Tindr

by Octavia Randolph

  He knew he gasped. He knew that doing so at so close a distance would tell a deer he was there. She did not move.

  He could scarce draw breath. He felt this hind, knew her somehow, to be the Lady, come as a deer. Come to him.

  His eyes were fixed on her. She moved not, looking on him. From the tail of his eye he saw the trembling from the thicket of brambles not far from her. He turned his head the smallest notch. She sprang away, gone in an instant. There, emerging from the thicket, came the white, up-flaring tusks and lowered head of a boar.

  It stepped forward slowly, its side to him, the dark bristled neck swaying above the broad chest.

  A tightening behind his breast bone impelled him to act, as if an unheard voice was speaking. The voice was hers. Take it. He reached for the quiver at his hip.

  He had never killed a boar before. This too was a beast sacred to Freyja; she was said to take the form of a golden-bristled sow. And now She had led this one to him.

  It took two arrows, both in the mid-point of the chest, behind the front leg. Even so, the beast died quickly; he was that close to it, and the arrows drove deep at such little distance.

  He knelt over it, wondering at the brawn of the shoulders and neck, the rows of quill-like bristles crowning the spine, the formidable tusks protruding from powerful jaws. The smell of its hide, mingled of male musk and forest undergrowth, filled his nose. He placed his hands upon the beast’s neck, making real the life, and the loss of it, giving thanks to it. Hands still upon it, he looked about him. She had been there, the Lady. He had not dreamt it.

  When Tindr emerged from the woods to his house he passed rows of near-empty vegetables, where a few late turnips and cabbages still grew. His father was standing in the door of his fish hut, unpicking a knot that had formed in the line above a fish hook. Dagr knew Tindr was hunting, and seeing the boy realized how late in the morning it was; the Sun was nearly overhead in its lowered transit, sitting in a grey sky. Yet Tindr had met success after all. His deer-sling was strapped to his waist and he was leaning forward as he pulled the heavy body behind him. His father put down his work and went to meet him. Closing the distance he noted the odd shape of what Tindr dragged; he could not see the deer’s long legs, yet his son was bent almost double by the effort of his pulling.

  Gudfrid was at the kitchen yard work table, and looked up and grinned at Tindr as he made his final steps with his burden. The boy’s father was just behind him. There were two deer haunches smoking in the apple-wood-scented haze of the smokehouse, and one, killed a few days past, still hanging. They would start the Winter with a full larder, thanks to Tindr; there would be meat enough for her to add to their browis, to make pies, and dry some of it into leather-like wands that would keep all year without going green. There would be hides for her and Rannveig to stitch into gloves and mittens for all of them and keep their hands warm. She was always happy for the work Tindr brought her, and she smiled at him now.

  Tindr unbuckled the sling from his waist. He turned and pulled back the edge holding what was within.

  There was the boar. He uncovered it and turned to his father. Tindr saw Gudfrid clap her hands together, saw her face wreath in a delighted smile. Dagr spent a moment just looking.

  Boar were hunted by men who went out in twos and threes with dogs to run down and worry the beasts. They were killed by spears, and often times not before a dog had been killed by the sharp and slashing tusks. Here was his lad before him, bringing a full grown male which he had downed with his bow.

  Dagr saw the two wounds in the animal’s side, where Tindr had dug out his arrows. He saw up close for the first time the armor-like thickness of the hide just above the place where Tindr had stilled its heart.

  Tindr saw his Da staring, and the look of wonder in his face. He went to the quiver at his waist and pulled out the two arrows he had used. Both shafts had cracked on impact, but it was the heads he showed his Da. The tip of one was badly blunted from that hide, and the bone just beneath it.

  Dagr held each point in turn, looking at them, looking at the boar. With one hand still grasping the arrows he rested his hands on his son’s shoulders, and looked into the blue-white eyes.

  Tindr saw his Da smiling at him. He did not sign his praise to him; he did not need to. He saw it in Da’s eyes, shining back at him.

  Rannveig was at work in her brewing shed, and Dagr now mimed the act of the raising of Tindr’s whistle. His father’s fingers went to his waist, and made a short movement as if sorting keys, Tindr’s sign for his mother and the cluster of jingling keys, growing more by the year, she wore there.

  Tindr grinned back at his father, pulled the leathern cord from out his tunic and set the little piece of bone to his lips. He blew twice: Nen-na.

  Rannveig’s head popped out from the broad doorway, her hands already buried in her apron, wiping off whatever mess of mashed grain she had been mixing. When she joined them at the cook-fire edge and saw what the forest had yielded to Tindr’s bow her hands went to her mouth.

  Men were killed boar hunting. Here was Tindr, having taken one. She was proud and frightened all at once. She looked at her boy as if to make certain he was whole and unharmed, then took him in her arms for a hug.

  Tindr watched as they spoke amongst them, saw their smiles as they looked to him, and to the boar. Then Nenna was telling him to go fetch Runulv and Ring and their folks, tell them to come at dusk for the feast Gudfrid would make.

  That night all the near neighbours crowded round the kitchen yard. Gudfrid had made the richest browis Tindr had ever eaten, thick with shredded boar’s meat. She had roasted one of the big leg bones, and stirred the marrow into the stew. It was like partaking directly of the beast’s strength. All were eager for it, and had been drinking ale and marvelling aloud at the head of the boar, which sat apart on the butchery bench, waiting for Gudfrid to roast it whole next day. But when they brought their spoons to their lips Tindr saw all fell quiet. Runulv and Ring were seated either side of him, and had been poking him and chaffing him with praise, making him show and show again the two arrows with their split wood and blunted tips. They knew enough not to ask Tindr if they could join him on his next hunt; other than the first hart he had taken with Rapp and Ragnfast, he always went alone. But his friends took such pride in what he had done that it made his face warm. Even Runulv, who was almost a man, looked awed; and those who were men were the most awed of all.

  After the guests had left Tindr sat alone at the kitchen yard table with Rannveig and Dagr and Gudfrid. The wreckage of their meal was still before them. Besides the browis Gudfrid had served up a great rack of the boar’s ribs, and the cracked and chewed bones were the only reminder of how they had been relished. The fire which Dagr had kept feeding was still high, and gave plenty of warmth to combat the night chill.

  Tindr was full, and after the big meal and long day should be ready for sleep. But he need tell his parents something, and did so now.

  He made a little uh so all would look at him. In the fire’s light he could see half of their faces as they turned to him, smiles still upon their mouths. He tapped his eye.

  “You saw,” Rannveig repeated.

  Tindr’s hands, fingers splayed, rose to his head, his sign for deer. Then he made a quick milking gesture.

  “You saw a doe, a hind,” Dagr said.

  Tindr looked about him. His hunting tunic was dull brown, like the leaves this time of year. He plucked at it with one hand, while shaking his head Nai.

  “Not…” puzzled Rannveig.

  Tindr repeated the antler sign for deer, the udder for female, then plucked again at his brown tunic. He shook his head and touched the white linen of his mother’s head wrap, and nodded his head, Já.

  “Not brown? – but white,” she said.

  “You saw a white hind,” Dagr summed in a low voice. As soon as it was out of his mouth both he and Rannveig had caught their breath. Tindr’s hands were busy once more. He
closed his fingers, flicked them open. This meant, Suddenly, or Then.

  Tindr pointed to the boar’s head. He nodded, gravely, and almost to himself.

  It was Dagr who spoke. “You saw a white hind, and then the boar appeared before you.”

  Tindr saw his parents turn to face each other. They were not speaking, but their eyes met in a way that he knew they thought the same.

  “The skogsrå,” Rannveig said. “The Lady of the Forest came to him, and led him to the boar.” Her face had paled, even in the ruddy glow of the fire.

  Dagr took a breath. White animals were rare, very much so. Without colouring to protect them they could not live long against predators or men who hunted. Still, he had found a white hedgehog when a boy, and reminded his wife of that now.

  “It was the Lady,” Rannveig repeated.

  The Goddess Freyja ruled all beasts of the field. When it was her wont she came to Midgard and walked amongst them, taking the form of a white hind. In this guise she was the skogsrå, Lady of the Forest. But she could take another guise. It was She who let loose game for men to hunt, and if a hunter had found particular favour with her, she could choose him as her bed-mate. She would come then as a beautiful woman, and in this form give her chosen the exquisite pleasure of her body. But it was said the skogsrå exacted a cruel price. Men who had lain with her could never lie with mortal women, and often would sicken and die.

  Now the Lady had come to Tindr, at least to show herself.

  “We must make a charm for him to wear, to drive away the skogsrå,” Gudfrid was saying. She looked stricken. Her thoughts had moved from how she would butcher and cook the rest of the boar to the need to protect this young boy from the wiles of the Goddess renowned for her lust.

  Rannveig was still looking at Dagr. “She is marking him for her own,” she said, a tremor in her voice.

  Dagr had thought of this, long ago. Tindr was a gifted hunter, all knew that. The greenwood was his second home, and Dagr had walked enough with him through the trees to watch how the boy moved there. His eyes caught every movement of the birds or beasts he neared, and he gauged from their actions if he should stop or go on. His sense of smell was acute. His Uncle Rapp had said to Dagr, and not entirely in jest, that perhaps Tindr smelled the deer, just as deer could smell an incautious hunter. The boy knew every animal’s tracks, whether in dry dust or deep snow. And he was a skilled bowman. His young wrists were steady, his shoulders strong, and he could hold himself still as a rock. Winter and Summer Tindr honed his skill by aiming at the deer he drew on his target boards. He spent time nearly every day standing before his drawing of a stag, slicing the air with arrow after arrow.

  But this, his bringing them a boar, seemed to his father a sure sign of Tindr’s favour with the Goddess. The Lady was watching him.

  “Whether he knows it or not, he has given himself to Her already,” Dagr said.

  Rannveig looked at her son. He was young, just fourteen, but so beautiful. His skin was smooth and unblemished, his lips gently curved under a straight nose. His eyebrows were perfectly shaped, and a slightly darker shade of the golden-streaked honey brown of his hair. And his eyes. No one had such eyes as Tindr. They were the blue-white of ice, but there was warmth there, not chill.

  Rannveig looked from her boy back to Dagr and Gudfrid. “How can we warn him?” she asked. She answered herself a moment later. “There is no guard against the desires of a Goddess.”

  Tindr saw the worry in all their faces, and knew he was the cause of it. He had seen it before. Their delight and pride at his bringing them the boar had given way to fear when he told of the beautiful hind. And She was the reason he had taken such rich game; the boar was a gift from Her.

  When others felt sad and he did not understand he sometimes would put his fingers at the corners of his mouth, bidding them to smile. Looking at the worry on his mother’s face he did not do so now. He tried to smile himself at them. He felt tired now, truly weary.

  They could not help but smile back. Tindr had been called, that seemed certain. Perhaps he had been called during that long fevered night when his hearing had been burnt out of his tiny ears. He stood now, signed his good night.

  “He must live his own life,” Dagr reminded, as he walked to the house. The fire was at last dying down; they would soon follow him.

  Before he left Tindr took another look at the bones that littered the table, and at the great head grinning at him from the butchery bench. In the morning he would slip into the forest and go to his remembrance stone. With a sharpened point in his hand he would etch the likeness of this boar in the smooth face of the tall slab, to join the many deer he had engraved there. He did it in gratitude, for Her.

  Chapter the Fourteenth: The Wreck

  A full month had passed since Mid-Summer, the days still long and warm. Ragnfast had ridden down to Tindr’s for the day. He rode a new colt, one he was training, and led his roan gelding so that Tindr might ride as well. He thought they might ride out to where Runulv and Ring were helping build a new boat with their father Botair. But stopping at Tindr’s he learnt of the shipwreck, a way up the coast above Tindr’s house.

  Dagr and another fisherman had seen it yesterday from their boats, a mast-less trading knorr, drifting along the coast just north of the trading road. They had followed it until it got too close to shore, then landed themselves at their accustomed places; they had nets to empty. By then townsfolk had seen it too. Men paddled out in a flat-bottom boat to where the knorr had caught itself on the sharp rocks. There was nothing left within, save the anchor stone and its tangled line. The mast was gone, not even lying alongside the keel. Ripped and frayed fragments of once-stout netting told where the cargo had been heaved out in high waves; the men could see too the chafe-marks of the absent steering oar, which looked to have shattered. The hull near the prow, caught in a wedge of limestone, had punctured, and the ship lay foundered on its side where it had caught.

  Dagr did not go out to see it himself. Though he had been amongst the first to sight it, he let others go and confirm what he already knew.

  “Such things happen,” he told Ragnfast. Fishing or trading could be a good living, very good; but the fees exacted were the lives of a certain number of the men who relied on it. For his own part, Dagr was less afraid of the sea than of the men who sailed upon it.

  But Ragnfast was keen to see it. Wrecks did not happen every year, at least not where you could see one, and even though no treasure had been found aboard or washed up, it was something new. He and Tindr would ride to it, not up the coast for the sake of his horses’ hooves, but by a woodland track that would take them close.

  He did not know how to tell Tindr of the wreck, but he did not need to. When Tindr saw his cousin arrive with two horses he knew one was meant for him to ride, and he sped through what remained of his morning chores. They had scarcely passed the brew-house and waved goodbye to Rannveig when they saw Estrid on the trading road. With her was her friend Gyda, who lived on a farm past the last of the stalls and workshops. Estrid was there with her father, who had dealings with the iron-smith down one of the side roads, and he allowed that his daughter might go with the cousins, if they did not tarry.

  Ragnfast considered. The chestnut colt he was riding was too green to be trusted with a second rider on his back. Tindr could ride his roan gelding with Estrid behind him, and he put Gyda on his colt, and lead him on foot at the colt’s head. Gyda was a little older than Estrid, but timid. One glance at the uneasy way she looked at the horse when he suggested this made up his mind. They would all walk; going up the shore-line would be shorter anyway. He and Tindr staked the horses back by the barn.

  They set out, the sea to their right, the brilliant green of a sea-meadow to their left. A few times Estrid ran up to the tree-line when she spotted the tiny dots of red that meant wild strawberries grew there, and each time ran back, small hands cupped full of their sweetness.

  Tindr wondered where
they were headed. He would have liked to be on the big gelding, but his cousin had gestured to him that they would ride later. Once or twice folk passed them, headed in the opposite direction, and he watched Ragnfast speak to them. One gestured with his hands the way men do when something was big. Some of them shook their heads and shrugged at Ragnfast when they answered him.

  The shore line dipped in and out as they followed it, with ever larger outcroppings of pitted white limestone. Skirting one of the larger mounds they saw it. It was in the middle of a small bay flanked by tall limestone rauks, sea-stacks of weathered rock.

  Tindr had seen wrecks before, but nothing of this size. Sometimes storms washed up the hulks of lost fishing boats. There were times, in still water, where he had looked over the side of Da’s boat and seen the ruins of a boat lying on the bottom.

  He looked at his friends. The wind was blowing steadily, as it ever did on the beach, tousling their hair, moving the skirts of the girls, making his own tunic flap against his hips. The line where sea met sky was as sharp as if he had drawn it with whittled charcoal, with only the brown hulk of the ship breaking it. That blue sky held not a cloud, and the yellow Sun beat down upon all.

  He could tell from Ragnfast’s face, and those of the girls too, they had not seen such a large wreck either, and one so close to shore. A few people were on the beach, looking at it, boys mainly, and two figures were out in the water, wading back to land.

  He looked a while at it, his blue-white eyes narrowing. It was a dead thing, Tindr felt, as he let his eyes trace its foundered outline. His Da’s boat under sail, bucking against the wind and skimming over the furrow of the waves was like something living, something that the wind and the sea and Da’s hand at the sail-line and steering oar brought to life. This ship before them, caught on its side, stripped of the mast that was its strong wind-catching spine, its prow stove in, looked a dead and bloated animal.

  Estrid’s always smiling face wore an uncertain look, and she was clutching her blue shawl about her thin shoulders as if she was chilled. Gyda was squinting at the wreck, then letting her eyes drop to the sunlight on the ripples being pushed towards them. Her brow was furrowed. Even Ragnfast looked grave. He had grinned broadly when they first spotted it, but then had stood with them, making no move to approach closer as the boys now walking towards them had.