by Suzie Wilde
She pushed him, hard. ‘Roll over, Hefnir, you’re crushing me.’
‘Mmm.’ He was very sleepy.
She softly blew on his neck. ‘Thanks for looking after me.’
‘What?’
‘Sending Thorvald to find me.’
‘Didn’t,’ he said, and fell back on top of her again.
Bera woke to his heavy breathing, but beyond that, silence. Sunbeams sliced through shutters and dust motes danced. She quietly got dressed, whistling with relief that as soon as she got a dose of the mash in Thorvald’s day meal it would be over. She guessed the thralls were busy in the fields. She left Hefnir to sleep it off and went into the empty hall.
A woman’s soft voice was coming from Thorvald’s billet. Did he give the thralls no peace? She made for the byre but heard the rattle of feet on the spruce behind her. Bera could be the confident mistress this time and have words with the thrall. She turned, and felt sick.
The woman was Sigrid.
The horror that Sigrid should have been forced – and by him! For how long? Since the hunting trip? It was now obvious that Sigrid’s odd behaviour was born of fear. Bera was aghast that her friend had not trusted her. Thorvald’s fault. And to force her! He might be Hefnir’s second but to Hel with the man! How dare he pretend, like last night, when all the time...
‘Don’t be angry,’ said Sigrid.
‘It’s not you I’m angry with.’
‘Still. Don’t be angry. There’s nothing to be done.’
Thorvald emerged, pulling on his tunic. His head appeared, revealing his disgusting puckered face. ‘What’s she angry about now?’ he said.
‘Leave this to me, Thorvald.’ Sigrid was calm.
It confused Bera. ‘I want to know what you did to her while we were away.’
‘You’ve already decided. As usual.’
Sigrid caught his arm. ‘She is mistress here, Thorvald. We should have told her.’
‘Told me what?’ Bera yelled in frustration.
‘Can’t a man sleep?’ Hefnir strode into the hall, rubbing his eyes.
Bera was glad he would hear it fresh. ‘Thorvald has forced himself on Sigrid and probably has been ever since we went off hunting.’
A look passed between the two men, shutting her out.
‘It’s not like that, Bera,’ Sigrid said quietly. ‘I know this makes no sense to you but this is my free choice.’
Bera was outraged. ‘That can’t be true.’
‘Oh, let her believe what she likes,’ said Thorvald, ‘she always does.’
Bera met his glare.
Thorvald blinked first. ‘Tell her, then.’
Sigrid smiled, suddenly young. ‘Egill showed us handfasting, so now Thorvald and I are together for a year and a day.’ And she kissed the monster.
Bera felt a sour burn in her throat. Egill too! There was no chance of honesty about anything ever again.
Hefnir punched Thorvald’s arm, laughing. ‘Never thought she’d make an honest man of you.’
Bera wanted to slap him. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’
‘Of course,’ said Hefnir. ‘I’ve known from the start.’
Bera stomped out of the hall, slamming the door behind her. She stood in the dark corridor, seething. The ancestors hissed scathing shards into her ears.
‘Violation! Abduction! Perfidy!’
This time she would find out what the ancient words meant. There was only one person in the world she could trust and that was Dellingr. And a smith would be able to tell her.
Dellingr was not in the forge. Perhaps he couldn’t keep away from his brat. His blower was sweeping the floor, keeping his back turned. Bera moodily clomped outside, decided to slowly count to ten and got to four before walking as far as the crossroads to see if the smith was coming. Dark, empty ways.
Back at the forge the boy was returning from the midden. He looked startled to see her again.
‘When will Dellingr return?’
The boy shrugged and blushed.
‘Where did he go?’
The bucket he studied was more likely to answer.
‘Are you to keep the fire hot?’
He dashed inside, his shyness painful. Bera kicked Dellingr’s block of granite and hurt her foot. She ought to listen to Fate and leave at once. She had resisted temptation up to now but everyone in Hefnir’s lying household had driven her to it. She hated waiting and yet here she was, waiting. This was dishonourable. If she left now, Hefnir would never know. She set off.
‘Bera!’
The smith was some way off, wheeling an old barrow. Bera waited, telling herself it was necessary.
When Dellingr arrived, he was red-faced and sweaty. He let the barrow down with a thud and clatter. It was full of plain farm tools, not heroic weapons. No ancient magic, just honest friendliness. It was certainly for the best but Bera felt disappointed in him, almost cross. No spark. Perhaps between Hefnir and Dellingr was a type of man she could truly love. Who did not exist.
Dellingr picked up a billhook and threw it down in disgust. ‘They’re all blunt. A lad came up from the barns to say that Egill was sharpening their tools on a magical block of stone from Iraland.’
‘That’s Egill all over.’
‘I thought he was your friend.’ Dellingr lifted a large bucket of water and tipped it over his head. He flung his hair back and rainbows flew in an arc. Her hero again.
The blower appeared in the doorway.
Dellingr pointed to the barrow. ‘More work.’
The boy scuttled over and wheeled it off into the dark.
‘Poor creature, your bellows-boy,’ said Bera. ‘Is he an idiot?’ She pulled a face like the silent boy, trying to make him laugh.
Then Dellingr understood. ‘Ah. He can’t speak. His father cut his tongue off.’
Shock and shame hissed through Bera’s teeth.
‘He used to beat the lad’s mother when he’d had a skinful. One day the lad stood up for her and I got him away by giving him work.’
How unkind she could be, now she had learned Seabost ways. It made Bera respect Dellingr all the more. She wanted his good opinion yet behaved worse here than anywhere else. She liked his big hands and shoulders; his stillness around animals and children; his smell of hot metal and fresh sweat; the crinkling lines around keen grey eyes. He was smiling at her.
‘Don’t feel bad about the bellows-boy,’ he said. ‘Let me get him started. He’s a good lad and he’s learning.’
Dellingr went into the forge and she heard his low voice giving instructions. Bera knew she should go. Asking him what some words meant seemed futile now, even if she could recall them. She couldn’t stop yawning.
Dellingr came out. ‘That was a good feast you and Egill devised. Brightening.’
‘I hardly slept at all,’ she said, longing to tell him everything.
‘Getting warm now. So I’m sharpening tools and it’s good for the bairn, Asa says.’
Bera wished he would talk of anything other than his wife, the weather or his work. Her, for example.
She said, ‘I used to think Egill was my friend.’
‘He helps your father.’
‘Not much help. There’s lots of bragging. And drinking.’
‘Boys will be boys.’
Bera itched to tell Dellingr that Egill was a girl.
‘Egill betrayed me, making Sigrid do handfasting, like in Iraland. I’m sick of hearing about Iraland now.’
‘Egill didn’t make her do anything. He was showing a crowd of us how to handfast. They’d talked about marriage before.’
‘Who?’
‘Sigrid and Thorvald. He came to tell me the day you met him up here. Mind you, Sigrid had already told Asa but I didn’t let on to him I knew.’
Bera shot to her feet. ‘So I’m the only fool who didn’t know! Well, thank you. How you must all be laughing at me!’ She marched off.
Dellingr caught her arm. ‘What’s the problem? They’re happy.’
/>
‘How could anyone be happy married to that monster?’
He gripped her more tightly. ‘He got that scar in the service of your husband, Bera. He’s an honourable man and—’
‘You don’t know him. That honourable man killed my best friend.’
She wrenched her arm free and stormed off on the warpath, looking for Egill.
Ottar banged the hull of an upturned boat. ‘Well, I’m damned. There’s a woman here the image of my daughter. Can’t be her, though, she never comes this way these days.’
Bera refused to look at him.
‘Still blaming me, are you?’ he asked.
Egill crawled out from underneath the boat, groaning. ‘Come to see me, I expect.’ She rubbed her head. ‘Was sleeping.’
‘Sleeping it off, more like. No head for drink.’ Ottar spoke with affection.
‘You’re never sober,’ Bera snapped.
Egill took a few tottering steps and was sick.
Robbed of a good quarrel, Bera left the two of them. She found herself in the small cove that she had taken Egill to when they were friends. She clambered down towards the thumbnail of beach and was surprised to find Heggi there, skimming stones for his dog. At least the boy never hid his feelings. He was as obvious as Rakki, who was joyfully swimming after every splash.
Bera jumped down onto the shingle, making Heggi turn.
He made a face. ‘Have you come to fetch me?’
‘I’m escaping.’
‘Me too. Rakki and I like it here.’
He carried on skimming but Bera could see that he wasn’t choosing quite the right stones. ‘Can I join in?’
He shrugged.
They each chose five pebbles. Rakki barked with excitement, splashing back and forth between them and the shallow wavelets. When they were poised at the water’s edge, the dog swam out and turned in a small circle, waiting.
‘Mind you don’t hit Rakki,’ Heggi said.
‘Of course. One, two, three...’
They both skimmed. Their pebbles skipped either side of the dog, who went to grab one then changed course for the other. He grinned with pleasure, shipped water and coughed. Bera’s went much further. She won the first four rounds.
Heggi got grumpier each time. ‘Why are you so good?’
‘You need the right shape, look.’ She showed him a flat grey pebble.
‘It’s not just that.’
Bera demonstrated the flick of her throw. It bounced five times.
‘Who taught you that?’
‘A boy.’
She pictured Bjorn playing. Happy, innocent children on summer days that never grew dark.
Heggi found better stones and Bera let him beat her.
He pranced about, waving his arms, a child again. ‘I won! I won!’
They went to sit on the flat rock and dangled their feet in the water. Rakki came over to them and shook. They scolded him and he lay down behind them, smelling strongly of wet dog. It was comforting.
‘That boy,’ Bera said. ‘He died.’
‘Now I know why you went sad, more than when you say about your mother.’
‘Do I?’
Had she ever said anything meaningful to Heggi? He was studying her with blue eyes that were not like his father’s. His mother’s eyes, perhaps. Candid, trusting.
‘He was called Bjorn,’ she said.
‘Sigrid’s son?’
Another surprise. ‘Has she told you about him?’
‘Quite a lot. What he was like and about him being a fisherman like his father and...’
‘And what?’
‘Oh, about you being friends.’
‘What were you really going to say?’
He stared out to sea. ‘That folk all thought you would marry.’
Bera grunted. ‘I never would have married Bjorn.’
‘Sigrid said you couldn’t.’
‘Sigrid told you that? Why not?’
‘I don’t know. She got cross so I went off with Rakki.’
It must be true. Heggi was not a liar. In fact, he was unlike his father in many ways. Bera hoped he would never become a Seabost brute.
She brushed sand from his tunic. ‘Did you go into the boatyard to see Ottar?’
‘For a bit but it was boring. That weird boy came.’
‘Egill?’
Heggi threw a stone. ‘I don’t like him.’
‘Why not?’
He was weighing up his answer.
And then her skern was there, pointing back towards the boatyard. A line of black smoke was becoming a billow. It was the worst thing.
Bera jumped up, pulling Heggi. ‘Fire!’
Ottar was shouting when they reached the boatyard. He ran towards the smoke, which was thickening all the time. Bera seized two buckets, gave them to Heggi, grabbed two more and charged down the slipway. They filled them with seawater and slopped back towards the fire. The flames were leaping and sparks flew towards the boats. Bera’s eyes smarted. She emptied her buckets onto the nearest flames and scrambled away for more. Boatmen arrived with their own buckets and it looked like they were winning.
Then Ottar shouted, ‘Pitch pails!’
If the pails of black tar caught the whole boatyard would go up. Bera ran to help. The pails were heavy and they struggled to haul them away. Ottar had the strength of ten and cleared several. His lads dashed up with more water again and again and gradually the flames were doused. They all took stock, hoping.
‘That’s you beaten, then, fire!’ roared Egill, waving a small fist at the sky.
A flame snaked from a loose end of hawser along the ground to a heap of coiled ropes, tarred for use. They caught light. But, much worse, one of the workboats was smouldering.
‘Look!’ screamed Bera.
She left the lads to deal with the rope fire and ran to the jetty with Ottar. They grabbed a mainsail and threw it onto the flames. Egill arrived and leapt aboard, trampling the sail with bare feet, hopping like a scalded cat. Bera joined her, stamping, beating at any flames with a broom, while Ottar poured seawater over others. Sparks were in the air and stinging; blinding.
The fire had taken hold.
Bera pulled Egill away and they stumbled onto the jetty. Ottar took an axe to the mooring line and let the vessel float out, burning on the water. It was like an old-style funeral. It was the death of his boat and the end of any boat was a disastrous day.
‘Won’t spread now,’ Egill said, before coughing and retching.
Ottar picked up a blackened rope, now only a stub of evil-smelling hide. ‘Well, that’s my best workboat gone and all our spares burned.’ He turned on the men. ‘So which of you scabs started it?’
They all looked at Egill. ‘Bit of fine tracing, that’s all.’
Bera held out an open hand. ‘Give me the glass, Egill.’
She reeled away.
‘Egill. Give it to me.’
Egill dipped into a pocket and pulled out a thick piece of glass, then slunk off and sat on a sawing block.
Ottar marched across and snatched it. ‘What’s this, then?’
‘I have one, too,’ Bera said. ‘It makes the sun into a white-hot beam. Did you watch me, Egill? On the beach?’ Bera wondered what else she might have seen.
‘Little scab,’ growled Ottar. ‘You’re not to be trusted.’
‘Meant no harm,’ Egill said in a small voice. ‘Thought serpent coils on the prow would bring us luck.’
Ottar slammed her down, then picked her up with one hand. ‘You leave the boats to me. Right?’ There was real menace in the words.
Egill’s tunic was rucked up and Bera was worried they would notice her slim waist. ‘I’ll deal with it, Father.’
Ottar dropped Egill, who pulled her tunic down and set off for her hut.
‘What are you lot staring at? Get this cleaned up and back to work.’ He glared at their backs. ‘Lazy oafs. They’re all wastrels in Seabost. Think they can buy more of anything, or steal, not make do and me
nd, like we did at home.’
Bera saw a reflection of her own homesickness on Ottar’s face. ‘There’s no going home, Father. They’re all dead, or worse.’
‘There’s never any going back for us folk. We can only go on.’
Seabost was destroying her. She needed to get in a boat again, where she could be herself. Out on the sea paths her head might clear enough to discover how devastating the loss of boats was – and how far she might have to go on, alone, in the future.
A workboat was drawn up on the slipway, though it was big for a single-handed sailor. Bera went to the stern and pulled. It was too heavy, so she went to the bow and pushed. Her cheeks ached with the strain but her feet kept skidding and the boat stayed where it was.
She wondered what to try next. The winch would pull but it couldn’t push the boat into the water. She was damned if she’d ask Ottar to help, so she jumped when someone touched her.
‘Sorry. So sorry.’ Egill put her head on Bera’s shoulder.
Bera was furious with her and pushed her away. ‘You can’t put it right, just like that! It won’t work with me. Clear off, Egill, and stop ruining everything.’
‘Trying to put it right, Bera. Know how much you love boats.’
She needed Egill to escape. ‘Go round the other side, then, and help me lift the bow, to get her moving.’
Bera hunkered down to take the weight, then slowly straightened her legs and heaved at the same time. It was easier with two and she soon felt the boat lift in the water, like it was coming alive: the best feeling in the world.
They turned the bow seawards. Egill held on while Bera got aboard. She sat on the thwart, struggling with the cumbersome oars.
‘Need two,’ Egill said.
‘I can manage!’
‘Want to help.’ She started to cry. ‘Helping always goes bad.’
Hearing Egill say it softened Bera. ‘Come on. Get in before anyone sees you crying like a girl.’
It felt good to be kind for a change, instead of angry. Egill had had no one for so long and was too eager to please now she did. Perhaps that was why she had helped Sigrid. There were times in Bera’s own past when trying to help had turned bad. Perhaps she, like Egill, had wanted something to brag about, like the narwhale tusk. She was suddenly certain that had not yet fully played out, even if Thorvald died. Perhaps she should throw the poisoned mash away when she got back and use something more honourable.