by Suzie Wilde
‘Tie yourselves on,’ she said. ‘It could be spiteful in a small boat like this.’
‘You think tying on will keep us aboard?’ scoffed Egill.
‘No, Egill. If someone goes overboard they won’t be lost.’
‘I’m glad Rakki isn’t here now,’ said Heggi.
Bera threw a line off the stern to slow them through the water. They were ready. The others huddled in the bottom of the boat: Egill and Cronan on one side and Heggi the other. She would join him before the storm hit but first said some words of protection. Beneath the vast mantle of ash travelling west, black clouds rampaged towards them, bringing their own wind. When Bera saw dark ripples swarming across the water like a horde of rats, she threw herself beside Heggi and hugged him as the gust hit, making the boat skew. Thunder rumbled. Rain came in a smudged grey sheet. The water was lifted from the sea in a spiral, dancing towards them, as Bera had seen before from the open plain.
‘Waterspout!’ she shouted and they held on more tightly.
There was no running this time. The twisting wraith danced over the waves, questing for its partner. Again Bera felt drawn to the dance. It was free as air, motiveless, guiltless, enough to simply be and full of twirling joy. Out here, at sea, it was easier to find her will but she battled to bend the wraith away from their small boat, which bucked and skewed as it passed. Heggi’s blond hair became dark streaks over his eyes and cheeks. Bera rubbed her sleeve across her face and then his, being sure to keep her grip with the other hand. The storm had hurried the ash cloud on its way and Bera was proud of her skills – and relieved.
‘We’re through it,’ she said.
The rain stopped, the sun came out, a full sun of early summer, and their clothes began to steam. Bera helped Heggi untie himself and saw the set of his mouth; it was a line of anguish that she needed to settle. If there was ever time.
A bee bumbled clumsily aboard, fell against his shoulder and crawled in a tight circle. A sign of persistence and hope. She carefully put a finger under its furry body and lifted it.
‘Look, Heggi.’
He managed a smile. ‘Can we keep it for a while?’
‘I wish we had some honey to revive it. We’ll let it go again when we get closer to land. You hold it.’
Heggi turned up his palm and let the bee crawl onto it, fanning its wings to dry itself. Then it settled and he gently curled his fingers to make a windbreak. Bera kissed the top of his head, then turned to windward.
Egill was looking ahead with an expression that Bera had seen once before, when she looked at the home Hefnir would not let her return to because of his greed for obsidian. It brought Bera back to the present. She screwed up her eyes to see better.
‘Is that it?’ asked Heggi.
It was land: glowing green, like sunlight through a new leaf.
Egill said, ‘That’s what Iraland looks like, first landfall.’ There was a catch in her voice. ‘We’re safe, now.’
Safe? Bera could feel the bead burning at her throat and knew that for her, it was going to get worse.
17
Egill took up her oar and Bera would not let Cronan do more than his share, despite her sore palms. As they neared the island, she sent Heggi forward to release the bee but he kept his hands cupped. Soon he would have to let it go.
Egill leaned towards her. ‘Bera… when we get to the Abbotry I want you to leave the talking to me and Cronan.’
Everything in her rebelled. ‘Oh no! If I’m supposed to help then I have to make my own decisions.’
‘You don’t understand our religion.’
‘I don’t even know what the word means but if it’s to do with Brid, I don’t care. I know why I’m here and so must they, or why send for me?’
‘You don’t know who they are and they didn’t—’
Cronan stopped Egill. ‘I will need to persuade them that you are Brid.’
‘And who are they?’
‘Westermen,’ he replied. ‘They came from Iraland but this… stern order has held sway here for many years.’
Egill nodded. ‘They won’t take orders from a woman. They despise women. They won’t even like having a woman in the guest quarters.’
‘I am a Valla, but why do they not despise you?’ Bera asked.
Egill put a finger to her lips. ‘I’m a boy to them.’
Bera kept her secret. It seemed as if she was always the one who made provision for Egill’s nature but argument would solve nothing. They shipped oars and drifted, with Bera making lazy strokes to keep them following the coast.
‘It’s gone!’ Heggi was upset that his bee had deserted him.
‘Come, Heggi,’ said Cronan. ‘I’ll tell you all about giants in Iraland.’
‘Are they troles?’
‘No, these are no troles but flesh-and-blood men.’
Heggi was rapt and yet again Bera was grateful to Cronan.
‘Who was the first giant?’ Heggi asked.
‘He built a walkway from Iraland so he could fight the giant on the other side.’
Bera had a vision of bundles of tall stones, like tapers in a jar, pale and shaped at the top like honeycomb. They were left from an old, old eruption. Before time.
Egill put her lips to Bera’s ear. ‘I’ve seen a giant with flame-red hair. Brid is as real to her followers.’
Bera shook her head. ‘I don’t understand you, Egill, leaving the old ways behind.’
‘No one has ever understood me, except Ottar. Your pa used to say I was a thinker because I spent so much time alone.’
Bera was studying the strange stone buildings on the island. ‘What are those skep things?’
‘They call them beehives in Iraland.’
‘Skeps, beehives; means the same thing.’
‘They’re not skeps, though, or the bees would be as big as us!’ Egill laughed.
Bera was not to be won over. ‘So what are they?’
‘Cells. Where ermites live.’
‘I know what cells are.’ Bera shivered, catching Heggi’s eye. He did not need any reminder of being shut in one by Hefnir. A cruel punishment for a child.
‘What are ermites?’ she asked.
‘They live in them.’
Bera wanted to throw her overboard.
Cronan spoke so softly that they had to lean in to hear him. Clever.
‘Holy men leave Iraland to go to many places. Some build towers on vast plains of sand. Here on these islands the cells are their shelters, for men who want to go off alone to fast and pray.’
‘Fast means starve, only on purpose,’ explained Egill, helpful at last. ‘That’s what the ermites do, not the Westermen. They eat off gold plates!’
‘So these ermites are madmen.’
Egill looked forlorn. ‘Sometimes the loneliness drives them mad.’
She would know about that – and Bera ought to take more care of her.
She took Egill’s hand. ‘You don’t need to ever be alone again.’
Cronan was smiling at her and she felt ashamed, because she thought the purblind could see better than the sighted.
They tied up at a stone jetty. Bera’s heart beat fast. Steep steps led upwards to a high grey wall. What did it hide? It looked sinister enough to be some fortress of the Serpent King. She shook herself. Cronan belonged and he was kind.
He’s hiding something, though.
Egill stepped onto the landing stage, which was covered in slippery eelgrass. She got herself steady and Bera handed Cronan up to her. He began the long trudge up the steps.
‘This is the harbour,’ Egill boasted. ‘It’s what we have in Iraland.’
‘Egill, it’s a set of steps, like we have at our own jetty.’
Heggi piped up. ‘They’re Faelan’s steps, not ours.’
Egill said, ‘Faelan got the idea from his mother, from Iraland. Wait till you see the Abbotry!’ She swung her arms about and skidded.
Heggi shouted, ‘What is an Abbotry?’
Ber
a was thinking that the first time she heard the word was from the Fetch, come to take Faelan’s mother. It spoke of Brid too. How was it all linked? Or was it a trap?
Egill got Heggi ashore and he started stamping on small crabs that were scuttling away from the intruders. Bera went next, slipped on a slimy mat of seaweed and sprawled, feeling cross at herself. Heggi laughed – and it was worth it just to see him smile again.
‘Hel’s teeth and buckets of blood!’ She enjoyed swearing like her father. ‘You put me off, Heggi!’
Heggi made a trole face at her and then showed off by bounding up the steps.
‘Go right up, Heggi,’ Egill said. ‘There’s a door at the top.’
‘Don’t go through it,’ Bera said.
She climbed the long, steep steps with legs turned soft. By the time she reached the top she was short of breath. A long, stone wall curved away into the distance. There was no sign of her boy.
‘Heggi!’ she called.
Cronan was sitting near the only door, wheezing badly. The door was wooden, with a dark red serpent daubed on it. Lines trickled down from the cross, as if the serpent had truly been nailed to it and was bleeding down the wood.
The image revolted her. Serpents were surely evil, always.
‘What have you brought me to, Cronan?’
He shook his head, unable to catch his breath.
‘Heggi!’ she shouted wildly.
‘He’s coming now,’ said Egill. ‘Watch.’ She gave a sly smile as the door creaked open.
A man came through in a rich cloak of oatmeal-coloured wool, patterned all around its hem with blood-red serpents eating the tails of other serpents.
‘Pleased to see me?’ Hefnir said.
He waited, with the smile of a normal husband, home after summer trading. Bile rose from her stomach to the back of her throat. How dare he be here? He should be in Iraland. And yet, of course, Egill knew the Abbotry. Had she brought him? Or, worse, had Faelan known he was here? Which one of them had betrayed her by bringing her to the man she despised? Heggi was beaming, standing tall beside his father. Had Hefnir’s bad blood already begun to stir?
Bera put her cold hands on her face; it was sweaty and burning. She steadied her breathing, damned if she would let Hefnir see her shock. She was a child no longer and would not be made a fool by her false-hearted husband. He had given up Seabost blue and wore stout leather boots and a sword belt embossed with gold and silver. Riches far beyond his former trading. Bera was conscious of her scorch-marked, salt-stained, smelly clothes, mended many times since he had last seen her. She wanted him to be poor and outcast and the settlers to have prospered.
She raised her eyes in challenge. His were kindly, like the first day she arrived as his new bride. For a moment she was startled into smiling back at him but then she called to mind all the deaths that lay between them, that so nearly included her own.
Heggi took his father’s hand. ‘Look, Bera! It’s Papa! We can be a family again!’
His small face was full of hope. How could she try and keep them apart if that meant hurting Heggi? He would also hate her for doing so. She felt furious – and powerless.
‘I can see that you’ve been successfully trading, Hefnir. Or is it only raiding now?’ Bera’s voice throbbed.
‘I am glad you got here safely, all of you.’
‘You knew we were coming?’
‘I sent for you.’
‘It seems everyone claims to have sent for me. But you are lying because Cronan here says I’m to meet folk who believe in Brid and live in skeps.’
‘Only ermites live in them. We do rather better. You’ll see.’
‘We?’ How pompous he was! ‘I want nothing to do with you.’
‘I want to stay here with Papa!’ Heggi stamped his foot. A petulant child again with his father near.
‘We’ll all be together now,’ said Hefnir. ‘A family. Come and see where we’ll be living.’
‘None of us will be living anywhere if I don’t enter the tower!’
Hefnir smiled at her. ‘You have no idea what a tower is, do you?’
Cronan coughed. ‘Only Bera can deliver what is inside. As you know, Hefnir.’
Bera was triumphant. ‘You see? My Valla powers are stronger here, Hefnir. This black bead says so.’ She held up her necklace. The bead scorched her hand and she dropped it.
‘Why do you think you’re here?’ he asked.
‘Cronan knows. He’s brought me to stop the mountains erupting and killing everything on this island.’
He studied her face. ‘You really believe that, don’t you?’
‘What do you want of me then, Hefnir?’
‘I want us to be together.’ He looked at Heggi, who might have been the only one there to believe him.
‘Liar! You want Obsidian. I might let Hel blow her top off if it means giving it to you!’
‘You? Resist saving the world? I don’t think so. Come on, Heggi, we’ll go on ahead.’
Heggi gave her a look. ‘You spoil everything, Bera.’
Father and son went through the door.
‘I promised I’d bring her!’ Egill went after Hefnir, her face washed with jealous pain.
So that was it. Poor, lonely Egill. Hefnir loved no one but himself and would use anyone to get what he wanted. Bera gave a grim smile. It didn’t matter who thought they had sent for her; it was the land itself that had summoned her, an age ago, when she had scried in Egill’s obsidian bowl. It was the first time she had managed to scry and she could picture it clearly: swirls of blue ice, with crimson fires curling on mountaintops beyond. Over the tallest peak there was a cone-shaped cloud of immense height – and now she knew what it was – the ash cloud spilling from Hel’s Gateway. This was their land of ice and its fire within.
Cronan brought her back. ‘Hefnir marches to his own tune. But we need you.’
‘More than we yet know. But I am not Brid.’
‘Whoever you are, Bera, I believe only you can heal the earth. You have my word that I will help and Obsidian is the key.’
18
What choice did she have? The very air here was different: softer, warmer, with light, misty rain that was like a kiss. It was like another country within the new country that she was only starting to understand. It was more deceptive here, hiding behind the warning signs of this serpent belief. Bera couldn’t touch the spirit of the place; nothing was personal. Any glimpses vanished like cats at the first sign of thunder. She needed to bide her time, to regain control, and then work out what she needed to do. She remembered her skern telling her she was like a midge to the immense spirit of earth and mountain, so she would start small, one step after another. She had to succeed. What happened at Smolderby was a glimpse of what Hel could unleash, destroying Ice Island.
For now, all their plans coincided and Bera trusted Cronan more than her husband and friend. So she took his arm and they followed the others inside the wall, where Egill was waiting for them.
She stopped Egill moving off. ‘One thing, Egill. Are you my friend, or Hefnir’s?’
‘There you go again. Black or white.’
That’s you biding your time, is it?
Bera let Egill go. They passed through a high door, with another painted serpent cross, then followed the line of an inner wall. Cronan trailed his fingers across the stones, as if reading them.
‘You should see the tower now,’ he said.
‘Can’t you?’ she asked.
‘I can only see as far as my hand.’
A grey shape seemed to rise like a giant stinkhorn as they went down a slope. The tower was built of striped, grey stone, the colour of a hooded crow. Bera was reminded of the striped stones spewed from the mountain and wondered if everything on earth began bad and then became useful. The sun came out and tiny glints made it look jewelled. Perhaps the bad could also become beautiful.
The size of everything dwarfed Bera. The high wall was meant to be daunting, like when a man loome
d over her, so she stood taller and vowed to get the better of whoever had built it. Her dislike increased when she stood beside wide wooden gates. Their sheer bulk made her feel like a mouse but they also writhed with carved serpents, with no cross.
She glared at Egill. Every time she tried to trust her there was some new serpent image. Was this some terrible betrayal to bring her to the Serpent King? No, this couldn’t be right – unless Hefnir wanted her to kill the Serpent King? Surely even he was not such a coward.
Egill stared with blank owl eyes. ‘I thought you trusted us.’
‘If the Serpent King is here I will kill him.’
‘Hefnir has told the warders to look out for him.’
‘Warders?’
‘Guards,’ Egill smiled. ‘They ward off every bad thing.’
Cronan patted the wood. ‘No enemy can pass through these gates. And even if he did, he couldn’t reach our quarters.’
‘Why?’
‘You’ll see.’
It took all of them to push open the gate and then it turned out that they had been heaving against the weight of heavy stones on ropes on the other side, which swung the huge gate shut afterwards. A short, muscular man had been helping and then he stood on guard again. A warder. This vigilance made Bera more afraid. What kept folk out also kept folk in. And she knew with certainty that she would be made to stay until she got into the tower – and then what? She had been so fixed on getting here, she had no idea what would happen next.
We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Her skern tittered.
‘That’s what they’d be met with,’ said Egill, still jaunty. ‘There are many warders all around. Human and… other.’
‘In case sea-riders come?’
‘Whoever comes,’ said Cronan. ‘There are those in the world who know what we keep here.’
‘In the grey tower.’
‘My dreaming spire of ensense.’ Cronan turned his face to it. ‘That’s what they’re guarding.’
Bera felt her skern’s sharp nail run down her spine. Almost painful.
And you think I riddle!
‘You do.’