Ragnfast looked at the painted face too, and had an idea. They got down now, and Ragnfast had Tindr hold his horse while he went up to the bulk of the carving’s torso. He laid his hands upon it for a moment, then came back to Tindr, and taking the reins, led the gelding nine times around Freyr’s all-seeing eyes.
“Long life, good health to you,” Ragnfast said aloud. “Never lame, never elf-shot, never with croup,” he asked. “No whistling sickness befall you,” he added. “Let no rabbit hole find your hoof,” he went on, as he circled. “Peace-maker in the herd.” Running out of asked-for blessings he finished with, “And never to throw me.”
He realised then he had no Offering to leave the God. Behind the carving stood three sturdy poles, fixed at their tops with shallow iron baskets holding recent kills of fowl and piglet. He knew the leathern pouch at his belt was empty of any silver, just as it usually was. Ragnfast had asked many blessings from Freyr upon his new horse, and had nothing to give in return.
He looked at Tindr, and plucked at the bottom of his silver-pouch to show it was void. Tindr went to his own belt. Nothing but the whitened skull of a little bird he had found in the morning under the bean plants. Nothing suitable for a God. Then his hands went to his neck, and the cord there. He pulled the bone whistle over his head, held it dangling to Ragnfast. Tindr knew the Gods danced, and that men danced to such sounds as his whistle made. Give this, he signed to Ragnfast.
So Ragnfast did, looping the cord around the out-thrusting arc of the God’s yellow beard, where he might find it easy to play. Before they mounted he touched his heart a moment and turned his hand to Tindr, using his cousin’s way of saying Thank you.
Riding back they saw, across from the closed amber-worker’s shop, a group of girls settling themselves on flat stones on the beach. There were five or six of them, the eldest with spindles in hand, or with little ones in tow. Ragnfast could hear their shrill laughter before he could make out who they were. As they neared them they saw their friend Estrid, who lived at the farm closest to Ragnfast; Gyda, a girl of about the same age who lived on a farm not far from the fish-drying racks beyond Freyr; two small girls, the sisters Ása and younger Astrid; and lastly Sigrid, who had her baby sister Sigvor with her. Sigrid’s mother kept a stall on the trading road, stocked with bolts of the thick boiled wool fabric, wadmal, that all used for blankets and heavy mantles.
Sigrid was one of the comeliest maids on Gotland, or so Ragnfast had heard said. She was also a little older and taller than he was, and he was glad he could rein up before the group on such a fine horse. As they neared Estrid got up and ran to them in greeting, calling out to Ragnfast on what a handsome horse he had got, and stopping before Tindr to touch her ear, point to her eye, and smile, and so tell him it was good to see him.
Little Ása and Astrid were afraid to come close to the horse, and Sigrid glanced up for just a moment at the boys. The baby Sigvor was at her feet, her chubby self propped up by the smooth side of the rock Sigrid sat upon. She waved her hands, one of which clutched a stick of bleached drift-wood. Sigrid, after her glance up, turned her attention back to her dropping spindle. She sat perched on the rock so that the whirling wooden shaft had a longer drop down the sea-shelf, and Ragnfast found himself also looking at it as it spun down. Then he lifted his eyes back to Sigrid. For a moment Ragnfast wished that Sigrid were alone, and that Tindr was not behind him, his thin legs dangling down along the gelding’s barrel. But then he would have to speak to Sigrid, and he did not know what he would say. He thought he should have called out to her as soon as he recognized her, some easy word of greeting as he reined the horse closer so she might admire him. As it was they were stopped at the edge of the road, and even Estrid, who had waved goodbye, had turned her back and was sitting down with the others on the beach.
Tindr, balanced behind Ragnfast on the saddle, began to wonder why they did not go. The girls were friends, but they were doing nothing interesting, and they had little ones with them too. He wanted to swim while the Sun was still strong. He saw Ragnfast looking at the girls, especially the big one, but did not know why. When girls got big they did nothing interesting, except make good things to eat. He jiggled his legs a bit and the gelding started forward a step. Ragnfast pulled back on the rein as he turned his head to his cousin. Tindr made a low grunt, and raised his hand in question. Ragnfast gave a final glance at Sigrid’s lowered profile, then nodded and touched his heels to his horse’s flank.
Back at Tindr’s the two went down to the sea edge, stripped off their clothing, and paddled about in the chilly Baltic, the hot dryness of the air making it feel all the colder. They stumbled out, skin tingling, shaking themselves like dogs in the yellow sunlight, and rubbed themselves warm and dry with their tunics. Then they dressed, and searched a while amongst the piles of white limestone that formed the shore line. Some of the stone was shrouded with dark, almost charcoal-coloured lichen. Patches of bright yellow-green lichen shone on others. The wind was steady, and it ruffled their hair and made their tunics flap against their legs as they walked, chins upon chests, looking down.
Ragnfast heard the whistling of the wind. The chirping of the birds picking over Rannveig’s crab-apple tree carried down to him, and a few sea-birds dipping and wheeling above their heads mewed out harshly as they walked. Ragnfast raised his head to their noise, as Tindr did to their motion. But their eyes soon dropped again to their feet. All sorts of treasure lay there, stones that looked like the blooms of flowers, or the furling fronds of plants, or smooth cones like peaked caps for a mouse, and white pebbles that looked like shells but were really solid stone.
Tindr picked these up, and turned them over in his hand; the best ones he would slip into the pouch at his belt. He wondered how they could be plants, or shells, and yet be made of stone. Trolls, those night-faring giants who lived deep in the forest, would be turned to stone if daylight caught them. That was why the island was ringed with the mighty rauks, the huge limestone stacks. Trolls had come down to the sea to frolic at night and the Sun had surprised them. As they writhed in agony their horny bodies were transformed into twisted stacks of limestone. Trolls howled, Nenna and Da had told him. But once they were become rauks they were as silent as the stones he held in his palm today.
After a while they headed back up the rocky beach to Tindr’s home. There were no ships at the wooden pier, and the trading road was almost empty of folk. They passed through the open-walled building that housed the brew-house, and waved to Rannveig as she stood at one of her big brown crocks, stirring with a long paddle the brew within. Soon they would have to come and carry out shelves of pottery cups for her, stacking them onto the long table at the back of the brew-house. But they still had time before the Sun dropped low enough to signal that.
They slipped into the dim house for a moment. Ragnfast had brought his bow, and Tindr took his down from where it hung on the wall by his sleeping alcove. They went out through the kitchen garden to near where the trees began, passing Ragnfast’s horse where he was staked. Tindr’s archery target stood back there, pocked over with holes. He had redrawn the deer many times, sometimes facing left, other times right, drawing it higher or lower upon the wooden boards so he would have to shoot up or down. Both boys had quivers at their hips, and they stood side by side, one arm outstretched, the other lifted and bent at the elbow, sighting down the length of the iron-tipped birchwood arrows they held nocked and ready.
They did not shoot for long. Ragnfast was as good as Tindr, better really, and as he was older and taller his bow was the larger and stronger. Tindr liked to gesture to his cousin to let fly his arrow, and then try himself to come as close to its tip as he could with his own. He nicked many an arrow shaft this way, and was kept busy shaping new ones to make up for those which he had rendered useless, but the challenge of training his eye and hand to hit so fine a mark was worth it.
But the length of the day, the swim in the cold sea, and then the shooting at the deer-target t
ook their toll. Ragnfast sprawled out upon the grass, his bow lying beside him, and after a final draw Tindr too dropped down. Tindr rolled on his stomach. The grass was sweetly ripe but scratchy upon his face, and he lifted his head up and supported himself on his elbows. Small flowers of white and yellow dotted the grasses, but Tindr was thinking of the flowers that were stone, and the shells that were stone, down on the beach. They were once something, but now they were something different. Just like the trolls who stood captive forever on the shore.
He rolled to Ragnfast, lying on his back next him, and sat up. Tindr touched his ear.
“You,” said his cousin, nodding. “Tindr.”
Tindr looked ahead and past him. He touched his ear again, then held his hand out before him but a hand-span above the grass. He lifted his eyes to make sure Ragnfast followed, then moved his hand higher, then higher still.
“Growing,” guessed Ragnfast. “Growing up.” He sat up too, and made the gesture Tindr used for his Da. “A man.”
Tindr shook his head, touched his own ear, lifted his hand to the ground three times, at three different heights. He rocked forward up to his knees, and with his hands smoothed the skirt of an imaginary gown.
Ragnfast paused. He looked Tindr in the eye, then nodded again. “You. And your sisters.” He could not know if Tindr understood, so he mimed pulling long plaits over his own shoulders. He touched his own ear and pointed again at his cousin, then held his hand, as Tindr had done, at staggered heights.
Tindr nodded his head, hard. Já, his sisters.
He did not know how to ask the rest.
Tindr pointed at his cousin, then to the space before them where they had both indicated the sisters. He paused a moment, drew breath. Then he raised his hand to shield his eyes, as if he looked for something. His cousin watched a long moment.
“Do I look for them,” Ragnfast whispered.
How could he look for them; he had been there at the burning place when the small bodies of Hedinfrid and Holmfrid had been laid upon the pyre. They lay side by side on a narrow pallet, their round faces pale, their yellow hair combed so it fell over their snowy gowns. He recalled a linen sheet billowing down over them, and that sheet beginning to curl and brown as the fire rose. He knew he stood between his own mother and father as he watched, and that a great number of folk were there, and men and women cried aloud. He remembered not believing Hedinfrid was dead. He remembered turning to see many fresh graves. He did not remember more.
Tindr was searching his face. Ragnfast drew a sharp breath and looked back at him.
Now Tindr touched his own temple. This meant What or Why, but his cousin saw that now it meant something more, something deeper: Remember.
Do I remember them, Tindr was asking him.
Ragnfast began to nod his head. “Já. I remember them.” He tapped the side of his own head. “Holmfrid was not much bigger than you,” he told Tindr. He signed with his hand the lower height. “She was yet a babe,” he went on, and drew his fists to his eyes and wailed mock tears.
Tindr began to smile at this, and nodded his own head. His own fists rose to his eyes to mimic a howling child. They laughed together for a single moment.
“Hedinfrid…” began Ragnfast. He could scarce form the name. He swallowed.
Tindr rocked forward, staring at him. He could recall almost nothing of them, nothing except the laughter he could no longer hear. The memory of their last day together was all he had, sitting cross-legged inside the recess of the basket and glimpsing the two laughing forms of his sisters between the woven interstices: here-gone-here-gone.
“Hedinfrid…” said Ragnfast once again. He brought his finger to his face, drilled its point into his right cheek. “She had a dimple…here.” He swallowed again, and closed his eyes a moment. When he opened them Tindr was still staring at him.
Tindr recalled that dimple, now. With her face at rest it barely showed on Hedinfrid’s cheek. When she smiled or laughed it was deep enough for him to put his finger into it, and he recalled doing so, and Hedinfrid laughing the more.
Ragnfast jumped up. His face was wet, and he dragged his sleeve across his running nose.
Tindr rose too. He blinked away the water in his eyes. The girls had been here, and now they were gone. Ragnfast had brought them back to him, if only for a moment.
Chapter the Eighth: Assur
ASSUR was the youngest son of a family which raised sheep and grain. Their small farm was on one of the side tracks that led off the main trading road. They were not Gotlanders, but had recently come from the land of the Svear. They kept much to themselves; a story had got around that Assur's father had fled the mainland to avoid being outlawed. His crime was unknown, but those who had watched him whip his oxen saw he was a man of high temper. Apart from a few small trading disputes they were peace-abiding here, though not likely to put themselves forward in any way. The children were a rag-tag group, raw boned, with a sloping gait and shoulders scrunched up high, as if to ward off blows.
Assur had a purple birth-mark on the right side of his neck, one that began just above the jaw and crept down onto his throat to his collarbone. He was the same age as Tindr, more heavily built, with a big head that ended in a shock of yellow hair. His eyebrows were so light as to be hard to see, so that his round eyes wore a look of constant surprise.
It was the start of warm weather when Assur first showed up. Tindr and Ragnfast were on the pebbly beach not far from Tindr’s house, setting up balanced stacks of small flat stones, and then seeing how far they could stand away from them and still knock them down with a thrown rock. Estrid was with them, having come with Ragnfast and his parents to the trading road for the day. She was at the water’s edge, plucking shells from the darker rocks the sea lapped at.
Tindr looked up from where he squatted on the pebbles, setting up another target, and saw the new boy appear along the edge of the road. Assur put his hands on his hips and looked down at him. Ragnfast, building his own stone stack, noticed too. Both boys stood.
Ragnfast began to turn to Tindr, but his cousin had already raised his arm, waving the stranger down. Assur took the long way to reach them, jumping from rock to rock. Estrid too was watching, and came up from the water to stand with her friends Ragnfast and Tindr. The new boy stood on a chunk of rock before them, looking down on the small cairns the boys had been building.
“I am Estrid. I found these,” she told Assur, opening her hand to show the round white shells within.
He glanced at her hand, then looked back at her face.
“My name is Ragnfast,” said Tindr’s cousin.
Assur turned his head to look now at Tindr. It was then his birth-mark showed.
“What is wrong with your neck,” Estrid asked.
Assur glared at her.
“Does it hurt?” She was already reaching her hand towards his jaw.
He jumped backwards off the rock, away from her.
“Nai. It is a mark, nothing more.”
Tindr was squatting again, and waved Assur to kneel next him and build a cairn of flat stones. Assur did not move. Tindr began building his pile.
None of them had ever seen the round-headed boy before. “What are you called?” Ragnfast wanted to know.
“Assur.”
The new boy looked down at Tindr, at work piling the warm white stones. “What is your name?” he said, to the top of Tindr’s head. Tindr kept looking down, intent on his stacking.
Assur’s boot came forward, nudged Tindr on the shoulder. Tindr looked up, squinting against the sun at the boy.
“What is your name,” he repeated. “Tell me.”
Tindr saw the demand in the boy’s face. He grunted.
“What is wrong with him?” Assur asked, still looking down at Tindr.
“Nothing,” answered Ragnfast. “He is deaf. His name is Tindr.”
“Deaf?”
Assur squinted his round eyes shut. Old people were d
eaf. Not boys. Assur looked back to where Tindr knelt, looking up. “You deaf?”
Tindr saw the scowl, turned his head down to his work.
Assur kept staring at Tindr’s bent head.
“He cannot talk,” Ragnfast told him, squatting back down himself.
The new boy shook his head. At least deaf old men could talk, even if they did yell, just as you had to yell at them to be understood.
Assur looked around, then rubbed his toe against a stone. “We could run,” he said. He was already moving down the beach, away from them.
Ragnfast followed, waving with his arm that Tindr should too. Estrid put down her shells and ran after.
They raced along the water-darkened edge of the beach. Ragnfast was oldest and tallest, and did not think it would be much of a race, but he knew Tindr was also fast. Even with the start the new boy had taken, the two cousins found it easy to catch up to him. Ragnfast overtook the boy well before they had reached the wooden pier. Assur had turned his head to look over his shoulder, once at Ragnfast, and then at the gaining Tindr. Ragnfast passed Assur, but as Tindr too passed, Assur gave him a shove. Tindr stumbled and fell. He leapt up again, his left side wet from the sea water, and sprang after and then caught up to Assur. Tindr swung around to face the boy.
Assur was red-faced and panting; he had almost fallen himself from the force of the push he had given Tindr. Ragnfast had seen it all, and hauled up before them. Estrid had caught up, and gave a little cry when she saw Tindr’s torn tunic sleeve, and the small beads of red welling on the underside of his forearm. Tindr’s other hand lifted and brushed the sand and tiny pebbles from his skin, smearing the blood as he did so.
Tindr Page 9