by Suzie Wilde
Finally, the sail filled.
‘I’m pointing as far south as this wind allows,’ Hefnir declared.
Any direction would leave poor Feima behind. The cow’s despairing calls grew shorter and fainter and her calf’s answering cries wrung Bera’s heart.
Heggi wept noisily.
Hefnir looked up into the pitiless sky. ‘Stop that. It’s only a cow.’
‘She’s a mother,’ Bera said and took Heggi’s hand.
Her eyes were fixed on the boat’s wake, where dear Feima was resolutely swimming after her calf. She was tiring but would carry on to her last breath to reach her. Bera continued to watch until she was a black speck on every wave crest and stared at the grey water long after she could be seen no more.
18
Time passed and the lumpen sea hugged the sullen memory of a storm. Clothes were wrung out and put back on and there was a strong smell of wet sheep around the boat. Folk were careful around each other; so careful that few spoke. They tiptoed on a ledge of grief and despair and watched for any loose ice.
When Hefnir spoke his voice cracked. ‘Look! Is that a bank of cloud over there?’
Bera screwed up her eyes. ‘It’s a long way off.’
‘But it could be land.’
She doubted it and was proved right later. The bank of cloud was an ice pack. They were heading over the Ice Rim.
Bera tried to raise their spirits by giving out extra rations and when at last a watery sun appeared and the waves flattened children ran wild with relief, though their mothers’ eyes followed every move.
She took some food to Hefnir. ‘Will you speak to them?’
‘And say what?’
Bera could not stand this self-pitying moroseness and went to see if Sigrid still lived.
Her cheeks were hollow and she hardly breathed.
Thorvald was wracked. ‘I’ve seen this before with a young lad on his first trip. Got seasick, gave up and died.’
‘I’m not having it.’ Bera slapped her friend’s hand. ‘Listen up, Sigrid. We are past the worst and land is in sight.’
It was a lie – but a skua flew by, skimming the waves. Sigrid would mistake its coarse mewling for a coast bird.
‘Hear that? Now, buck up, Sigrid. I cannot do without you. Nor can Asa...’ Better not mention the baby. ‘I’m going to soak some flatbread in buttermilk. You will have some, Sigrid, if I have to cram it down your throat.’
‘Very caring,’ said Thorvald. ‘That’ll do the trick.’
Sigrid’s eyelids flickered. Bera smiled, cracking her blistered lips.
Blood. The taste of fear.
Bera wanted to breathe clean air and scan to make land the truth before returning with Sigrid’s food. When she saw Heggi with some children up on the bow platform she stopped to watch. The smallest child was trying, with difficulty, to hold himself steady and keep his father’s big felt hat upside down on his head. It fell off to their amusement. She wondered why the child didn’t just wear it properly.
‘Try again,’ said Heggi. ‘Hold the bottom of it till I get there.’
‘Don’t want to.’
Dellingr’s girl put the hat back on his head and held it there. Heggi had one hand holding invisible reins; holding himself proudly, as he had on the horse Ottar made for him. Bera was touched.
Then Heggi galloped towards the child, swung his arm and swiped at the hat, which fell onto the deck and rolled.
‘Fall over then,’ Heggi said.
The boy crumpled.
‘No, not like that,’ said Heggi. ‘It was really slow, like this.’ He toppled stiffly backwards.
Hot bile rose in Bera’s throat. How dare he! She wanted to hurt Heggi as much as he had hurt her. She pictured herself screwing up his nasty little face like a rag.
The knowing eyes of one of the sows met hers.
Don’t blame the boy.
Her skern was lounging against the pen, laughing at her.
You are funny – thinking the pig was talking.
‘How can you? I’m distraught!’
So here I am, bringing light and joy into your drab world.
‘Drab! I have suffered terrible losses.’ Bera had a sudden thought. ‘I’m not going to die, am I?’
Yes. We all are.
‘I see you’re quite your old self.’
I am. Which ought to tell you something.
Riddles. It was too much. She made a fist.
He drifted over like mist. I’ll tell you, then. Scry inside yourself.
‘No. I—’
Afraid?
Of course she was. She might have willed her baby dead.
Go on, have a peep.
There was a tiny union of opposites curled inside her, like two leaves within their liquid sac. Flesh and spirit, a child and her skern.
You have to keep going, for their sake.
‘I haven’t kept everyone safe.’
You weren’t fully in control. Be brave enough to stand alone.
‘Great comfort.’ Although, in a way, it was. ‘What else are you here for?’
The girl wants more. Well... that special bead on your necklace.
She touched it. ‘The black one?’
It’s made of obsidian, as is—
‘Egill’s black bowl.’
Which comes from Ice Island.
‘Where?’
He smirked. You don’t know everything then. Did you see fire and ice? Yes, everyone does.
‘Not everyone can scry. And we’re going to Ice Island.’
Obsidian is made there. It’s why Egill is so terrified and she - Look out, Pretty Boy’s coming.
He dissolved into Thorvald’s grim face. ‘Where’s her bread, then?’
‘What?’
‘I think she might eat now.’ He peered at her. ‘Are you crying?’
‘I can’t.’
‘Shall I fetch it?’ Thorvald was suddenly mild.
‘You don’t know where it’s stowed. I’ll go now, but... Thorvald, I need to ask you something. Why would a child, a boy, why would Heggi pretend to be the Serpent King?’
Thorvald stiffened.
‘I mean in play. Why would he get a boy to balance a hat on his head so he can chop it off?’ Her throat closed on her last words.
Thorvald reached out towards her then let his hand drop. ‘I swear to you the Serpent will pay the blood debt if our paths cross. And they will.’
‘And Heggi?’
‘There are times when you do something you regret forever but you can’t take back the moment.’
He was talking about himself. ‘Go on.’
‘Heggi and Ottar were close, weren’t they? Perhaps it’s a child’s way of making the nightmare pass.’
Bera found that astonishing. Heggi pretending to be the killer disturbed her more than she could explain.
‘The Serpent King is evil.’ She shook her head. ‘And now... there’s something worse.’
Thorvald studied the sky.
Bera pressed him. ‘Did Hefnir plan to go to Iraland with Egill?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then that is where the Serpent will go. His spying thrall will have told him. So we stay here.’
Thorvald gestured at limitless water. ‘Where?’
‘It’s called Ice Island.’
‘Then don’t tell Egill. Or Hefnir.’
Once she would have loathed the understanding of a killer. But she was increasingly glad to have this man’s trust and began to see that things were never as simple as she had supposed.
Bera managed to get a few spoonfuls into Sigrid.
They rallied her enough to mutter darkly, ‘If I can get through that storm I can get through anything,’ before she sank back onto her bed and dozed.
Bera piled more furs over her, making sure her neck was covered. Sigrid hated draughts. When she looked up Thorvald was marching Heggi towards her. He stood the boy in front of her then backed right off.
Heggi was a child agai
n, his face crumpled with tears, unable to get the words out for sobbing.
‘I know, Boykin,’ she said. ‘I know.’
He rushed to her and at last they cried together, for as long as they both needed.
Afterwards he slept. Bera had time to let the vision of a very small Heggi and the Serpent play out. The wooden horse; the woman who came and hugged them. His mother, she knew.
But then it jumped forward to burning and anguish. Thorvald in the thick of it. Their longhouse, where sea-riders forced Heggi’s mother, at her own hearth. A scene that the ancestral stones recorded.
Where was Hefnir?
Then the woman was on board the dragonboat and others abused her, singly, together, in every possible way and left her to slit her own skernless throat from ear to ear so that she became the ravaged Drorgher in the cellar.
One day she would tell Hefnir what had really happened and make him feel pity, too.
There was a perfect sunset. Bera thought of her mother, and being an orphan, and she kissed Heggi, who woke and they watched its progress together. Towards the end, heaped banks of clouds reached far up into the heavens, like the mauve mountains leading to the place where dead Vallas lived on. As one day she would.
Next day the waves were white with the splash of sea birds and spouting whales. Thorvald gave some cold porridge to Sigrid, who held his scarred hand as a child might, to guide the spoon.
Bera asked, ‘How long has Hefnir known the Serpent King?’
Thorvald paused, carefully fed Sigrid, then wiped the corners of her mouth with his thumb.
‘Come on, Thorvald, it’s a simple enough question. How long?’
Sigrid nudged him. ‘Tell her the truth.’
‘Maybe ten, eleven years?’
Far longer than Hefnir had said. Why lie? What did it matter?
Thorvald spat overboard. ‘Hefnir should never have trusted him.’
‘Was he one of the sea-riders who forced Heggi’s mother?’
Sigrid gasped, but then answered for Thorvald. ‘He doesn’t know, do you, Thorvald? He never caught up with their boat. It wasn’t his fault, Bera, none of it.’
‘Did Heggi see anything?’
Thorvald shook his head. ‘The old woman had him safe, up with Asa.’
‘So who was Hefnir protecting?’ Bera didn’t need to see their closed faces to know the answer. Himself.
‘Where’s Egill?’ Sigrid asked.
‘Best left alone.’ Thorvald cocked his head towards the stern platform. ‘Down under there.’
Bera went to the stores and took out some food. Ottar had cared for Egill and now she would take over the duty, however reluctantly. Egill brought out something in Bera she didn’t care for. Poison. Pride. Had she ever been a friend or simply used Bera to get back to Iraland? In any case, she had backed Hefnir now.
Below decks it was dark as pitch and smelt of midden. Bera let her eyes adjust then crawled forward, peering across a space striped by ashy beams of light coming through gaps in the boards. The smell became yeastier and bundled in a corner was a small heap of sticks and rags.
It was Egill. She was in a tight ball, muttering shrill, guttural words, their sense lost in the cracking and creaking of the hull. How could she bear to be banged and bounced in the foul-smelling dimness with only animals for company?
‘It’s Bera. I’ve brought some cheese. Try and eat some.’
Egill stopped rocking.
‘And flatbread, Egill, look.’
Egill’s wild eyes gleamed and she held up a finger to listen. There was a high-pitched skitter, like the edge of thunder. Crack! It came again. Crack! Then the scuttling of a giant rat, from one end of the boat to the other.
‘Ice,’ said Egill, as though it was her lover’s name. As if she were calling it.
Bera shuddered. ‘Come up on deck with me. You’re safer there.’ But would others be? Egill had the smell of maelstrom madness on her.
There was shuffling behind Bera.
‘Put down the food,’ Thorvald said calmly. ‘Then slowly get back here.’
Bera had to crawl backwards. Egill grinned like a starving wolf and Bera feared she would attack. After passing the animal pens, Thorvald lifted her up onto the deck and then swung himself up.
Rakki was waiting. He pushed his nose into her hands, trying to find some cheese. Bera stroked his head.
‘Why do you keep looking after me?’
‘Are you talking to me or the dog?’ Thorvald gave his jagged smile.
‘Does Hefnir know Egill’s a girl?’
He looked across the deck at Sigrid. ‘We all do.’
‘Not my father. He wanted a son to mould.’
‘Ottar knew. He was protecting her.’
‘My father was a better man than he ever let me know.’
Thorvald’s puckered scar was close. His eye looked sore where the lower lid dragged and his mouth was savagely pulled upwards. Bera wondered if she could ease it somehow.
‘Did you get that protecting Hefnir?’
‘It’s my job.’
Thorvald’s biggest scar was down his face, whereas Hefnir’s scar was on his back. Someone once told her that Hefnir started battles that Thorvald had to finish. Bera was beginning to piece together a different picture of Hefnir and Thorvald; one where his second was more loyal than her husband deserved – and it didn’t make her comfortable. Thorvald stood firm, while Hefnir ran.
The boat juddered.
Bera rushed to the rail to see a baby iceberg bump and twirl along the hull, grinding, crackling, then swirling away in their wake. The frigid sea glowed in the half-light. Bera strained to see what was ahead. Was her scalp prickling with the sudden intense cold or was it a warning? All was featureless, a scumble of sea and sky.
Then she saw a bobbled stretch of ice.
‘Growlers coming!’ she cried, all teeth.
‘Drop the sail!’
The boat skin was beating like a drum. The crew got the stiff sail down and Bera clumsily lashed it with freezing fingers. She wiped the sail grease on her cloak and went to help others. The crew backed down to slow the boat then used their ice poles to push off from the nearest chunks. The settlers sat on each rail, using their feet.
They drifted, held in awe. The ice held its own luminosity in different shades of blue and green. The small bergs were mostly white, or a thin grey, with clouds of bubbles layered inside. Some had the colours and patterns of Bera’s beads, with whorled runes. The ice groaned and sighed, or sometimes roared, as it sheered away. When the floes kissed the hull, there was a muttering and shivering. Whispers of peril. Bera worried about what she couldn’t see below the surface.
The boat hit.
It stopped dead in the water, making the settlers stagger. Slowly, they slid sideways, to come up against another unseen chunk. The hull boomed. Then a berg reared up in jagged beauty and tipped the bow with a graunching and banging that sounded deadly.
This is bad, but ahead it is much, much worse.
Bera closed her eyes, willed it for herself, and dived into a numbing black chill, and embraced...
... Noise that surrounded her. Wails, groans, creaks and chittering; long, low moans and trilling chatter. The ocean teemed with hidden life. Like a seal, she swam sleekly through the pulsing darkness, past fish with huge torches for eyes and long, glowing spines and rods. She flicked through strangely curled and stretched transparencies that trailed twinkling lights. It grew lighter as a monstrous white mouth, serrated with small, sharp teeth, yawned before her. A long, mottled shape with a single tusk – a corpse whale! – charged up at her from below. She swerved away and met grasping tentacles but she jinked between the huge suckers before they could bind her.
Before her was always the promise of knowledge, even though it was to know her enemy. Ahead, there was a pure blue light, bluer than a sunlit cornflower, still shining through the gloom at depths that Bera couldn’t fathom. She pierced veils of purple fish that scattered and reform
ed after she passed, drawn to the limitless blue like a moth to a flame. She slowed as she neared it and saw that it was not light but mass. Ice. A crystalline immensity, an uncut sapphire, that would coldly rip the heart out of their vessel.
Bera shot to reality, blinking in the stark light. Shocked and bloodless, she felt as though she had been gone for years.
‘There are ice m-monsters ahead,’ she stammered, her lips shrivelled and cracked.
‘We’re dealing with them,’ said Hefnir.
‘M-much bigger.’
‘We’re taking water!’ yelled a crewman.
Folk grabbed bailing shovels and worked as quickly as they could but the level was rising all the time.
‘Hefnir! Bear off,’ Bera insisted. ‘Our only chance.’
Speed could be fatal but Hefnir eventually nodded. ‘Raise the sail!’
The men hoisted. Bera joined Heggi to help bail. There was a juddering, grinding, clattering, as they sped through the loose pack. It was worse for Bera, ankle-deep in freezing water, next to wooden boards that would crack open if the nails unclenched. She had to trust in her father’s build – though nothing could withstand the monster she had seen.
‘It’s getting worse,’ a man said. ‘We must have sprung new leaks.’
Bera glared. ‘Not in Ottar’s boat.’
He kept his head down.
The wind was taking them south, away from the ice sheet but towards Iraland. Bera willed them westwards. It was a huge risk: the boat could be swamped before they reached Ice Island. They took turns to bail. Bera worked doggedly through all her shifts and did more than her share. She begged her mother to guide their little craft.
They managed to keep the water level steady but tiredness was slowing them and only land could save them. Repairs to the hull could not be done at sea. All the time Bera’s scalp gave an insistent warning. In the ice-glow she got some simple food organised and made everyone eat to give them courage. She took some to Hefnir.
‘I’ve no time for that.’ He squinted to the west. ‘What’s your reckoning? Ice or land?’
The glittering might be an ice sheet but there were clouds above it in a particular pattern.
‘It’s land.’