“What did you buy?” he asked, trying to return to a lighter mood.
Her eyes followed his down to the basket, then back. “Nothing. I took tapers to the grain-merchant.”
“Bees’ wax tapers?” She had said she kept bees for the sake of her apples; they must do well if she could also dip tapers.
For answer she gave a short nod. The Sun was dropping, casting all about them in a warm yellow light. He glanced at his boat, waiting. If he did not speak again he feared that she would rise and bid him fare-well. He made a small sound in his throat.
“Tell me of your life, Rannveig,” he invited. The Sun striking her hair made the tips of it golden.
Her lips parted, and she spent a long moment looking at him, but she spoke.
“My father had the apple farm, and my mother’s parents gave her the hall; she had no brother. As I said, my brother Rapp had married well, and moved upland to raise horses. We had serving folk here at the hall, and at the farm men who helped with the heaviest work. My father did some trading across the sea, sending apples from our farm, and sheep-skins he would trade for to the Prus and Pomerani; one ship a year only. We had enough; plenty. I was born in the hall” – here she turned her head over her shoulder to the timber and stone building at the top of the hill – “but I liked the farm best. One year my father bought a half-share in a herring-ship, a ship that sailed from here, and never returned. It was a great loss, as my father had borrowed silver with which to buy the share.”
Her eyes went to Dagr’s fishing boat as she spoke, as if seeing it made the loss fresh again.
“He died not long after that, in Winter. My mother knew he had buried silver and we spent much of Spring trying to find it. We dug and dug, beneath the floorboards at the farm, by big rocks, everywhere we could think of. We knew he needed it in Odin’s hall, and wanted only enough to keep the farm up. We never found it.
“So we let the hall, and she and I worked the farm. We sold many of the beasts, planted seedlings so we could grow more apples.
“Last Spring she died. Their ashes are there, at the place of burial.” She lifted her chin across the beach to a spot at the far end of the trading road.
He considered all this. She had been cherished by her parents, spoilt, even. Her life had been an easy one; it was likely her sharp tongue and high expectations that had kept her from being wed. Then the comfort she had known was lost with the herring-boat, and her father died. A picture flashed in his mind of her and her aged mother bending over the soil, planting young trees.
When she turned her head back to him his eyes fell upon the necklace about her throat. “The last time I saw you, you were choosing such beads,” he recalled aloud.
Her fingers went to the glass beads of red, blue, and yellow. “Já,” she said, with a slight smile. “I have always liked them.” After a pause she went on. “And that is the last time I saw you.” She looked steadily upon him. “It is fair, now, that you should tell me how the years have passed for you.”
He nodded. “And so I shall. The following Spring I went to one of my brother’s farms. I spent the year with him, then thought I would try fishing. I have always liked the sea, and have an older brother, Tufi, who has made a good way for himself fishing on the western coast, near Fiskehamn. I spent three years with him, learning boats, handling nets, dressing and drying the catch. As Tufi’s own sons grew and could join him on his boat, he got me this smaller one –” here he nodded towards his boat – “and I worked steadily to pay him back.”
His words slowed. “The first time he sent me to Svear-land with a load of fish to sell, pirates caught me. They seized the ship, took the man I had sailed with as their pilot for their war-ship, and forced me overboard.”
He heard her small gasp, but he was looking down as he recounted this.
“I was saved by clinging to a featherbed – my own – which had been thrown over as well. I washed ashore on the coast of Öland. I stayed with a rich farmer for the Winter, and then saw my boat in a cove not far away. I took it back, sailed to Gotland and my brother’s family. That was last year.” He gave a slow and steady exhale. “And now I am here.”
“Sailing is full of danger,” she murmured. She herself was looking down, as if she could not look upon the water after hearing this.
He wished to turn the talk back to her.
“So you are alone, Rannveig. And have not yet wed.”
She jerked her head. “I know what you are thinking: Here is a woman with a farm, and a hall, to be had for the asking. You are wrong!”
“You do not know what I am thinking,” he corrected. His voice was low and firm, for he had not forgotten that once she had considered him a potential mate. The rush of recognition of this fact he had felt years ago returned in shadow form to him now.
“I see a woman as lovely as Frigg, but as angry as a crow.”
She gave a little exhale at this, almost a snort. He went on, with new earnestness.
“We have spoken of the last time we saw each other. Now I will speak of the first. That first time I saw you, by the fire-light, it was clear you held yourself in high regard. I spoke courteously to you, when the others were jesting and calling. Next morning you chided me for being a boy.
“Despite what you think, today I am asking you for nothing. I need ask for nothing,” he stressed, warming to his words. “I have my own boat. If I wanted to wed for the sake of silver, I could do that. There have been women enough who would take me.”
At once he regretted it. It sounded a boast, and was not quite true, besides. And it made him sound as if he had a woman in every port. Well, let her think that if she would.
Even so he was not prepared for the tartness of her response.
“I am sure that when you wed you will win silver as well as the woman of your desiring,” she said, jumping up.
“Then I hope you have silver,” he said.
She was in the act of turning from him as he said this. She stopped, and faced him where he still sat upon the bench.
“You, my tart-tongued beauty,” he said.
He stood. He leaned towards her, his face as grave as was his tone. He gazed at her long enough that she was forced to speak.
She was shaking her head. “Stop. I…I am…old.” She let her eyes meet his as she frowned. “I will wrinkle and grey before you.”
“How old?” he asked.
“Five-and-twenty, six-and-twenty…” She looked down. “I try to forget.”
“At Blót I will be twenty-two. Is that so great a gap between us?”
She still wore a frown.
“There is a wrinkle, already,” he smiled, leaning forward to kiss her forehead.
When he pulled back he saw tears gleaming in her eyes.
“How far to your farm?” he asked now.
So his jest was over, she thought. He must be worried about her making it back before nightfall. Let him go his way; she would go hers.
She let her eyes lift and scan the sky for a moment. The skies were paling above the tired trees. Fall was coming, and soon.
“There is time to reach there before dark,” she answered.
But Dagr had made his decision.
“Then let us begin now,” he told her, and stooped to pick up the basket at her feet. He straightened up and fastened his blue-green eyes upon her. “If you wish it, I will leave in the morning, and never see you again.”
She swallowed. “And if I do not wish that…?”
“Then we will hand-fast, tomorrow. And I will send word to Tufi and his wife to join us for our wedding feast, at Blót.”
Chapter the Fourth: Apples
DAGR went to his boat. He took the small leathern pouch of tinder and striker from his toolkit, for he was woodsman enough not to enter woods near dusk without it. His food bag he left behind; if he need sail in the morning it would be there for him. He glanced about his boat, then checked the line holding her to the pier. R
annveig stood by the bench they had been sitting on, not quite watching him. She felt a tightness in her chest, and in the waves lapping before her almost heard the blood pulsing in her ears.
He jumped down on the wooden planks of the pier. He knew he was grinning, and tried not to; her head was lowered as if she wished, by not seeing, not to be seen.
He took her basket from her once more, and laid his fire-striking kit inside it. She wished he had not taken it from her; without it she had nothing to hold, nowhere to put her hands. She clutched her light shawl with them instead, hugging herself as if she were cold. The wind had picked up slightly, sending a few early-downed leaves skittering. She led him up the steep hill, at the end of which sat her hall.
When they reached the top he turned a moment to look back. There was the sea, stretching away in an endless wash of blue-grey water, deepening at the horizon where the sky was already beginning to darken. And there was his boat, lashed safely, riding gently at the pier’s end. He could see the whole trading road from here, and down the length of the coast to the far close of the shallow bay.
He said aloud what he had said to himself earlier. “This place is a good one.”
She had paused when he had, and had turned with him, looking back. For answer she gave a nod of her head. The lips were pressed together but the slightest of smiles hung there.
Her hall was small but sturdy; like, he thought, his boat. He could see why folk would wish to store their grain there. The fact that the two narrow ends were of stone marked it as having been built by a rich man, and one who took care that what he touched might last. There was a well near the front door, and as they passed the long wooden side of the hall he saw a stable, of almost the same size as the hall. She led him past this, where a wall of spruce trees fronted the woods behind. He saw the narrow track, and Rannveig stepped onto it.
They barely spoke as they walked. It was awkward, walking in a woods unknown to him, following the blue gown and trailing red hair of this woman who kept her face resolutely forward, never stopping to look back. He need watch his feet, they both did, and if the trees had not already shed some of their leaves the way would have been dark indeed. The Sun gleamed dully in the West before them. They passed a fork, in which the track widened to the right, but they stayed on the narrower left path. It was full dusk when the trees thinned.
There was a meadow, and beyond that rows of neatly planted trees. Dagr could see that apples hung there; he could make out clusters of dark spheres against the sky. To one side grew a great tree, an oak, he thought, and then sat the house. It was small, far smaller than the barn behind it. He saw a cow move, walking across a small paddock towards them, and heard her low.
So they were here. Rannveig’s step had slowed just a little. When the cow lowed, she turned to him.
“I must milk; and the hens need penning,” she said. She sounded a bit breathless; they had been moving quickly through the forest.
“I will do it,” he offered, looking to the cow.
“Nai,” she said. “Not – not her; she fears men, and will kick. I must do it.”
He nodded; some cows were moody and resented a stranger’s touch. “The hens, then,” he agreed. Some were already in the barn, awaiting the handfuls of grain they could count on. He called the rest with a click of his teeth, and scattered their reward as they strutted in, a few dancing with outstretched wings.
The cow had followed Rannveig, and he swung the door closed behind them as she pulled at the full udder. A window high in the wall sent a shaft of light onto the straw covered floor. He watched Rannveig as she filled the basin. She seemed intent on her task, eyes lowered, hands working steadily. The cow was making little grunts of contentment as she moved her jaws side to side. The fresh-milk smell added to that of the fowl and the cow herself, filling the space with the warm aroma of animals at their feed.
When she was done Rannveig poured the milk into a thick-walled crock. She bent to pick it up, but Dagr reached down and took it from her. A little colour arose in her cheek, visible even in the low light they stood in. Again she nodded, wordlessly, and led him to one of the out buildings. He lowered the crock into the stone-lined trench waiting there. She shut the door and shot the bar across it.
It was dim enough that the coals of the kitchen yard cooking-ring shown a black-frosted red. Rannveig picked up a poker and opened the coals, then laid three more pieces of wood upon them.
“You will be hungry,” she said, looking at the fire, and not him. Her voice was so quiet that he had need to move his head closer to make her out.
“It is your ale I am eager for,” he answered.
She looked at him then, and he thought she swallowed as she nodded.
The house stood before them. He had taken up her basket, but now she reached to him and took it into her own hand. She paused to light a short length of twisted rush at the fire’s edge.
She did not lock her door. She pushed it open, and went swiftly from place to place, lighting cressets with the flaming rush. When she was done she tossed it in the cold fire-pit; there was still warmth enough not to need an indoor fire.
There was a small table and two short benches before the pit. There were four sleeping alcoves, two on each wall, one of which was without curtains, and she laid the basket there. The other three had curtains, all drawn open. It was clear which was her alcove, for the others had no featherbeds within. Dagr saw the whiteness of linen on her bed, and the dark coverlet of curly fleeces sewn together. Rannveig saw him looking at it, and moved to a chest set against an outside wall. She lowered a dipper and filled a pottery cup, and set it on the table, then filled a second and did the same.
He wished she would speak, but he himself was at a loss of what to say. He stood there at her table-side, and picked up the cup. The cressets flickered and jumped, filling the space with their darting light; the breeze must be coming from the smoke holes at the gables. He looked into the darkness of his cup. The smell of her ale met his nose as he lifted it to his face. It was herbal, and deep, and strong. He took a draught.
Without putting his cup down he spoke. “The ale, like the woman, is a fine one,” he told her.
She had not taken up her cup, but now she met his eyes. “I thank you, Dagr,” she whispered.
Now he put his cup next hers, and closed the slight distance between them. He again kissed her brow, letting his lips press against the cool skin there. Then he reached his arms about her, gathered her into him. He lowered his head, let his mouth touch hers. She tasted her ale upon his lip, then tasted him as with his tongue he traced the line of her lips. He slowed himself, kissed her again, gently. He felt her shoulders were tensed but she offered her mouth readily enough.
His tongue was pressing at her teeth, and his arm around her waist was arching her neck and head back the slightest bit. Her own arms had lifted and now reached to him, touching the sides of his face as their lips clung. He kept on with his kiss until she was gasping and breathless. When he moved his hips to hers so that the hardness of his prick pressed against her gown she gave the smallest movement, almost a shudder. But she did not let go.
One of his hands still held her at the small of her back, but he let the other move along the wool of her gown to her breast. He cupped the roundness of it, warm and full beneath the fabric, and with reaching fingers felt the nipple beneath harden.
“You, who are as lovely as Frigg,” he murmured, “take me into your bed.”
For answer she moved her hands from his neck, began untying her sash. He let her free for a moment as he worked at his belt and the toggle of his leggings. His lips returned to hers, and he reached down and began to pull up the skirts of her gown. She stayed his hands with a little sound, and he watched her own fingers at her shoulder brooches. Once free of them the straps of her over-gown fell. He picked up hem of both gown and shift and in one movement pulled them over her head. Her head-wrap came with them. He stopped kissing her just long enou
gh to yank off his boots and leggings.
She wore naught but her shoes and stockings now, and the single strand of coloured beads about her neck; and he stood before her naked. The hardness of his body was pointing at her, leaning towards her in its yearning.
She kept her eyes on his face, and he wondered if she was fearful; she seemed almost to sway, as if she might faint. He had backed her up against her box bed now, and he placed his hands on her shoulders and lowered her to sit. He dropped to his knees, untied the linen bindings of her stockings, and stripped both them and the low shoes off.
With one arm about her shoulders and the other under her knees he laid her down before him.
He had not expected her to be a maid, not at her age; yet maid she was. Later he bethought him that she would be none other; her pride was such that she would not give herself carelessly, regardless of how lonely she might be. But as he began to stroke her body, feeling her tremble beneath his hand, Ladja’s words came back to him, Tonight we will take our time.
That is what he did. Despite the heat of his own desire, once she was naked and in his arms he did not give way to his need. He kept kissing her mouth, her throat, the curve of her shoulders. He rolled the beads of her necklace in his fingers, saw how they nestled in the hollow of her collarbone. He stroked up from her breast to her armpit, and swept his fingers down the length of her arm, teasing the inside of her wrist, to end in the palm of her hand, where his finger traced slow circles. He kissed her again. He let his hand knead and caress the softness of her breasts. She was panting, and his own breath came fast. His hand travelled down to her waist, rested a moment at the fullness of her hip, then slid down her leg. His fingers played against the back of her knee as they had in her palm. Then he drew his hand up, slipping it inside her thigh, stroking upward to where her thighs met in a tangle of red curls. His hand rested upon the crispness of those curls. His fingers pressed over the mound there, gently, gently.
“Rannveig,” he murmured. She answered only in the quickness of her breath. He brought his body closer alongside hers; he could wait no longer. He drew his prick up her leg, hot and iron-hard, the tight flesh of its rounded knob soft, even yielding as it pressed against her thigh. He slid his arm beneath her, flattening her into the featherbed, and with his knee pressed open her own.
Tindr Page 6