They might as well head back, Ragnfast thought. The wreck was just that – something ruined. Hung up as it was on the rocks it might be there a long time, unless someone tried to patch her from the inside and refloat her. A shipwright could try that. For now, there was not much to see, and he had told Estrid’s father he would not keep her long. He and Tindr could then ride down to see Runulv and Ring, which was what he wanted to do anyway.
The two figures coming from the water got closer. Ragnfast saw that the taller of them was Assur.
Assur came straight to them. He was with one of his younger brothers, and their leggings were wet from having waded out to get closer to the knörr. Both were barefoot, their shoes up on the dry pebbles of the beach.
“Hej,” said Assur.
He had grown a lot in the past year; Ragnfast saw he was almost as big as he was. His neck was longer, making the purple birth-mark look larger. There was some down on Assur’s upper lip, not as much as Ragnfast had, but Assur’s was hard to see as it was so light. As Assur neared the stones grew sharper, and the way he was walking showed his feet hurt. His younger brother went to where his shoes waited, and put them on.
“Hej,” said Ragnfast in return. For want of something better to say he tilted his head at the wreck and asked, “See anything?”
“Nai,” said Assur. “The rocks are too sharp.”
Ragnfast nodded, began to turn to lead the others away.
Assur looked at Estrid and Gyda and nodded his round head at both of them. Tindr, off to one side, he did not look at.
It was the second time Estrid had seen Assur this Summer. A month ago he and his older brothers and father had come to her farm, looking to trade lambs for grain. Her father did not like the look of the animals and refused them. Assur had jolted in surprise when he saw her come from around the kitchen yard; he must not have known it was her family’s farm. His round blue eyes had rounded further, looking at her, but he was nice to her that time and did not try to take her hand and force her to touch him. She remembered how the group of them had moved off at a shuffle, driving the small flock of ewes and lambs before them. Her father had been short with them and she had felt badly. Assur had turned and looked back at her.
Now Estrid gave him a little smile. Assur locked onto her eyes.
“I bet I could see inside, from up there,” he said of a sudden. Assur pointed to the ragged limestone bluff that rose at the water’s edge on the other side of the small bay. About half way up the face a small ledge projected out over the water.
“Ever climb that?” he asked Ragnfast.
“Sure,” said Ragnfast, looking at the bluff. “From the side. No one climbs the front face. It is too steep.”
He knew even moving up the spine of the bluff held danger. There were two crevices that had to be leapt over, and you had to catch yourself as you landed so that you didn’t fall forward and over the edge. Ragnfast had done it a couple times, including last year with Tindr.
Assur was squinting at the small ledge. The limestone beneath it was greyish-white, and nearly vertical. Above the ledge it raked back a bit, beneath the top of the bluff.
He looked back at Estrid. “I will climb it,” he said.
“Do not be stupid,” answered Ragnfast quickly. “It is too sheer.” If Assur was issuing a challenge, it was one he would not take.
“For you maybe. Not for me,” said Assur.
Tindr was watching it all. He knew they were talking about the bluff from the way they pointed at it. He had climbed it last Summer with Ragnfast, following him up. If they were going to climb it again he wanted to go first this time. He knew he was steadier on the rocks than Purple Neck, who was big and clumsy.
Tindr made a sound, a kind of snorting squeal, and all turned to him. He grinned back, then bolted for the base of the bluff.
“Nai, come back!” complained Assur. The deaf boy would climb it first, reach the ledge, have the first peek across the water into the wreck’s hull. And Estrid would be watching.
He flung himself down on a rock and pulled his shoes on, then started after Tindr.
“Stupid,” muttered Ragnfast, loud enough for Assur to hear. Assur barely turned his head.
“Assur, do not try that,” Gyda said, stepping forward herself. She gestured to his younger brother, as if urging him to speak, but the boy said nothing, just bit his lip. Gyda shook her head. She did not know Assur well but felt she must stop him. Ragnfast was right; it looked stupid even to attempt. The ledge hung over a drop of many feet, where shallow water covered the white rocks below. Assur ignored her, intent on catching Tindr.
Tindr had neared the base of the bluff. Assur could not hope to do more than clamber in his wake, but if he caught the deaf boy he would give him a good yank back.
To Assur’s surprise Tindr did not head for the sheer face that was Assur’s target. He watched the deaf boy skirt the base of the bluff to the left, then begin his climb up the spine towards the top. Assur gave a small hoot of satisfaction. By going straight up he could not only gain the ledge, but continue up and reach the peak before the deaf boy.
To begin he had to himself start slightly to the left, on dry rock, and step his way around to the sheer face and the ledge above it.
“Nai!” he heard Ragnfast call, but he did not turn to look at him this time. He had worked his way a few feet up over the water now, and was staring over his head at where his hands could grip and feet could push from.
The girls had moved closer to Ragnfast, watching both Tindr outlined against the sky as he scrambled and jumped his way across the bluff, and Assur, flattened against the rock face with outstretched arms. They saw Tindr leap across the first of the crevices, and both girls gave a little shriek as he staggered from the impact of his landing. He just went on, intent on what he was doing.
“Tindr, Tindr,” called Estrid, breaking from her friends and picking her way as fast as she could over the sharp rocks. “Come back, Tindr,” she pleaded.
Assur heard her and craned his neck over his shoulder. He gritted his teeth and moved upward. He pushed off with his shoe, reaching to find another foothold, patting his hand over the rock face for a hand-grip. The limestone was sharp and he wished he had gloves. When he pushed with his feet to move up the face he felt it even through his leather soles.
Ragnfast had joined Estrid. It was no good calling to Tindr, he would have to see if he could catch his eye. If Tindr stopped and came down maybe Assur would give up trying to reach the ledge.
He was about to call out to Assur, urge him to back down, when he saw how much the boy was struggling. Ragnfast had climbed enough rauks and limestone cliffs to know that going up was one thing, coming down another. Ascending, one could see the hand-hold one reached for. Coming down it was often impossible to turn one’s head enough to see the next place where hand or foot could fall. Assur was heavy, and he did not look like he had the strength to grip and swing his legs from side to side to catch the small knobs of rock and continue up to the ledge.
Ragnfast waved his arms, never as frustrated as he was this moment with his cousin’s deafness. Tindr was focused on reaching the top; he was nearing the second crevice. Assur’s brother had joined them below, and Ragnfast saw how the boy’s eyes went from Tindr, leaping and scrambling upon the bent back of the rauk, to Assur, who was nearing the projecting ledge. Ragnfast moved in closer. He could not see how Assur would be able to pull his way atop the ledge; there looked to be few or no real hand-holds.
Tindr leapt across the second gap in the rock. He was steadier on his landing this time, and kept on, nearing the pinnacle. From the tail of his right eye he could glimpse the water swirling far beneath him, and a little further off, the wrecked hull of the knorr, but he looked at nothing but the next crag his feet would touch.
Assur had gotten himself in a place where he could no longer go up. His left cheek was jammed against the rock face. He could see the ledge just above, but it was ou
t of reach. His splayed fingers ached from gripping the rock, and his left leg, on which he bore most of his weight, trembled on the small jutting rock he had braced it on. He swung his right leg out, trying to catch it on something. His foot met rock loose enough to give way in a small shower of pebbles, pinging down the rock face and pelting into the water below.
Both girls cried out in fear, and Assur’s brother bawled out his name.
Tindr reached the top, proud to have made it so quickly. He took a moment then to look down. Estrid was jigging up and down, her face knotted in fear, her eyes darting from Tindr to Assur. Ragnfast shot his hands up in the air, fists clenched, wrists crossed: Do not do. He gestured violently that Tindr come down. As Tindr watched them, reading the fear in their faces, he saw their eyes shift from him to something out of his range. He looked behind him along the spine of bluff he had just climbed. Purple Neck was not there.
Assur was at that point trying to edge his way sideways, looking for any foothold he could. His palms were raw and two of his fingertips bleeding. He found a good foothold, moved left, but then his searching hand could find nothing to grip. A small knob crumbled to stone dust in his fist, and his left arm swung wildly out.
The girls and Assur’s brother were screaming, but Ragnfast scarcely heard them; he was on his way up the rock face, tracing the same route Assur had taken. Tindr saw the horror in the girls’ faces, and saw Ragnfast as he moved at the base of the bluff. He crouched down at the very edge of the pinnacle. He leaned over and spotted Assur, half way up the steep rock face, just below and to one side of the ledge.
Assur’s face was so red, and so covered with stone dust, that the purple mark on his neck hardly stood out. His yellow hair, which always looked like a shock of wheat, was plastered to his round head. He looked up and saw Tindr peering down at him. Tindr saw the fear in the boy’s eyes, saw the mouth open as he looked up at him. He began to clamber down to him. If he could reach the ledge he might be able to pull him up, or somehow guide his movements.
Tindr had just gained the ledge when Assur fell. Ragnfast was almost half-way to him, and heard Assur’s scream. Ragnfast was showered with crumbled stone that came away with Assur’s loosened grasp. He saw Assur’s dropping body, saw him hit a small outcropping not far from him, heard the dull impact as he splashed through the shallow water below to the white rock bed beneath it. Then all he heard was the shrieking of the girls.
Tindr, from the ledge, saw it all, and saw Assur’s eyes widen as he fell backwards through the air. He looked about him, scanned the rock face beneath his feet. He could not go down. He turned and pulled himself up to the bluff’s pinnacle once more, and came, leaping and running down its spine.
Ragnfast half-climbed, half-jumped down, landing in the ankle-deep water not far from where Assur lay, face up. Estrid and Gyda and Assur’s brother had run there, splashing through the lapping water, as had two men who had just arrived on the beach and had seen Assur fall.
Ragnfast was there first, and then Estrid, her gown soaked to her knees. She was sobbing in little hiccoughing gasps. Assur’s brother’s face was white, and his fists were clenched at his sides as he looked down at the water. Gyda reached them and placed an arm around both. Tindr ran, panting, from behind them, and jerked himself to a stop at Ragnfast’s side.
Assur lay motionless, the water gently washing over his body. A thin filament of blood moved like red smoke through the water under his head, which lay at an odd angle to his neck. His blue eyes were opened, never rounder, never more surprised.
Chapter the Fifteenth: The Accounting
THE two men pushed their way through the young people. With one at his feet and one at his shoulders they lifted Assur from the sheet of rock which formed his final bed.
Another boy who had been on the beach was sent at a run back to the trading road. Gyda and Estrid sat, clinging to each other and crying, on a low rock, their backs to the shipwreck and the body that now lay on the white shingle of the beach. Ragnfast stood, Tindr at his side, with the men who had retrieved Assur from the water.
Ragnfast felt light-headed, as if his body had somehow been stretched to twice its length, and had not enough blood in it. Everything looked too bright; the sky dazzled him. Tindr kept cocking his head, looking at the base of the bluff from whence he had begun his climb, then at the top where he had paused and seen the fear in the faces of his friends, then the narrow ledge which had been Purple Neck’s goal, and from which he could not help him. He felt cold and was aware his teeth were chattering.
Assur’s young brother was sitting on the stones next his brother’s body. One of the men had closed the wide blue eyes. A thin trail of blood from the crack in Assur’s skull had followed his passage up the beach, thickening under where his head lay. The small pool of red had grown no larger. His brother sat mutely by, shoulders quivering and tears running down his cheeks.
Tindr looked at him, at the crying girls, at Assur’s big and clumsy body. His hand went to Ragnfast’s forearm. His cousin turned to him.
Tindr touched his own ear, pointed to Assur, tapped his own chest.
“Nai,” answered Ragnfast aloud. He found it hard just then to form words. Tindr feared he was to blame. “It is not on you.”
He pointed to Assur, crossed his clenched fists, tapped his own chest. “I told him, nai. He would not listen.” Ragnfast raised his hands hopelessly in the air.
Everything had moved so fast during Assur’s climb that it seemed time itself was now slowed. The Sun beat down on those waiting on the white beach, living and dead. A sea bird, angry that they were too close her hidden chick, swooped nearby, scolding. A lone cloud passed in front of the burning Sun, making their shadows vanish for a moment.
Then the boy who had been sent broke from the line of trees, running still, with a knot of men hurrying behind him. Dagr was in the lead. Ketil the rope-maker was there, with his brother Botair, and his sons, Runulv and Ring. Alrik, who lived up the hill from Dagr and Rannveig, was a sawyer, and he had brought a broad plank, which he and another man carried between them. The last man with them was Estrid’s father.
The girls looked up from where they sat and Estrid ran, with a shriek, to her approaching father. He caught her up in his arms and cradled her to his chest, carrying her as if she were still a small child. His face bent over her. A child had died, but it had not been his.
Tindr waited until Dagr and the rest of them were nearly at the body, then he bounded towards his father and wrapped his arms about him. He made a strangled sound, but kept his face buried in Dagr’s tunic and would not lift his head.
Ragnfast was just behind him.
“He did nothing, Uncle,” he reassured him.
Dagr was looking over his son’s head at Assur’s body. His dripping clothes had begun to dry in the warmth of the strong breeze. A fly landed on the dead boy’s upturned cheek and crawled there a moment. You again, thought Dagr.
“Assur tried to climb the sheer face,” Ragnfast was saying. “We all told him not to.”
Dagr looked at Ragnfast’s drained face. “You will tell of this later,” Dagr said, placing his arm on his nephew’s shoulder. The breached hulk of the merchant knorr lay in the water before them, one more reminder of death. Dagr let his eyes settle on it for only a moment. Ring and Runulv had now come to stand with their friends, their gaze moving from Assur to Ragnfast and Tindr, and back again.
Alrik had set the plank down on the uneven white stones of the beach, and now was the body of Assur lifted and placed upon it. His hands would not stay on his body, and kept dropping off the sides of the board. Alrik, seeing this, loosened the dead boy’s belt and drew his hands through it, holding them to his sides. The flesh was already cool to the touch.
Assur was carried back on the shoulders of four men. Dagr led them, but by common and unspoken assent they stopped when they reached Rannveig’s brew-house. Inside was Assur’s mother and as many of his siblings as could be found
; others were looking for his father. Rannveig and Gudfrid had already begun to carry in ale from her brewing-yard before Assur’s mother arrived; a tale such as this would need ale, both to recite, and to hear. Assur’s parents had never before come to the brew-house, though Rannveig had seen his father wheeling drunkenly on the trading road. Now Rannveig sat next Assur’s mother, a woman she did not know and had scarcely ever spoken to, and waited.
As soon as the party could be sighted at the end of Rannveig’s herb garden the woman began to cry. She saw from the distance her son being born shoulder-high, and knew him to be dead. She was not loud in her weeping. She folded into herself as she covered her face with her hands. She rocked forward and back on the bench, almost as if she were soothing a babe.
They placed his body on a table there in the brew-house. He came through first, with the men who bore him, and then Dagr and Tindr and Ragnfast, and all the others. Rannveig saw her son whole, and her nephew too. She yearned to catch them both up in her arms, but could not do such before a woman lamenting her dead son. She turned her narrow blue eyes, now glistening with tears, upon them, and nodded to each.
Assur’s mother rose and came to her son’s side. His head was crooked over his left shoulder in a way it never could be in life, leaving the angry birth-mark fully exposed. She untied the knot that held her shawl about her, and began to drape it over Assur’s chest. Rannveig had a woollen blanket ready, and offered it instead; one could not wear any garment which had lain upon the dead, and this woman looked like she had nothing to spare. She shook her head with a whimper and laid her shawl down upon him.
Tindr Page 15