by Suzie Wilde
She wished there was a rune stone on the clifftop that would restore her. Bera shut her eyes and pictured tracing her fingers over the carved runes, as she once had in Seabost. ALU, words of power written by her Valla ancestors, to make everything… more. One day she would raise a stone here and show her daughter. Seeing her skern meant her powers were restored. Perhaps he also had answers.
‘There’s something not right about that place.’ She nodded at the ruins below them. ‘You told me nothing about it when we landed here. No warning.’
That’s all in the past, ducky, can’t help. But there’s something you could try…
‘I’ll try anything. Folk are muttering.’
Make a bond with the land, like when you and I clench. Let the stones speak.
‘I’m afraid of what they might say.’
You’ve lost courage because of… that. He squeamishly gestured at her belly.
A sharp gripe.
Ow, I felt that.
Bera held her stomach. ‘Sigrid is cross that I didn’t tell her about these pains.’
Sigrid can’t see what’s under her own nose. He tapped his own to look mysterious.
She would not satisfy him by asking what his riddle meant when there were real worries.
Far beyond the headland, a thrusting spike of granite pointed skywards. The settlers named it the Stoat, because it looked like one in its winter coat, made up of thousands of white seabirds and their waste. The water churned around its base as they dived, feeding in the fury of breeding. The sky swayed with billows of birds, shadows against the grey clouds. Beneath them, puffs of smoke from breaching whales and rhythmic black arcs of hunting dolphins striped the silver with sudden speed. The sea sang. Bera banged her forehead with her fist, then felt ridiculous. As if that could beat away the loss.
It’s the sort of thing your friend Egill would do.
‘She stole my boat.’
Your husband’s boat. Strictly speaking.
Bera closed her eyes. Trails of spume and surf blazed through her eyelids; sea paths she would never travel again.
Why hurt yourself?
She turned her back on him and set off down the slope. Sheep were grazing on another long incline that projected up into the sky, where the low sun met its upper slope like an immense orange yolk. Bera remembered their arrival, when a strange funnelling cloud had bewitched her and golden runes lit the sky with promise. She tried to hold on to the strength it had given her then but all she could feel was the ache of loss.
A cold nose pushed into her hand. The simple power of a dog to give comfort. Bera smiled and bent down to ruffle the fur on Rakki’s neck. He was a happy dog.
‘You leave those puffins alone till they’ve bred.’
Rakki’s grin told Bera she was too late.
‘Where’s Heggi? Did you run off again, bad dog?’
Her boy was up in the top meadow with their farmer. Sunlight was a ring of gold around his head. Bera smiled. He would be checking the animals. Like she would, herself. And then a bad memory came to life. A black horse and rider were approaching them. She screwed up her eyes to try to see if the man was tattooed. Surely her instinct for danger would warn her if it was someone as evil as the Serpent King. Had he found them at last? What would he do to get revenge? With no clear warning, Bera suddenly feared everything.
She shouted to Heggi but the wind whipped his name out to sea and she was too big to run.
Unknown.
Her skern was right. The rider was a slight figure in a strange, wide-brimmed hat. Was it the rider in the funny hat Heggi had told her about? What was his business? Bera set off in their direction, rubbing the stitch in her side. The dog stayed close, his mind a wrinkle of worry about her.
‘I’m all right, Rakki. It’s this trole of a baby.’ She touched her beads.
Harsh.
‘She stopped me hearing you.’
By the time she reached Heggi the farmer and rider were long gone.
Heggi’s lips were blue. ‘My f-f-fingers are going to s-s-s-snap like icicles.’
Bera took his hands and blew on the fingertips.
‘You’ve been at the smoked cheese,’ she said. ‘Who was that rider?’
‘I’ve given Ginna a gift.’
Heggi’s face, so unlike his father’s, was so generous and open that she allowed him to evade the question, as he so often did. He clearly had no fear of the pedlar and she would find out more eventually. She was more troubled that he was growing close to Asa’s daughter.
‘There’s little enough food left—’
‘I gave her Tikki.’
Bera was shocked. ‘You love that puppy!’
He looked puzzled. ‘Course. But Ginna wants a dog like Rakki. I won’t give him away, ever, but she can have his puppy.’
Her scalp tingled.
The ground tilted and shuddered and Heggi bobbed about in front of her like a puppet. She was over-bending her knees to keep upright, as though she were on a boat, but the baby put her off balance. She staggered and fell against Heggi and then heavily onto her knees, then hands, so that she did not fall onto her stomach. The pains griped until the earth became still. One of her knees was cut and blood smudged her leggings.
Heggi was laughing wildly and stumbling around her, pretending to be drunk.
‘Look, Bera. I’m being like Ottar and Egill.’
‘Stop that and help me up.’
‘The farmer’s going to show me something special later.’ Heggi took her arm. ‘To cheer me up about Tikki. It’s to do with the season and I’m to help. Will you come and see?’
‘That’s not like Farmer. Anyway, I’ve seen what his ram is doing.’
Heggi’s cheeks flushed. ‘It’s not about tupping!’ He kicked a stone.
The cramps returned. She worried that the fishwives were right: one out, one in. Her mother died straight after having her brother and Bera had worried since she was six that she would too.
‘It’s not exactly Farmer who’s going to do it. Come with me and you’ll find out.’
Bera let the ache roll round her hip bones. ‘I’ll be going nowhere like this.’
‘Ginna says it’s dangerous if the pains make the baby come early.’
‘What does she—’ Bera stopped. ‘I will not die,’ she promised and walked off as straight as she could.
3
Heggi told her to meet him later in a bay near the landfall beach, then refused to tell her anything else about the surprise. There was no sight of the sea from the longhouse but Bera always knew the sea state, and the tide would be full mid-afternoon.
She saw him head in the direction of the forge and hoped Asa would not see him with Ginna.
On her way back to the homestead some needles of ice rain fell. Folk scattered as hailstones swept down the valley and Bera managed to get indoors before they hit. The rattle on stone was harder than on wood, like an attack. The weather came in sudden onslaughts here, so when the sun came out it fooled no one. Sure enough, after one squall came another.
Bera declared they should eat. Afterwards, women stayed in the hall mending and altering clothes and the men began making hurdles out of the wood-finds. All of them making do to survive. Bera wished she still had thralls to do the unpleasant chores but then felt ashamed. Being in charge of Hefnir’s household in Seabost had made her soft.
She went up to one of the men. ‘Are you only making hurdles?’
‘Aye. This driftwood is too hard to work or too soft to last, so hurdles it is.’
Bera checked the wood heap but none of the spars were big enough to make proper drying racks. Not like the huge racks at home. The memory snatched her breath away. She was there, surrounded by the shrunken corpses of stockfish at sunset, when the dead are remembered, trying to tell Sigrid her son had died – and failing.
Stop looking back. These spars should be a warning.
‘Of loss? I know all about loss.’
She went into the byre. The
other animals were outside all day now but Bera kept Dotta inside for safety. The calf looked up as soon as she ducked under the low sill of her stall and came to greet her. Bera wrapped her arms round the creature’s neck, letting the familiar smell take her back to childhood, when she would find comfort in the warmth of a kindly beast after her mother died.
‘You lost your mama too,’ she muttered.
She has forgotten her mother.
‘Cows can grieve, like us. My new skill is knowing what animals think. I can feel their minds, like the difference between wool and linen. Or clearer with Rakki.’
But she can’t remember grief, as you can.
Dotta gave a low moan and shifted over to her hay. Bera scried the small calf’s mind, like running her fingers over runes, but met only smoothness. Her skern was right. Bera envied her silken calm, unwrinkled by grief. The calf listlessly tugged at the food, then let it fall. That was odd. Her mind was numb, not smooth. There were some bright green, fleshy plants in the bale. Bera pulled them out in case they were upsetting her stomach. This was her fault for being overprotective.
‘You can go out and graze, sweet one,’ Bera said.
She put a halter on Dotta and led her outside. The calf blinked at the bright sun and was promptly sick. It seemed to help; she frisked on her spindly legs and slipped on the stones. Bera calmed her, picked up some buckets and they set off towards the pasture. Dotta pulled to greet the others and Bera let her go.
The day was clear and sharp now, with a brisk wind. Perfect for going sea fishing. To escape, if there was any boat.
You keep looking back.
‘No. I keep missing what should have been my future.’
Make the most of what you have now.
‘What if I don’t like it?’
Then no one else will. You must regain your fight. Lead them.
‘Dellingr says folk have lost faith in me.’
Make them trust you again.
The smell of salt air was stronger. Time to go to the bay. On the way, Bera said some words that should have brought a boat safely home. That would seal her leadership. But she stood on a bluff looking down on empty black sand. A shore without a boat was like a body without a leg. It looked wrong – and threw her balance.
Heggi came out from behind a line of rocks. He was slowly walking along the shallows instead of splashing with Rakki. Occasionally he would look behind him, or stand gazing at the sun’s path across the wrinkled sea. Grief had struck him, she was sure, and Bera’s heart ached for him. He bent to choose some pebbles. Skimming stones was what she had taught him, the day they stopped fighting each other. He threw one, making it skip over the water, but let the others fall from his hand and walked on. Would any of them recover from their losses?
She lost sight of him behind another ridge of black rocks, so she went down, wanting to comfort him, and found a place where it was low enough for a childing woman to scramble over.
Heggi was talking to the man in the wide-brimmed hat; it was the rider from earlier. They were both looking out to sea while a horse was grazing at some seaweed. Off its back, the man looked smaller. What did he want with her boy?
‘This is my land, as far as those rocks.’ The man pointed at the Stoat.
Bera went on the attack. ‘Your land? Yet I don’t know who you are.’
The man turned. His wide hat had bits sticking out all round the brim, as if goats had been eating it.
‘Keeps flies and dust off my face,’ he explained.
Her face always gave her away.
He took it off and the wind whipped a black wing of hair into his mouth.
‘Come here, Heggi, and help me look for driftwood,’ Bera said.
‘I did yesterday.’
Heggi must have seen the flash of her eyes and mumbled something.
The man held his long hair off his face. ‘My name is Faelan. I own the big farm, the waterfall, lake and ruins.’
‘Can anyone own ruins?’
‘It might be said that you do, now you have taken some of the stones.’
‘We used them to make a homestead.’
‘That’s what I mean.’ He waved a leather mitten. ‘I watched you trying to build a longhouse before winter struck.’
‘Why not come and help then, as is the custom!’
‘I wouldn’t use those stones. I thought you would most likely die.’
‘Like the first folk? Or did you kill them?’
The man nodded at Heggi. ‘Ask him.’
Heggi’s cheeks were red. ‘You spoil everything, Bera!’
‘What are you talking about?’ Bera asked. ‘Spoil what?’
Rakki came flying across the sand. He flung himself at her face as she sidestepped. He was very wet and sandy and when he shook himself she was drenched.
‘Take him away, Heggi. Why is he most loving when he’s soaked?’
Heggi looked hurt on his dog’s behalf. ‘He wants to share his happiness. It’s what dogs do.’
‘Dogs can’t help but share their joy, you’re right,’ said Faelan. ‘Whilst men hug happiness to themselves.’
Bera said, ‘If men notice happiness at all, it’s only afterwards.’ And then worried she might be exactly the same.
Rakki went over to share some more happiness with Faelan. Bera knew Heggi would approve of his easy way with the dog. The pleasure this gave puzzled her.
‘He’s a tough-looking dog,’ said Faelan. ‘I liked him the moment I set eyes on him.’
‘I know,’ said Heggi. ‘He’s the best puffin hunter too. Once he—’
‘—caught thirty-three puffins in a single night,’ said Bera.
‘Forty-six,’ Faelan said, smiling.
How many times had the two met? Was he the reason Heggi told her to meet here?
Heggi said, ‘Folk back home treat dogs like they’re just a field tool or worse. They kill them if they can’t work. Me and Bera aren’t like that, we – oh, I can’t explain.’
Faelan said, ‘When you lie down in the snow, exhausted, your dog will lie beside you.’
‘And you won’t die.’
‘Or if you die, you go together,’ said Bera.
Faelan’s smile reached his eyes.
‘Have you been caught in a blizzard?’ Heggi asked him.
‘Once.’ Faelan put his hat on Heggi’s head. ‘He’s set on you watching this surprise,’ he said to Bera.
‘I’m not much of a watcher,’ she said. ‘I’m too busy doing.’
‘I’d ask you to join us but it’s no place for a woman so big with child.’
How dare he!
‘Please, Bera!’ Heggi’s voice was high again; a child. She pictured his loneliness on the shore.
‘The days are short. Will there be time?’
Heggi laughed and threw Faelan’s hat in the air. ‘She’s coming! Wait till you see, Bera!’
‘I haven’t said I’m coming.’
Rakki seized the hat and capered round them, wanting to be chased. Bera couldn’t help laughing and Heggi and the man Faelan joined in. He must laugh a lot because his face crinkled into laughter lines that were there already. Then he stopped and looked at her properly, and his eyes were the violet-blue of speedwell.
Heggi tugged her hand. ‘You will watch, won’t you, Mama?’
‘Always Mama when you want something.’
‘His name means Wolf. Faelan. I’d like a name like Wolf.’
Bera said, ‘Bjorn and I liked being called Bear. All right, I’ll watch this surprise of yours.’
‘Do you promise?’
‘Have I ever broken a promise?’
‘Good. Because Rakki can’t come and you’ll need to make sure he doesn’t.’ He told Rakki to stay, then marched off, with the same set of his shoulders as his father going hunting. ‘Show her where to watch, Faelan,’ he called back.
Bera slipped a cord round the dog’s neck while Faelan retrieved his hat, brushed off the sand and placed it carefully on his head. She
began to walk towards his horse and he fell into step with her.
‘I thought you’d be in a hurry to go,’ she said.
‘It’s a chance to speak to you at last.’
‘So speak.’ Her heart was thumping in her chest.
‘I want to offer work. Whatever you need.’
Bera stopped. ‘Why would you do that all of a sudden?’
His eyes told her it was because of her. Or perhaps that was what she wanted.
‘You bring new life to Ice Island,’ he said without looking down. ‘I’m sorry I spoke out of turn by referring to it. And you also reminded me of the old customs.’
‘Not old to us.’ She walked on.
‘Fallen out of use, then, here. Customs of hospitality and so forth towards new settlers. Folk did used to help out but then things got so bad – that is, too many came and cut down trees – and there was the big eruption. Then we had pedlars and others looking to steal and move on. I think that’s when the custom stopped here. I couldn’t speak for the whole of the island.’
‘Is it so big, then?’
‘A man might walk it in a lifetime if he lived long enough. It’s vast – and dangerous. There are eruptions and tremors.’ He glanced up at the mountain.
Her vision. Yet Faelan had made her feel that she had brought something to Ice Island when she felt stripped of Valla powers by this inscrutable place. Perhaps that was what old customs were: a bedrock of safety in a mutable world. She suddenly understood Dellingr’s reliance on iron. On what he knew: iron and fire.
‘Have I worried you?’ he asked.
Rakki tugged her forward. ‘Stop it, dog. I don’t like everyone knowing where our homestead is and how we live. I can’t get a fix on what you folk do, how you all live, or where.’
‘I’ll show you a map one day.’
‘Like a sea chart?’
‘Yes, with mountains instead of islands.’
Bera liked the way they kept in step. Men usually went their separate ways and she was shorter than most, making it hard to keep up. This felt right, like having a twin.
‘What does that mean, eruption?’ she asked.
‘See your high mountain there, smoking like a chimney? And that cloud behind? That’s hiding a bigger one that went up in flames and then a river—’