The Book of Bera

by Suzie Wilde

  The men were gone by the time Bera got up. She checked on Heggi, who was pale but alive. The tusk was working. Normal life was going on outside with the bringing in of the first crops. Bera watched Hefnir and Thorvald supervising the sharing. It was meaningless. She should be there, warning them to store them high, keep them safe from flood. Instead, Thorvald’s easy command put her in a despondent stupor.

  Bera kept walking. Who was the monster: Thorvald or her? She had nearly murdered Heggi in her desire to kill the man everyone trusted. The man, she had to face it, that Sigrid loved. And yet... she had vowed to make him pay the blood debt. And now she had vowed to spare his life in return for Heggi’s. Was that cowardice? Was the bargain with Fate useless because needing his strength made her reason selfish? Which rule could she break? How she longed to talk to someone she could trust.

  And so Bera went to the boatyard to talk to the one person who shared her secret.

  She collected up some coils of rope on her way to Egill’s hut, where she sat alone, whittling. Bera cut off the burned pieces and then took the good lengths to splice alongside her friend, so she could pour out her worries and guilt without having to meet her eyes. As soon as she sat down, Egill asked her what she meant to do about Thorvald.

  ‘I swore that if Heggi lived I would spare him.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it all morning.’ Bera put down the ropes. ‘It was my first vow, to Bjorn. Now I have to protect myself. Sigrid convinced everyone right from the start that it was rat bait, all except Thorvald. He knows it was meant for him.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘He saw me gather the plants and knows I want to kill him.’

  ‘What’s he doing about it?’

  ‘He stores things up.’

  Egill raised her eyebrows and got back to whittling.

  ‘Go on, Egill. Say it.’

  ‘Leave him alone. He loves Sigrid, Heggi is alive, so leave it to Fate.’

  ‘He keeps glaring at me with that red droopy eye. He knows all right. I think he’s waiting to see if Heggi dies before he tells Hefnir.’

  ‘You daren’t use poison again.’

  ‘I’m worn out, Egill. I can’t think straight. There’s my skern’s warning, too. I ought to tell folk but they’d either think I was mad or panic.’

  ‘Don’t drive yourself so hard. It’s still summer, there’s time. As for keeping Thorvald quiet, maybe hit him hard. If anything happened to Sigrid...’

  ‘How can you suggest hurting Sigrid!’ Egill might spout advice about mercy but then some inner demon would pop out of her mouth.

  Ottar burst into the hut and pulled the stool from under Egill. ‘Supposed to be sorry, says he’ll help and then he clears off with you on a pleasure trip. Where’d you get to last night, eh?’

  Egill hunkered down in a corner.

  Ottar took the ropes from Bera. ‘You used to splice better than this.’

  ‘Haven’t done much lately. You made sure Hefnir kept me away from boats.’

  ‘How’s Heggi?’

  ‘Weak. Not dying. Wants to see you.’

  ‘I’ll get up there later. Best crack on now.’

  ‘Wait!’

  On impulse, Bera decided to tell her father about her vision of the flood. Her disgust with Egill brought an appreciation of Ottar’s reliability in any trouble. So she described the coming ruin and watched his face age with every word.

  ‘What does Hefnir say?’

  ‘I’m telling you, not him. We need boats.’

  Ottar slumped down onto Egill’s stool. ‘There won’t be enough, even with their old fishing vessels.’

  ‘You believe me then?’

  Ottar narrowed his eyes. ‘I know the weather as well as you. This heat will be paid for and storms sound about right.’

  They each had their skills, after all. ‘If folk find out they might kill to get onto a vessel. Father – how fast can you build more boats?’

  ‘There’s no long timber for it, not now. Sea-riders burned that and all.’

  ‘We must give some hope!’ Bera’s mind raced. There should be a fair way of deciding who was to leave – but that was a problem for later. ‘How about the workboat? Could you fit it out for a long passage, Father? No more frayed ropes.’

  ‘That ruination of a boy, I beat him black and—’

  ‘Can you do it?’

  ‘I can do more than that. I’ll make it bigger.’

  Egill jumped up. ‘In Iraland a boat could be bodged in—’

  ‘There’ll be no bodging in my yard. I can unclench the stern of a trade boat and open up the bow of the biggest workboat, double the keel and hog at the join. I’ll have to double the gunnels and replank but...’

  ‘How long?’ Bera asked.

  ‘You’ll have a sea-going vessel near twice the size of the old one.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Best start soonest. I’ll tell the lads it’s for Hefnir to go further. So mind you tell him.’ He threw the ropes back at Bera. ‘And get these spliced proper an’ all.’

  ‘Well, he believed about the flood,’ Egill said, when Ottar had gone.

  ‘He knows the power of nature. Hefnir does, too, but how does that help? This is your fault, Egill. What the sea-riders did in malice, you did with your clumsy helpfulness and we’re one boat less.’

  Egill looked serious. ‘Must stop that flood in its tracks, then.’

  Only Egill would think she could help by taking on nature herself.

  Wash day was the first chance Bera had to speak to Hefnir alone. Before joining him at the bath hut, she went to check on Heggi, wanting some good news to report.

  He was up, tottering towards Rakki.

  ‘I feel hungry today,’ he said, when he noticed her.

  ‘That’s a good sign.’ Bera caught him as he fell. ‘How about some of Feima’s rich milk? Her calf’s thriving. I saw her yesterday.’

  ‘Dotta? I want to go.’

  ‘When you’re stronger.’

  She got him back on his bed and took out the medicine stick. ‘Look – it’s getting darker as it makes you better.’

  ‘It’s not like your other ones.’

  ‘It’s narwhale tusk with very special runes on it, see? I carved them, to draw out mortal sickness.’

  Bera thought again about how the tusk had come to Seabost. Was it supposed to save Heggi, or was this some sign from Bjorn? Some reminder of her vow to kill Thorvald?

  ‘Bera, you’re not listening! Rakki saved me. I liked that honey stuff. Rakki barked like mad and made me stop eating it.’

  A dog’s straightforward care. ‘Thank you, Rakki. I’ll fetch that milk and you can share it with him.’

  ‘Can you leave your medicine stick?’

  She slipped it back in place. ‘Of course. You’re not out of the wood yet.’

  Heggi leaned forward and kissed her. ‘Thanks, Bera.’

  Her guts cramped with guilt.

  Bera waited until Hefnir went into the hot room. Steam made it all the more secret. The usual thrall was tending the stones: the beautiful mute with slanted eyes.

  ‘You were missing for a while.’ Bera took a ladle of water from her. She smiled.

  Hefnir hit his back with the switch. It was scored with thin red lines from the twigs as well as old scars.

  ‘I saved Heggi,’ Bera began. ‘So you can see my Valla skills are more certain.’

  ‘If you’ve something to say, say it.’

  ‘Is it all right to speak in front of her?’

  ‘She couldn’t repeat it, anyway.’

  Bera took her time. ‘It’s very bad, Hefnir, the worst it could possibly be. My skern showed me.’

  He snorted. ‘Your skern...’

  ‘There will be violent thunderstorms and flooding. All our summer stores will be spoiled and we shall starve by the spring unless we leave.’

  ‘Your skern told you this?’

  ‘I saw it. It was like using the narwha
le horn to heal Heggi – which I found in the first place!’

  It was a clever thing to say and his expression changed.

  She pressed on. ‘Ottar believes me. He says the weather is odd. Have you ever known it as hot as this?’

  ‘You don’t know when this will happen.’

  ‘My skern only warns me of close dangers.’

  ‘If any of this is true...’ Hefnir frowned until he found the flaw. ‘We don’t have enough boats.’

  ‘Ottar has a plan for that. He’s already started.’

  Hefnir went out for a cold-water plunge. When he came back in he had the answer. ‘Rain can’t stop me trading for more stocks if the worst happens.’

  ‘And leave us? Besides, what would you trade with? You’re giving four tusks to the Serpent.’

  ‘He’s not getting any if we need them.’

  ‘You told me this tax keeps us safe.’

  ‘But if we’re going anyway...’

  ‘So we are, then?’

  ‘Let me think, damn it.’

  Bera went outside to drench.

  After a while, Hefnir and the thrall followed her. ‘How did you know I was giving him four tusks?’

  Hot panic poured over her. How did she know? The memory of a smell hit her. The latrines. Dishonour. ‘My skern told me.’

  The woman switched Bera’s back with twigs.

  ‘The Serpent asked for six. I was going to send Thorvald with four but then all this Heggi business... and now you say we’re leaving. I think he will have to do with that last bit of narwhale horn.’

  ‘Heggi won’t get better without it!’ It wasn’t the only reason. Bera’s scalp crackled with the danger of giving him the tusk carved with ALU. ‘Give him walrus. He’s not a man to be denied!’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I can see folk’s deep desires. His all lead to trouble.’

  So did the narwhale’s tusk. It would be defiled by the Serpent – or was already, for no matter how well it healed, it also brought misery and death.

  Bera muttered something about Heggi’s next dose and left.

  Hefnir wasn’t listening.

  Bera made the mistake of entering by the longhouse doors.

  ‘Violation! Perfidy!’ the ancestors snarled. ‘Abomination! Abduction!’

  She turned on her heel and decided to tackle Sigrid, who was washing clothes at the river. She was telling the other women how put upon she was. Bera walked serenely over and helped fold the clothes to disprove it.

  On the way back Sigrid pointed at a tree. ‘An apple left on the tree means death.’

  Bera quickly took the gnarled black apple and threw it away. They picked some berries, sat on the grass and feasted on them. Bera felt sad at the betrayal that existed between them. There was lack of honesty on both sides. Sigrid was the closest she had to a mother figure. A poor one, maybe, and now married to Thorvald, but Egill’s suggestion she should injure her to get back at Thorvald was unthinkable. Besides, they were all facing calamity. She dreaded warning Sigrid about the flood, with her fear of drowning.

  ‘Have you come unwell this month?’ asked Sigrid, out of the blue.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Who washes the rags? I know the thralls should but I don’t like them knowing... intimate things about us.’

  ‘Do you still have your course each month?’

  Sigrid smiled ruefully. ‘Do you think I’m so old, Bera? Don’t worry, I’m barren. You’ll have no competition. It was Thorvald’s kindness and courtesy about it that made me decide on the handfasting.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about it.’

  ‘There’s something to redeem everyone.’

  ‘Why him, Sigrid?’

  ‘There’s a mate for the owl, my grandmother used to say.’

  ‘He’s more trole than owl.’

  ‘It’s what’s inside that counts.’

  Bera could not get past his ravaged face, even if he was not a killer.

  ‘What happened at the handfasting?’ she asked.

  ‘Wondering if I can get out of it?’

  ‘What did you have to do?’

  ‘Come on, then.’ Sigrid got to her feet and beckoned Bera up. ‘You stand under a full moon, facing each other. You join right hands to join male souls and then left hands to join female souls. Like this.’

  Bera flinched at Sigrid’s touch. It made her Thorvald.

  ‘Egill says the figure of eight means infinity.’ Sigrid did not let go.

  It was a kind of forgiveness.

  ‘I have to tell you something,’ said Bera.

  Sigrid fell backwards onto the grass and did a whole big hammer sign, leaving her arms outstretched. Above them the sky gleamed, confounding the prediction.

  ‘A flood! See, I always knew I’d drown, one way or another.’

  ‘I saw my mother at Brightening,’ Bera said. ‘She looked right into me and said I was not to be guilty about a single thing.’

  ‘So are you?’

  Bera had felt guilty about her mother her whole life. For not saving her. For not being a proper Valla. For not being a good daughter. For so many failures. For feeling too much.

  Nothing she could tell Sigrid.

  ‘How soon will you all leave Seabost?’

  ‘Before the storms.’ Bera paused. ‘What do you mean by “you all”? You’re one of us.’

  ‘I’m never going out to sea.’

  ‘You won’t be afraid, Sigrid, once you’re out there. The air is different and so are all the colours and smells. Keen. There are whale spouts and the splash of diving birds and your hair stands on end with the whole... aliveness of it all!’

  Sigrid sat up and brushed the grass from her shoulders. ‘I’m not going.’

  ‘You will die, Sigrid, if you stay here.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to die. I’m not setting foot on any boat.’

  ‘You wretched, stubborn old fool!’ Bera leapt up and walked away, to stop herself shaking Sigrid.

  ‘I’m not, though.’

  Bera came back and shook her. ‘I don’t care if I have to knock you senseless but you are coming with us and that’s that!’

  Sigrid pushed her away and stood. ‘Stop bullying me.’

  ‘Please, Sigrid!’ Bera got down on her knees to beseech her.

  Sigrid’s mouth twitched. ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Don’t you “we’ll see” me. I know what “we’ll see” means and you can forget it.’

  ‘What about Thorvald?’

  ‘Hefnir’s telling him right now. You must make sure Thorvald knows it’s a real threat. He won’t believe me, he hates me.’

  ‘No, you hate him.’

  ‘And if he and Hefnir are behind me then I can get the right folk to come.’

  Sigrid glared at her. ‘So I’m to do my best to persuade my husband to leave me!’

  ‘You’re coming.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can.’

  ‘You’ll be glad I’m not going,’ Sigrid said. ‘There aren’t enough boats for us all to make a sea passage.’

  Despite sounding confident, Bera had no idea how to get Sigrid aboard. The two women went about their work and only met again when Hefnir and Thorvald returned to eat. They told them Ottar was staying at the boatyard, ready to work.

  Nothing more was said while they ate a thick stew: Hefnir put up his screen of silence; Thorvald struggled to chew; and Sigrid kept her back turned to them all. Heggi was as white as an ice bear, so immediately afterwards Bera took him to bed.

  ‘It’s too early,’ he moaned. ‘I’m too hot.’

  Bera pulled a hanging across his billet.

  ‘It’s still too light.’

  ‘You need rest to keep getting well.’

  ‘You just want to talk without me. I should be with my father, like Thorvald, like a partner.’

  ‘He doesn’t want partners.’ Bera pulled a linen sheet over his shoulders and checked the medicine stick.

 
; Raised voices carried and Heggi sat up. ‘I need to get Rakki a bone.’

  ‘Good try.’ Bera laughed. ‘The stick’s here beside you. So lie down and go to sleep.’

  He was right, of course. There were things to discuss that Hefnir did not want his son to hear. She went back to the fire where the others had begun without her.

  Sigrid’s face was red with indignation. ‘You should let him choose for himself!’

  Hefnir smirked. ‘I always do.’

  ‘Sit here with me, Sigrid,’ Thorvald said quietly.

  She did, and even smiled. Bera briefly wondered if he beat his wife into obedience but there was only love on Sigrid’s face.

  ‘Thorvald’s chosen to come,’ said Hefnir, ‘but in any case, if you are too stubborn to come on the boat with us, why should he stay here to die?’

  ‘I have a duty.’ Thorvald put his arm round Sigrid. ‘I am Hefnir’s second.’

  ‘You agree we have to leave?’ Bera asked Hefnir. She was sure he did not believe in her gift of sight.

  He got up. ‘I’ve been thinking about it before this. Living here, we’re cribbed by rock and ice. We should go south, to the Marsh Lands with their rich, fat holy men. Or try Iraland.’ His voice caught, as it had when he spoke about the sharpest, blackest knife.

  Bera sensed this was his true aim. ‘Not Iraland!’

  ‘Egill says it’s even richer.’

  ‘So now Egill’s in charge!’ Bera felt her throat burn with fury.

  ‘It’s my decision, Bera. I shall support you when you tell the village what you have seen. But where we go is up to me.’

  Bera moved away in agitation. She rolled and rolled the black bead of her necklace, feeling its enduring heat, forged in Egill’s land of fire. It came from the place she had scried in the black bowl that night on Seal Island, so that was where they must go. For her it was different. She would save folk by taking them there, not chasing some ultimate weapon. Hers was the purest reason. Wasn’t it?