by Suzie Wilde
She had come up closer to Egill and ran to her.
‘Get up,’ she shouted. ‘I can’t do this alone.’
It was the old Egill, with eyes huge as moonstones.
‘I c-can’t…’
‘Look at me. If we don’t get that boat out now we will die here. I will keep you safe, Egill, but you have to move. Now.’
It was what Egill had always dreaded, coming to Ice Island, the memory of her father burned alive. Bera could see it playing out behind her eyes. How brave of her to return – but it served to show how important Bera’s mission was. She had to rouse her by any means.
‘We’ll fry like your father if you don’t shift!’
Egill was frozen with fear.
Bera slapped her. ‘For Brid’s sake, get up!’
It worked, though she had to drag Egill towards Cronan. All the while Bera was looking for Heggi and finally he was at the boat. He must have found Rakki. She needed to be there to help but felt hobbled and useless with Egill. And then they would have the humpback.
Cronan waved her on when they reached him. ‘I’m too slow.’
‘Take him, Egill.’ Bera had no time to press her. ‘I’ll be at the boat. Hurry!’
She ducked another shower of firestones and was swept away again and again by maddened, scorched people. It was all a rush and confusion of terror but deathly slowness when she should be running.
By the time she got to the upturned boat, Heggi was gone. Mad with fear, still Bera knew she had to get the boat afloat, for all their sakes. With no one to help, she heaved under the rail, knowing it would be impossible for one person to right. She dropped it back on the sand, cursing like her father. Egill was closer. Bera ran to her and dragged her back to the boat, hoping Cronan could reach it in time.
Together she and Egill got the boat over and hauled it into the shallows. Bera kept her voice as calm as she could to keep her part of a team.
‘Look, Egill, Faelan had water flagons under the boat and we must tie them to the rails. There might be food.’
Egill’s eyes flicked about: sky, sea, sand, anywhere but at Bera.
‘We are safe now we have the boat. Hold tight, Egill, and keep her steady. I’m going to fetch Cronan.’
Some people ran past and behind them was Heggi.
‘Rakki!’ His voice was hoarse with despair.
Bera yelled at him. ‘Heggi! I’m here. Rakki will find us.’
She ducked as several huge brymstones hissed overhead but then Heggi was with her and they got Cronan to the boat.
He went straight to Egill. ‘Look.’ He pulled up his sleeve and kissed the serpent tattoo. ‘Brid has protected us and we shall be saved.’
Egill touched her cross, through her tunic. ‘Brid.’
After all her effort, Bera was furious that they thought it was this Brid but she needed a calm Egill to escape. They lifted Cronan into the boat, then Egill leaped aboard. Bera and Heggi pushed off into deeper water and Egill held the boat steady with an oar, without being told.
Bera linked her fingers for Heggi to step into the boat.
‘I can’t go without Rakki.’
She tipped him in and scrambled in afterwards. Heggi lunged for the side and the boat rocked as she seized his tunic and pushed him at Cronan to guard.
Heggi began sobbing. ‘Rakki,’ he moaned, ‘Rakki.’ He collapsed in grief.
The humpback pulled his thick cloak round him and Bera was grateful. She dare not think about the dear dog, not yet. As she went to her oar, the boat tipped. It was low in the water and the other three were bunched together.
‘Stay in the middle!’ Bera told them. ‘We have to keep her steady!’
Huge brymstones fell thickly round them, making the sea boil with poison sulfur. Their eyes were red and streaming and Egill struggled to get an oar in place, amongst a frenzy of frightened folk. More were swarming into the sea all the time, determined, demented, ducking down beneath the waves, screaming until they drowned. The boat was almost lifted out of the water on the backs of the terrified bodies and it twisted and turned as arms tried to grab the rails. She quickly rammed the other oar into place and the boat swung away with her first strong stroke. Someone tried to seize the oar with her second but Egill pulled hard and the boat turned again. They kept mistiming their strokes until Bera counted them in.
Egill said, ‘We have to keep clear of the black spine, further out.’
‘Let’s hope we get that far,’ said Bera, though she was relieved that Egill was thinking straight.
At last they reached a patch of clearer water, too deep unless someone could swim. Now they had to protect the boat.
‘Untie the bailing buckets, Heggi, and fill them with seawater,’ Bera said.
He did not move.
‘Heggi? These brymstones could hit us out at sea and set us alight. We’ve been lucky so far.’
‘Brid has protected us,’ said Cronan again. ‘She is keeping you safe, Bera.’
‘I keep us safe,’ she muttered. ‘Fill the bailers, Heggi.’
This time he did, slopping water as he gazed back at the shore.
The world was grey. Sky and sea were a scumble of ash and dust, with orange bursts where blocks of burning earth and rock fizzed out of the billowing cloud. The fumes burned Bera’s throat and her eyes felt skinned. Her oar stopped dead in the water and she nearly fell. There was a body, floating face upwards, with singed beard and a bald, blackened head. Bera pushed off the corpse and it grabbed the oar. A swimmer! He held on with raw, burned hands. She felt revulsion and fear of this man whose rescue, her boat sense warned her, would drown them all. They would be swamped even trying to roll him aboard. Besides, he was dying.
‘There’s no room for you,’ she said.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Cronan.
Egill’s voice was mournful. ‘There’s a drowning man, burned half to death like my father.’
Bera rubbed her sore eyes and looked down. His eyes bored into her, trying to communicate in that ravaged face. They were the colour of speedwells.
She could not speak for the horror and pity of it, or look away from the man who had helped them survive the barren spring; who had brought them here safely; who she had vowed to keep safe. This face she loved, destroyed.
‘We cannot take you, Faelan,’ she said, despairing.
Beside her, Egill gasped and from instinct Bera put out a hand to stop her leaning over.
‘It’s Faelan’s boat!’ said Egill, shocked.
‘Faelan? Can we not save him?’ asked Cronan.
Faelan’s cracked and bloody lips tried to smile. Bera wondered what malevolent Fate made her have to deny Faelan. She would risk drowning in a heartbeat except there was a bigger duty that would save all their lives. And she was a mother twice over. Could the humpback be traded?
‘Let him have my place,’ said Cronan.
His goodness brought Bera to her senses. It could not be done – and must not be.
‘Some things are black and white. Fate has decided.’
Egill put her oar back in the water to steady the boat.
‘I think you are saying farewell, Faelan,’ Bera said. ‘I believe you will live. You survived once before – and I will return.’
Heggi shouted, ‘Rakki’s looking for me. Please keep him safe!’
Faelan took his hands off the oar and in his eyes Bera saw resolve.
‘Turn the boat, Egill,’ she said.
Faelan swam back into the maelstrom. It rained rock, dust, ash, stones, blocks, cinder and pumice and then Bera had to stop looking as their own luck ran out. The boat began to smoulder and they threw bucket after bucket of water over it. They were drifting towards the black rocks and Bera told Heggi to be lookout, to stop him constantly watching for Rakki. This was no time for pity or tears. She took up her oar and together she and Egill pulled hard.
The sound of screaming became a murmur. Faelan was another piece of soot on a flaming sea, with a blazing city b
eyond.
They were, for the moment, safe. Bera knew grief would hit and her skern was braced at her neck. There was no dog like Rakki and no future she desired without Faelan. Only short weeks ago Bera had sung with the joy of being aboard a boat, out on the sea paths. And she had Valdis, a daughter. The vision of this burning world had come at her birth. And so, Bera wept, for the cloud of filth was gathering and she finally understood that she might not be part of her baby’s life.
16
Once they were clear of the black spine, it was a dull slog. They took turns to row, Bera with Cronan, who was stronger than he looked. Bera’s hands had blood blisters and she had to take shorter turns than Egill, which shamed her. Once she could have rowed all day. This was an unwieldy, wallowing boat, built to go short distances and drift while Faelan fished. She pulled away from the pain of leaving him and thought about boats. She wished her father had built this one. Even the first tiny boat he made for her was nimble and kept her safe. Bera pitied the way this boat did its best, rolling in the water, trying to ride the waves, which luckily were long and flat-topped.
Heggi wiped away tears to take his turn. ‘It really hurts, Mama.’
‘You can’t stop thinking of Rakki.’ Bera carefully slid away so the boat didn’t tip. ‘My poor boykin. Dogs are great survivors, though, as long as they keep away from men.’
‘But he’ll wait and wait on the shore for me, won’t he? And then someone will kill him. If he isn’t burned.’
It was her worry too. The likelihood of death was something Heggi recognised and that pained Bera. They were all orphans now, Faelan had said, and she had left him to die. And Rakki too…
She counted the strokes, knowing the importance of a rhythmic task when a person was most troubled.
Egill changed places with Cronan, who flexed his shoulders. His face had new lines of pain, graven in soot.
‘Count, so you keep stroke with Egill,’ Bera told Heggi.
The resting pair sat in the bottom of the boat, to keep the weight low. It was wet and cold but made the boat more stable. When Cronan gave her a brave smile, Bera shuffled over to him and gently rubbed his poor back.
‘A healer indeed,’ he said.
‘Don’t make me Brid,’ she said, but carried on, for his sake.
The sun was a deep orange, loitering on a red horizon. The rest of the sky was a foul yellow-grey, like an old bruise. Seabirds wheeled overhead, aimless, not as many as there should be. Perhaps they had been knocked off course by the strange crackling of the sky. Bera realised she had not seen a whale spout or any shoals all day. Life itself was strangely altered.
No one talked of the sights they had seen. When Cronan relieved Heggi, he came and snuggled up to her.
‘I’m a bit hungry,’ he said.
That was a good sign. ‘I have nothing for you, sweetheart. I don’t think we can be going far, not in this boat. We’ll all have to wait.’
‘Has Cronan said where?’
‘I know we’re heading north and west.’
She kissed his head, which smelled of wet smoke.
‘Do my hair?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘When you get the caffles out of my hair. I like it. You don’t tug like Sigrid does.’
He needed a sign of her love, so Bera rummaged in a pocket for the lice comb. How strange that it should be there, when so much else was lost. She ran her fingers through his hair to get the worst caffles out, then began combing. Making her voice gentle, she spoke tender nonsense to him. He began to droop.
‘Remember sitting in front of me on that stool Ottar made you, boykin? We all used to be there, round the fire. You and me, Ottar, Sigrid, Thorvald, your father…’ Bera felt the loss. She inspected the narrow teeth in the creamy ivory. ‘No nits.’
‘I really, really miss Rakki.’
Bera kissed the back of his neck. ‘Loss makes you strong, so Sigrid says, and she’s right.’ It wasn’t the worst loss in his young life – and wouldn’t be the last.
He thought for a bit and she felt close to him.
He twisted away. ‘If you hadn’t made me come with you I’d have had my coming-of-age feast and Rakki would still be alive.’
‘Fate is often unkind, boykin.’
He gave her a withering look. ‘I hate beaches! Bad stuff always happens on a beach. That black beach, when we landed…’
She had known this question would come one day.
‘It’s all right, Heggi. Go on.’
‘When we got here, you know, when Papa left us?’
Bera raised her voice. ‘For Iraland. With Egill.’ She couldn’t resist glancing to see if her barb had struck. It had.
‘Did I actually choose to stay here? With you? Only I can’t quite remember.’
‘Can’t you, really? I wanted your father to stay, Heggi. I thought he would help build our new home.’
‘So did Papa go straightaway?’
‘He didn’t even wait to make sure we had enough to eat.’
‘So did he want me to go with him?’
This was hard. How much to say? ‘I wanted him to stay. We would still have a sea-going boat, the Raven, made by my father.’
Perhaps she could have prevented the eruption, if that day had been different.
‘But you and Thorvald stopped me going.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
The shock of what happened must have made the day a blank. Bera herself struggled with which parts had happened: what were fears and what had been a true vision of the future. She felt the weight of being a Valla, alone. Her anger at her husband’s cowardice turned her stomach to vinegar. The Serpent King was behind it all. He knew Hefnir was making for Iraland and had sworn to make him pay the blood debt. If Heggi had gone there with his father, the Serpent would have killed him too. He was still a threat.
‘I’m only asking.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t be angry with me. I want to know, that’s all.’
‘I’m not angry, boykin.’
There was something more about Hefnir, besides the Serpent King. It was to do with the black bowl they found in Egill’s hut. And then she remembered how Hefnir’s eyes had glittered with greed. He would trade his son to get whatever it was he most wanted and that was obsidian. She had to keep Heggi safe and away from the knowledge of what kind of father he had, who would let his uncle kill him. But how could she explain any of this to him?
‘I knew it might be dangerous in Iraland and I wanted to keep you with me, safe.’
‘Why didn’t you make Papa stay? It’s all your fault!’
‘Sit still, Heggi, you’ll have the boat over. Nothing would have stopped your father.’
‘I wanted to go with Papa and you stopped me, like you stop everything I want to do! I bet you made Rakki run away.’ For a moment it looked as if he would throw himself overboard.
Bera held him tight. ‘Heggi, stop! I’ll explain everything when we’re alone and safe.’
‘You won’t! You just say stuff!’
Egill had stopped rowing. She had been hidden on that black beach and then gone with Hefnir to Iraland. Did she watch him kill a man he loved in cold blood? Who did Egill care for? Herself?
Lonely cries of hidden seabirds measured the passing time but there was neither sun nor moon nor stars to guide them.They were adrift; they might perhaps be turning in circles. The air was thick with ash, which deadened the drably crawling sea and drove its creatures down to the deep. Endless wallowing finally made Bera seasick. She hung over the rail like the others and lost what little remained of the tavern stew, which slimed the back of her throat until there was nothing left and the retches burned. Sigrid would have died out here, if even the earth going up in flames could have frightened her aboard. Hot tears oddly wound their way down Bera’s cheeks. She put up a hand and her face was covered in thick dust. The tear tracks must look like worm casts.
And yet… as she lay, gazing at the blank sky, her min
d emptied of regret for the past and fear of the future. She let the boat-song nurse her, until her skern came to provide more worry.
Wondering why there’s no sun?
‘Go away.’
The cloud is poison but it’s passing. For now.
‘There’s no wind.’
There is up there. Shouldn’t you be heading north?
‘I am, aren’t I?’
Not on the current course, no. You’re going out to sea.
‘We’ll come out into fresher air then.’
You can’t save anyone until you get to the north lands.
‘So point the right way.’
Her skern did so with a flourish.
‘Ship your oar, Cronan,’ Bera said. ‘We’re going north.’
Cronan thanked her. ‘That’s why we needed you, Bera.’
Egill scowled. ‘Can’t find true north in this filth,’ she said.
‘Were you thinking we could row to Iraland, Egill?’ Cronan said.
Bera began to appreciate his courtesy. He resisted a fight and she liked having someone there who knew Egill; purblind but shrewd.
Egill tapped Heggi’s shoulder with her foot. ‘Take the oar, Heggi, my back is breaking.’
They passed as if through buttermilk and pale, phantom islands loomed at them in the mist. The only sounds were the steady plash of oars and drips as mist turned to water.
Egill said, ‘These are the Westermost Isles.’
‘We’re back on course.’ Cronan sounded unsurprised.
The mist rolled away in the stiffening breeze and Bera smelled winter on the wind.
‘There’s a squall coming.’
Egill patted her. ‘It’s good we have you aboard.’
Her fickle friend, as changeable as the wind.
Egill and Cronan shipped their oars early. They were afraid. Bera studied the skyline and saw a black strip, widening all the time. She told herself this was a summer storm and only the memory of a huge green wave heading for the Raven was making her catch their fear, not a premonition of disaster.