for as long as she remembered. Her hand was trembling.
Suddenly the latch of the summer hut slammed open. With unimaginable speed, the two sleeping denizens of the hut woke up and got on their feet, readying themselves for what their minds, torn away from the freedom of sleep, knew was about to happen.
The door flew open and the light of the autumn dawn squeezed into the hut together with the one who had opened the door. This large man was living his autumn years. His pitch black hair was streaked with gray stripes that reached his tangled beard. He was handsomely clothed. The darkness of the man’s hair and beard were also in his eyes, the true color of which was perhaps only known by gods -and could possibly have been known by Vierra, had she wanted to look into them. It was impossible to tell the old man’s age, but his eyes gave away that he was even older than he seemed.
The man grabbed Oder, who was standing by the door, with both hands and threw him out of the hut. He was immensely strong and the slave, much scrawnier than him, rolled far away before stopping. Arduously Oder got up as the blackbeard yelled:
“Up, dogs, and get to work!”
The master is in a good mood, Vierra thought. He didn’t even kick Oder after he fell.
Vierra’s family wouldn’t probably have recognized her, had she been led into their hut in her present condition. Her already slim figure had wasted so that she was thin as a rake, and the clear gaze of her green eyes had waned to a feverish glow, which blazed amid a messy, black bush of hair. She was as quiet and unpredictable as a wolf that has been chained and subdued to do a dog’s work,
Almost three years had passed since violence and murder had torn her from her previous life. Vikings had not killed her, even though she had slain many men with her bow that day. They revered prowess and courage in combat. The Norsemen had sold her to slavery for a good price in their homeland after she had recovered, against the odds, from her self-inflicted stomach wound.
That had been the beginning of a nightmare in which one day after
another passed in a purple-gray haze of violence. Anyone who had lived Vierra’s life would have soon released themselves from that merciless torment. There were more than enough opportunities for one who eagerly searched for the final escape. Only Vierra’s primal willpower and the memory of the discussion with the Seita still kept her clinging on to life. She wouldn’t give up, at least not yet.
Vierra slipped out of the summer hut to begin her daily chores. Outside a familiar scene surrounded her. A great longhouse with its smaller side buildings had been erected to the edge of a large glade. A slowly running creek split the glade in the middle, and there was a bridge that connected it to a field. There Vierra, among others, had been taught many lessons about the work of the hay-biters, lessons learned with pain and suffering. Compared to them, the calluses in her hands were hardly noticeable.
In the middle of the glade stood a great oak, the branches of which shaded the house in the morning and the opening behind the creek by night. The tree was older than the house, older than the glade. During the centuries its gnarly roots had reached every corner of the clearing. Even in the furthest point of the opening it was possible to feel a thick, branch-like lump underfoot.
Walking toward the house, Vierra could hear familiar whispering. She looked at the great oak and then at the edge of the forest glade. A cold shiver ran through her spine. The forest on the edges of the opening was too dense. It reached for the meadow, and every morning Vierra felt as if it was a bit closer than the morning before. Any forest would have been a comforting home for Vierra. Any forest save this.
There was enough forest around the house in every direction for a day’s walk, no visitors ever came through it. And the master was the only one to leave; a few times a year he left the glade alone, just to return in a couple of days with more slaves, salt and tools. He seemed to have enough silver to buy all this. Vierra had lived in the house for two years now, and when the master brought her into the house there had been five slaves. Now there were three left, and only Alf had been there longer than Vierra.
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