Ceric had been down to the trading road before, and today his eyes were set forward as they walked. He had not been as far as the great carved figure of Freyr, and as they neared it he saw Tindr nod to it, then look to him as if he would want to as well. Rotting remains of fowl lay suspended in the tines of tall forks behind the figure. It was just like the stories Dunnere told, of the sin and error of the ignorant, trying to worship by leaving animal bodies about. Everyone knew you worshipped God by laying gold and gems on his altars, and by praying and fasting. Here no one fasted nor prayed, not that he could see.
The burial place was littered with round-topped stones lying every which way. Some had runes on them and some were blank or worn off. Off to one side he could see the stone base and heaped charcoal of the burning-place. He knew heathens burned their dead. They thought it made the bodies go to Heaven right away, but it was more likely that they got to the Hell they were going to even faster.
No one else was there. Beyond the place he could see long racks of fish drying in the hot Sun. On the beach were a few old boats with no one around them. The burial place was ugly, with no trees, just stones.
It was easy to see the spot where his uncle lay, the ground was turned over and fresh-looking. The three of them slowed, then stopped, before it. The cross had grown heavy and was gouging into his left shoulder. He thought of his friend Worr digging the grave. He knew Tindr had helped and some strange men too.
He looked down at the disturbed soil. “Where…where is the head?” he asked, looking at his mother.
She looked startled. He wished Worr was there with him, and was sorry he had not come when he had had the chance.
Ceridwen scanned the ground, remembering how the body had been passed to Tindr and Worr when they stood inside the grave.
“Here,” she said, walking to one end, facing the sea.
Her son nodded, then lowered the end of the cross into the rocky soil. Tindr came and gestured he should steady it as he struck the end of it, but Ceric shook his head. He wanted to hammer it in. Tindr placed the wooden block on the top of the cross, and crouched down to steady the shaft of it. Ceric swung the hammer and pounded on the block. It took a while but he drove it deep enough to hold it.
When he was done he wanted to say a prayer, but did not want to do so before his mother and Tindr. Maybe prayers said in front of heathens went to the Devil instead of to God.
His mother had turned a little away from him, as if to give him leave to kneel or bow his head. But now, free of the cross, he just felt angry. He was angry at his uncle for getting killed, angry that he had seen him try to hurt his mother, angry that his uncle had surprised him with his own violent anger. And he could not forget what his uncle had said about his mother, spat it out to the Dane, “She was my woman before she was yours.”
His mother was a widow and could take a new husband, he knew that. But his uncle had a wife, his aunt Edgyth, who was gentle and learned too. Ceric knew what his uncle meant when he called his mother “my woman”. It meant they had gone under the covers of a bed together, which was only allowed to those who were wed.
He looked at the stony ground and thought of his uncle’s body beneath it, so far from Kilton. He thought of his uncle’s soul. Before they had left Angle-land he had made confession and received the Sacrament from Wilgot, the priest at Four Stones; they all had.
He knew his mother was standing just behind him. If she had in fact been under the covers with his uncle, it was a mortal sin. She was heathen and would not seek absolution, so she was doubly damned.
Or maybe his uncle only said that to anger the Dane. Cadmar told him warriors said all sorts of things when facing the enemy, to make them mad and make them careless. These were not lies, Cadmar said, but taunts that were weapons as good as an extra spear. He remembered the Dane saying something back to his uncle that made him yell in return; he could not remember what.
It did not matter anymore. His uncle was dead. He was a great warrior and rich beyond measure, but he had been bested in single combat by the Dane. Now he was buried far from Kilton and Angle-land and any priest to make prayers over his body. When he went home he would tell them he put a cross on his grave, and pounded it in himself.
A few days later, on a morning that drizzled with rain, all sat about the big table within the hall, breaking their fast. Gunnvor had apples in abundance from their upland farm, and she had taken wheaten flour and made a baked apple pudding with some, as the hens were still laying well. There were tangy bowls of the thickened milk, skyr, and of course honey, which Ceric and Hrald could not get enough of. All ranged about the table, all save Tindr; he had done his morning chores but had not yet returned from wherever he had taken himself off to.
The wound to Sidroc’s thigh was healing well enough that he could forgo the use of the crutch, though the leg was still stiff and he needed to keep it straight before him as he sat. At times like this, her healing husband next her, Ceridwen felt flooded with content. The goodness of what lay on the table, the nearness of the boys, sitting together and opposite her, and her little ones, sitting between her and Helga, filled her with quiet happiness.
The rain was not heavy and the hall door to the kitchen yard was open. Seated where they were, Ceric and Hrald both saw Tindr return. He had something draped over his shoulder, they could not be certain what it was. He looked through the door, saw them all seated within, and stepped inside. Wreathed about his neck was a string of rabbits, three of them. He had laced them front legs to rear, and now he grinned at those seated as he pulled them off and showed what his snares had produced during the night. Gunnvor clapped her hands, and Ceric and Hrald stood up and went to him. With a smile he pointed to both boys, and made the twining motion with his hand for braiding up the snare. Já, they said and nodded; they wanted to learn how.
Neither boy had done this before. Both lived in great halls with many folk and so had need of much food each day, and a rabbit made one good meal only, and for a small family. Kilton had games-men aplenty, some of whom did nothing but set and check snares; but Ceric had never gone out with them; they were like serving-folk almost, and rabbits were beneath him. When he was older he and his thegns would hunt for deer and boar in Kilton’s forests. He had been out after deer once or twice already with Worr, who was good at tracking animals, but found long waiting in a cold and wet woods less exciting than he had hoped. Likewise, no one in the hall at Four Stones set snares; Hrald knew the villagers did so, but he had never trailed along with any of them to learn the craft.
But things were different here at Tyrsborg than at Kilton or Four Stones. As his mother had promised, Ceric had real chores to do each day, and Hrald too; things done by the serving folk at home. They drew water from the well for Gunnvor and her endlessly bubbling pots, and held the heavy ends of wet linens and woollen clothing while Helga wrung the rinse-water from them. They helped Tindr stack firewood and carry charcoal for the braziers, and he set them to chopping kindling as well. With Hrald’s father unable to work with Tindr to manage their wood supply, the boys’ efforts were needed. They knew they would get horses soon but that they themselves would care for them; there would be no stable-boys to pass the beasts off to after a lathered ride.
They had both asked to stay the year on Gotland. Other than Worr, who was a grown man and the horse-thegn of Kilton, Hrald was the best friend Ceric had ever had. But Worr was gone back to Angle-land, and Hrald was close to his own age. Because Ceric was two years older he often got to be in charge when they did things together, even though Hrald was taller than he. They had wanted to stay to be with the parent they had missed, of course, but also because they would be together. They knew life would be different on this island so far from home.
For one, few paid them any mind. At home they were always watched, always had other men near them. Ceric knew this was because he was a grandson of the great Godwulf, and his uncle was Godwin of Kilton, and there had been a lot of war and hi
s uncle only had one heir, his little brother Edwin. He had never known his grandfather, who had died when Ceric was but a babe, but his Uncle Godwin had been as a second father to him, even more, as his own father had been dead so long. But his parents had given their second son Edwin to Godwin, and Godwin had named the boy his heir.
Ceric would be Edwin’s chief pledged man when they both grew up, and because Ceric was four years older he was expected to protect Edwin. So there was always a gaggle of serving men and women and thegns around them, wherever they went.
At Four Stones Hrald was always in the company of Jari when he left the hall yard. He was not allowed to walk or ride out without the big three-fingered warrior, and Hrald understood early that Jari was his body-guard. His Uncle Asberg spent a lot of time with him as well, but he knew Jari was always there to make certain nothing happened to him. When he grew up all of Four Stones and its treasure would be his, and he would have the care of his mother and sisters in his keeping, even Ashild, Hrald’s sister, who was older than him and strong for a maid.
Here they could go anywhere by themselves, and no one stopped them. And there were no warriors, not that the boys had seen. Every stall and workshop had a spear or two at hand, standing in a corner by the door, and they guessed the men around knew how to use them. But the boys needed no warriors at their sides to roam around and explore.
They had been down to the trading road with Ceric’s mother, and she had spoken to a few of the trades-folk about them, who had nodded back to the boys. The cook Gunnvor had sent them down to the woman who did the brewing to fetch ale for the hall. They understood she was Tindr’s mother; both boys recalled her from the day Ceric’s uncle had died. Rannveig had greeted them and shown them off to a group of men who were drinking her ale. The men took the boys in with a glance, listening to what the brewster said about them, which was a little hard even for Hrald to understand. Ceric remembered how some had looked at his seax. He knew it was a good weapon, and had a hilt with silver and gold wire hammered into it. He also had seen enough of the knives the men wore here to know that only he and Sidroc wore a seax. The rest carried the same kind of straight knife that Hrald and the Danes at Four Stones wore. After that no one ever really looked at the boys any different from any of the boys on the trading road.
Hrald’s father had promised he would teach them to fight when his leg healed. Hrald had never seen his father fight at Four Stones, only practice his spear-throwing, and both boys saw how good he was. Hrald had seen men fight over land disputes and other things, but never to the death. Ceric had seen the hall of Kilton awash in blood, the Winter day when Danes attacked. Neither boy had spoken to each other about the day they came here, when Hrald’s father killed Ceric’s uncle. Ceric knew he had to become a skilled warrior, as skilled as his own father was, and try to be as good as his uncle. He wanted to learn from the man who had killed him. Just now he was glad it would not be right away.
Tindr was different. He was not a warrior, but the boys knew he was in a special place at Tyrsborg. He did work like a serving-man, but then Hrald knew his own father, who was a rich and powerful Jarl, did much the same work here. He had built the tables and benches and other things with the help of the sawyer down the road, and worked hard to keep them in firewood.
Tindr worked at many tasks but came and went when he pleased. He wore a big silver pin to close his mantle, one as big as any the boys had seen, and had rings of twisted silver circling his little fingers; no serving man had such treasure. He was clever and made all sorts of things. The smooth spoons they used to eat browis and the creamy skyr were shaped by Tindr from deer antler. He had showed them the ice skates he made from the long and dense front leg bones of the same animal, and they knew he was going to make them skates too. Ceric’s mother had told the boys Tindr was the best hunter on the island, and had pointed out with pride all the deer hides to prove it. He even took boar, and wore shoes he had made himself, made of their thick hide and with a boar’s tusk for the toggle to close them. The boys spoke of this and thought them the finest trophy a hunter could wish for. The smokehouse at the brewster’s was full of deer haunches, all felled by Tindr’s arrows. They had watched Tindr at his shooting practice down there, which he did every day, good as he was. They had seen how well he could draw a deer with a piece of charcoal on the planed boards. They were as skilled as the tiny pictures in the books at Kilton, Ceric thought, even though Tindr could not read or even speak, except to grunt.
The next afternoon they went out with him to set snares. They had spent a while watching him make the snares themselves, gripping one end of the dried deer sinew between his teeth as he stripped it with his fingers into fine threads, then braiding these together to make a string so tough neither boy could snap it with their hands. These, with a small axe and a knife, were all the tools Tindr needed to fill Gunnvor’s cooking pot with rabbit meat.
In the woods Tindr’s quietness seemed less strange than at Tyrsborg. Ceric thought it was because you tried not to talk when you stalked or hunted. Tindr might lift his hand and stop the boys as they trailed behind him, and gesture to some perching bird or a brightly coloured toadstool. One dusk he stopped them and Ceric did not know why, until a fox vixen trotted across their path, her two red and white kits tumbling after at her heels. Hrald had been watching Tindr and so saw the fox almost as soon as he did, but Ceric had been looking around on his own and missed the hunter’s heightened attention.
On their first day out he led them to a glade opening to a large meadow land. The edge of the glade sloped slightly downwards, from tree-line to glade to open field. The boys knew that animals favoured certain pathways in the woods, but everything looked the same to their eyes. They walked along until the deaf man pointed out the slightest of rabbit trails. The grasses were barely bent, and only by looking carefully and at different angles could the boys make out where the furry bodies of passing rabbits had separated the blades the slightest amount. Tindr liked those which were heading downhill, and at the bottom he would build his snare.
They watched him as he stood and looked about him. Some small fir saplings were nearby, and he lopped one down with his axe, then, taking it up in his hands, showed them how supple it was. He struck off the needled branches, and buried the ends of the sapling in a shallow arch over the rabbit run. The sturdier branches, along with any near branches from other trees, he drove in as guiding stakes to keep the rabbits on the track, funneling them closer to where the waiting snare loop hung suspended from the bent-over sapling.
He built one, then found a second run and had the boys do it. They went along like this, finding likely trails, cutting the slender firs or pines, looping the sinew in its double loop, smaller noose and larger catching loop, driving in the guide stakes.
When they went back in the morning three of the six snares they had set held rabbits. Two were dead; they had leapt when they had caught their heads in the sinew loop, and it had closed about their necks. Tindr laid his hand upon their bodies a moment and closed his eyes.
“Is he praying?” Ceric muttered to Hrald. Who would pray to a rabbit, he thought.
Hrald watched the eyelids drop and rise again over Tindr’s odd eyes. “Not praying,” he ventured. He hoped he was not praying to the rabbit. Hrald liked Tindr and if he prayed to animals that made him like the foolish ones in the Bible that worshipped the golden calf.
“It is like my father’s men at Four Stones, those who go and make sacrifices at the statue by the big tree,” he finally said. Both boys had wandered down there often enough during the Summer Ceric had spent at Four Stones. The place was always deserted, but once they had seen a dead rooster there, freshly killed, and Hrald had known someone had left it as an Offering. He had seen another man offer there too. It was the custom to thank the animal for yielding up its life. They watched Tindr lace the two rabbits together.
“I think he was…thanking the rabbit,” Hrald ended.
The third rabbit
they had snared was alive. It was sitting, its belly pressed against the trail, front paws extended, the dark beads of its eyes forward. It was trembling as they neared, but other than this ripple of the soft brown coat did not move. Tindr dropped by its side, made sure the boys were watching. He closed both hands about the small creature. They were watching his face, and saw his eyelids lower for a moment. Then he moved one hand to the narrow chest of the rabbit, and they saw his fingers pinch at the heart. Tindr gave a pull at the rabbit’s hind legs. It died at once.
The boys saw how quick this was, to hold the hard mass of the heart and quickly separate it from the blood vessels with a tug on the lower body. After they reset the final snare they headed back, a rabbit for each of them. Gunnvor was grinning at what they bore as they entered her kitchen yard, and Yrling and Eirian ran to see. Yrling was jumping up and down.
But they were not done. Tindr showed them how to skin the rabbits, making small cuts at the rear, neck, and paw-tips, and then gently sliding off the furry pelt inside out as if it were a stocking. These he took to his work bench, where he dropped wood-shavings over the flesh side; they needed no scraping. In a few days the pelts were dry and ready to use inside shoes or gloves for cold weather. As they caught more Tindr showed them how to square off the dried pelts and sew them together with a filament of deer sinew to make a large piece of surpassing softness, to line a mantle hood with or even stuff as a pillow. Tindr made needles from the splintered bones of deer, but for this work he used one of the fine steel needles they had seen in Ceric’s mother’s workbasket. It made a tiny hole in the delicate skins. He kept it safe, stuck in a little scrap of linen nailed above his work bench in the stable.
One morning when they went out to check the snares the boys were surprised to see a squirrel dead in one of the loops. Tindr clapped his hands and grinned, and motioned to the boys that sometimes this happened, as all manner of small beasts used the rabbit tracks. Gunnvor regarded it as a treat, and made a special savoury pie from it, and the boys drew straws for the pelt. Hrald held the longer, and Tindr showed him how to stitch up a little pouch from it, trimming the edges with the fluffy tail, which was softer even than rabbit fur.
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