by Suzie Wilde
‘Don’t let Rakki trample on this vest.’
‘Is that the one I ripped the bit off?’ He pulled Rakki away. ‘I’m sorry, Bera, don’t cry.’
‘I’m not.’ She daren’t, or she would never stop. ‘It’s this cold breeze.’
Bera stopped sewing, roughly pulled his head against her for a kiss then let him go. Heggi kept tight hold of his dog and groomed him. He was brewing about something. Bera wondered if he was thinking about the man who was like a grandfather to him.
‘You know the crew?’ he said, in the careless voice he used when he wanted something.
So that wasn’t it at all. He probably wanted their ration. Bera waited, not making it easy.
‘Well, can I help the bailer?’
‘No.’
Heggi began playing with the thread and she tapped his hand away.
‘Does he want your help?’
He pouted. ‘Dotta is up to her knees in water and the pigs will be worse.’
Thorvald arrived with a smell of vomit. ‘Sigrid’s exhausted and I should do more to help the crew.’
‘You’re no sailor.’
‘There’s other work I could do.’
‘So...?’
‘Sigrid could come back here and use the bucket if she needs it, though she’s eaten nothing.’
If Sigrid came, so would Thorvald. Close to, he made Bera’s flesh creep. He was linked to the Serpent somehow. Why should they both live and Ottar die? Bera felt an urgent need to be savage.
‘So can she?’ he pressed.
She managed to think about Sigrid. ‘This long, slow rolling is the worst. Sigrid doesn’t move with the boat-song but fights it. If the wind gets up the boat will settle down and so will she.’
He grunted. ‘Then she’ll be terrified we’ll capsize. I’ll go and fetch her over. She needs a woman’s touch.’
‘Anyone’s rather than yours,’ Bera said.
His face hardened before he left and she felt a dart of shame for punishing his care for Sigrid.
Heggi leapt to his feet. ‘So can I?’
‘What?’
‘Help the bailer. I’d be strong enough, wouldn’t I?’
‘Ask your father,’ she said.
Heggi slouched across to the steer-board. and a moment later set off brightly towards the open hold. Of course Hefnir would have given him permission; boats leaked if they had enough flex to make quick passages and the bailer-boy was always tired. Ottar would... No, too painful. Bera bent her head and got on with her mending.
Thorvald carried Sigrid over and then returned with her bedding.
Bera wrinkled her nose. ‘I hope the sea air will take the smell away.’
‘That, or the driving rain,’ said Thorvald. ‘I reckon there’s a storm building.’
She should have noticed. From the weather-side, there was a sooty smudge on the skyline that meant trouble.
Sigrid slumped onto her bedroll, her lips bloodless. ‘Let me die,’ she croaked.
They could all die.
Hefnir was steering out to sea – it was safer in unknown waters. Except that a bad storm was coming fast – and heavy weather in the middle of the deep ocean was beyond imagining.
Children were bound to their parents belt-to-belt. Asa’s baby stayed tightly swaddled in her shawl. There was not enough rope to make lifelines, so Bera showed them what tackle was most securely fixed, so they could grip it on the high side of the boat. Then she checked that the on-deck stores were lashed down tight. They would survive extreme heel but not a roll. She prayed the animal pens were secure enough without Ottar’s completion. The crew reefed the sail then tied themselves to their oars and bench. Although it was well within the boat’s capacity at present, the sea was growing lumpier as the wind increased. Waves bumped the boat off course and Hefnir began a fight to keep them off the beam. Rain arrived in a drenching veil.
Sigrid was the only one to show no concern. She had passed into a realm like death and her eyes were glazed. Thorvald made a kind of hammock for her out of his sea roll and lashed her in as best he could.
‘You’ll look out for her, won’t you?’ he asked Bera.
‘Of course I will,’ she snapped.
There was so much to deal with already. Bera put her faith in Ottar’s craft and heard his voice: The mountain ash is the strongest and the whitest wood comes from the north face. Bjorn used to say it with her. Her brother, quoting his father. Now they were both gone.
A woman prodded her. ‘We need shelter. The children are soaked to the skin, like to die of it.’
‘We daren’t risk extra windage. When the gale has passed we’ll rig up the spare sail. It will be worse before it gets better, so get back to your place and hang on for your life.’
The animals were bellowing; skidding about on their soiled bedding. Egill came up onto deck for fear of being trampled. There was no more to be done until the storm blew itself out.
‘Poor Feima and Dotta,’ said Heggi.
‘Just as well you’re tied to me,’ said Bera. ‘Or you’d be in there with them.’
‘And Rakki’s tied to me.’
The dog was the only creature smiling on the whole vessel.
A black fist hammered across the sky and punched the sails. The boat skewed and listed as the squall struck. Thunder crashed overhead and a heavy curtain of rain swept across the leaden sea. There was sharp hail scud, which icily drilled their heads until it eased. The gale strengthened throughout the afternoon and became full storm force by sunset. They had no choice but to run before it.
Bera heaved and clutched her way to the mast to help the crew take the sail off the yard. It bulged and billowed and struck her in the face, trying to escape like a live beast until it was bundled. They lashed the bare yardarm in place, to try and keep some steerage. All the gods of the air shrieked past, drilling their ears with screams of despair.
It was a howling night of total darkness. Wave-cloaked monsters swarmed invisibly towards their tiny vessel. At the last, there would be a crackle of white foam and the sea beasts could be seen for an instant, gnashing at the hull or sweeping them off course with glowing claws. The boat shivered with each assault.
There were no spare ropes to trail, so Hefnir got the crew to pour whale oil off the stern to flatten the sea. It did not stop the clattering and rattling of all their stores. Food would settle stomachs and cheer them but Bera gave up trying. She did manage to pass round some ale, which turned her mouth sour with worry.
The scant supply of whale oil ran out and the sea grew wilder still. Bera had to cling onto the rail. She was exhausted and fighting sleep and
... She was in her cradle. Her mother’s hand, smelling of warm bread, gently rocking her; her soft voice singing a long-forgotten song:
‘The raven made twelve pairs of rope from the twists and turns of its bowel;
its claws were long and thin and sharp and made six pairs of trowel;
the beak was a black and shiny ship that cut the Ice-Rimmed Sea;
the feathers oars that tipped the waves as they flew across at speed;
its eyes—’
... And a smash of spray woke her to the battle against the sea. She loved this boat of Ottar’s even more as it bravely took on all the forces of sea and air. She would look after the Raven until the end of its days and he would know.
The brief dawn was a thin, grey light, revealing a jumble of steeped seas. Dim shapes huddled around the deck. Icy rain returned shortly afterwards, driving in horizontally. Folk gritted their teeth harder.
It was a huge following sea. Hefnir got the men to rig a scrap of sailcloth behind the steer-board so that he could not see what towered over him and go off course in terror.
Bera yawned as seasickness threatened and kept her eyes on the skyline ahead whenever it was visible in the pitch and tilt. It was impossible to get used to this lurching motion. There was a sickening lift of the stern as the approaching wave started to pick them up, a short feeling
of weightlessness, then a dizzying burst of speed as the wave rolled onwards; a sudden deafening shriek of the wind, followed by the sensation of slipping backwards, down into a breathless stall in the silent trough, waiting for the next mountainous surge.
Folk were used to a hard day’s work but this clenching wait drained their strength. Grief was wearing Bera down and she began to fear that Hefnir’s concentration must soon lapse. She offered to steer but in this ferocity he trusted no one but himself and would not move from the steer-board. Bera pitied the poor bailer-boy. He took every other turn, so did twice as much work as anyone else. Heggi said he counted two thousand shovelfuls in the last bailing.
Salt had worked its way into her nail beds and was lifting them. Her eyes stung with ice needles of rain and spray. Wool kept a body warm when it was wet but her thick cloak was now so sodden that she was beyond shivering. She reached the extremity of being cold, wet, mournful and afraid and a strange thing happened. It was a distinct feeling. The essential part of her that was Bera became something precious and tiny, locked deep within her core, so that her body was free to deal with any danger.
Bera studied the bleak faces around her impassively, even Heggi’s. She was strong, fit, bright and able. Boats were her blood. She was a Valla – but even if those skills were gone she was also her father’s daughter and she would survive. Ottar was present in the wood and iron of his boat and together they would help others survive. She looked for Egill, knowing her frailty, but she was as fleeting as a shadow.
Bera used her belt to tie Heggi to Dellingr. One she most trusted.
‘Need food,’ she shouted.
He nodded tightly.
She clawed her way to the barrels at the stern, making little rushes to find handholds between lurches. The last few steps in mid-air brought her crashing against the sternpost. She swung round and held on to the gunnel. The wind made it hard to breathe so she got her back to it and, with her other hand, picked at the knots that kept the lid tight. She couldn’t feel her wrinkled fingers, which were white and clumsy. All the while she moved to the heaving of the boat, even though it meant a constant shifting back and fore and side to side. One check of the skyline to quell the nausea; one glance back down to work.
It was slow, determined progress but at last the lid came free. Bera wedged it between her knees and peered in. White, watery fluid slopped back and forth inside: sour whey, in which floated some new cheeses. They would quench the painful thirst, though they would be slippery to hold.
A large wave skewed the stern as it rose and she held on with both hands, legs braced between the barrel and the hull, feeling the sternpost bruising her backbone. It was hard to keep hold of the lid and deal with the cheeses. A crewman staggered across and locked her between his strong legs, so she could work.
Bera fished around in the freezing liquid for a ball of cheese. She gave it to the crewman, who passed it on with one hand. The next settler took the cheese and also passed it on so that small children could eat first. Bera kept them coming until everyone had something. There might only be a few mouthfuls but the mere fact of her managing it would lift morale.
Bera defied the storm and the wind dropped a notch. She sealed the lid and moved to the barrel of mead to give folk courage. The crewman slapped her back: man to man. Her own spirits lifted to be one of the crew.
The rolling of the boat changed: the waves became shorter and broke more frequently. It was like a giant version of chop-waves, the wind-against-tide effect on one of her fishing trips at home. She listened to the hissing and thud against the hull; the rattle of water right along the strakes; the creaks and groans of the blocks and thrumming of the rigging. Bera hauled her way to Hefnir. Ropes chafed her hands and every object on board shifted and cuffed her.
‘They’re shoaling! It may be getting shallower.’
‘This bastard wind,’ he roared. ‘We’re still too far north!’
‘I believe we’re meant to be on this course.’
‘Did your skern say?’ Hefnir sounded desperate. ‘Any land would be good – but not yet.’
His eyes held the blankness of complete exhaustion. Then they widened to stare at something behind her head. There, off the wind, coming fast from a completely different direction from any other wave, was a single solid wall of green water. It had no spill of white foam at its peak and it swallowed the other waves as it headed for them with silent, malicious purpose.
The sky disappeared.
‘Hang on for your lives!’ screamed Hefnir. ‘We’re going over!’
Time slowed. Dellingr pulled Heggi close and got his family on the rail next to him; Thorvald had Sigrid braced against the hull. The bailer-boy stopped work and crouched down out of sight. Egill had vanished. Children’s mouths were open in silent screams. Bera reached out for the rail.
It hit.
And noise returned in a constant, drumming roar of water and terrified cattle. Screams. The Raven tipped and began to slip away from the face of the monster, gunnels dipping as the boat heeled further and further. Hefnir was right; they were going to roll. Bera clung on with numb fingers. She stupidly looked down and saw open water beyond her feet. If she lost her grip, she would plunge straight into an icy sea. The pain in her arms and shoulders was unbearable. She dug her nails in until they bled.
The boat hung at an impossible angle for an age but then slid sideways and seemed to come up. But water engulfed them; not the crashing boil of spray but a constant clear sheet of water that kept pouring so that Bera felt she was already drowning. Only the mast stood clear of this green deluge. It was as though they had become the wave itself and up was down and air was water. Green became red, then black.
Her mother was close; she put a small, cold hand against Bera’s cheek and the touch freed her. Her breath was leaving her like the tide, with the beads hanging between them like a cord.
No letting go! The beads made her a Valla – and she was her father’s daughter too! She had brought her folk to this and must lead them to safety.
Bera chose life – and they were free.
The normal wave train heeled the boat so the deluge washed out as Ottar had designed; righting itself sufficiently for the crew to bail what was left in the bilges. Bera held her bead necklace tight and fervently thanked her father for his skill and all Vallas before her for theirs. Her own power had been forged anew. This time, she had chosen it. It didn’t feel like some heavy cloak that she childishly struggled to wear.
And then it was time to look around her. They were safe for now; but at what cost?
Heggi was ashen: eyes wide, gnawing the back of his hand. Dellingr had his back to her. The small group around his family were still. Bera made her way over to them.
Asa’s shawl was empty.
She stared at Dellingr aghast. He untied Heggi, passed the belt to Bera and went straight to his wife. Bera got Heggi away. He was dry-eyed but could not leave his hand alone. Behind them came a wail of despair. Asa pummelled her husband with her fists, cursing him; blaming him. It cut through Bera and must hurt Heggi.
She stroked the boy’s hair. ‘Not your fault, Boykin.’
He choked. ‘If he hadn’t had me tied...’
‘The sea takes in an instant. Dellingr couldn’t have saved the baby.’
‘He could have jumped overboard.’
‘Then Asa would have lost everything.’
Hefnir beckoned them to the helm.
‘Their baby went over—’ Bera began.
‘Could have been all of us,’ Hefnir said. ‘Take the helm.’
Things were bad. He went to the crewmen, who were hanging over the side of the boat, trying to pick up what still floated. The settlers joined in and it listed further. Bera shouted at them to get across to the other side and steered a slow circle.
Heggi tugged at her. Two dark shapes were heading for the boat.
‘Feima! Dotta! They must’ve gone overboard.’
Bera gripped his tunic. ‘Their stal
ls have broken.’
Hefnir’s farmer was desperately trying to secure the smaller animals below deck.
‘They won’t get a cow back aboard,’ she said.
Heggi rounded on her. ‘Don’t say that! I’m going to help.’
‘You will fetch a crewman. Now.’
He scampered.
When the man arrived she told him to steer and tied Heggi to him.
‘Oh, no!’ Heggi moaned. ‘I thought we were both going!’
‘Only Dellingr might have the strength.’
Heggi gave Bera a look of respect for facing that family.
Raw-faced women surrounded Asa. ‘Haven’t you done enough damage? You should look after your own kin,’ said one of them.
‘Get her away from me,’ Asa screamed. ‘We wouldn’t be here, if you hadn’t cheated...’ She collapsed.
The circle of scowling women closed round her again.
Dellingr was unyielding. ‘I shall never forgive myself.’
‘And I am sorry for your loss. But we need you now. All of us.’ Bera would not look away.
Dellingr shook his head but went to help. The poor creatures were wild-eyed, trying to get close to the boat. It was hard for the oarsmen to help without clubbing the calf with an oar.
‘Come, Dotta, come!’ Heggi sobbed. ‘Swim!’
They used the free end of the haul-yard as a noose but it kept falling short. Dotta was tiring. Her small head kept ducking underwater and her mother bellowed forlornly by her side, only to swallow water and choke. It was hopeless.
But then a wave rolled the calf where they could grab her. Dellingr swung her on board. Dotta got up on wobbly legs, spluttered, coughed and was sick. The farmer bundled her into a pen.
‘Raise the sail!’ ordered Hefnir.
‘No! What about Feima?’ cried Heggi.
Hefnir ignored him.
Bera wanted to jump overboard and knew Heggi would have the same idea. She ran and clutched him, clinging on as he screamed at her. Heggi met her eyes and they understood each other. He stilled.
The crew got the sail back on the yard as quickly as they could but the boat was hardly moving. Feima kept swimming round the vessel, calling to her calf, and Dotta responded. It was an agony.