Tindr

by Octavia Randolph

  She wound up her finished thread and pulled anew from the mass of wool roving she had tucked over one shoulder. The house was far from the next farm, and even farther from the trading road and her parent’s farm on which she had been raised. All her sisters lived closer in, and she missed the days working with them in the trading stall where they sold their finished woollen cloth.

  Her mother-in-law did not like her, and the sentiment was shared. She had urged Toste to go off and visit, and leave her in peace so she might get some spinning done. She had made hand-fast with him four years ago and gotten his four children into the bargain. The eldest was the same age as she, a girl so homely that Sigvor doubted any man would try for her. Sigvor and her sisters were known for their prettiness. But she had come to Toste carrying another man’s child, and now had another, with him.

  The ox cart bearing Toste and his brood had vanished down the dusty clay road, and had not been gone long when she took up her position in the open doorway of the house. As skilled a spinner as she was she had no need to look at her work, and she let her eyes roam. A figure appeared, walking in the middle of the road, from the direction the ox cart had gone. She straightened up. Few came this way, and she wondered at the sight. It was a man, and as he neared she thought his gait familiar. He was still far from her, but her fingers slowed.

  He left the road and began walking across the grasses, his eyes fixed on her. Her slowing fingers stopped. Her spindle hit the planks of the floor, and she brushed the roving from her shoulder and let it lie by her feet. She took a step out of the doorway, closer to the approaching man.

  He was just before her now, a young man whose golden hair brushed the collar of his blue tunic.

  “Eirik,” she said. Sigvor had a natural high colour, but all of it had fled from her face. If a ghost had appeared before her she could have been no paler.

  He was looking at her, and at the doorway she stood in, and at the house itself, as if gauging what his response would be. While he stood there considering her she awakened from her shock. She took a bound towards him, as if to fling herself into his arms.

  He pulled back, freezing her in her action.

  “Eirik,” she said again. “You are not dead.” Her voice was just above a whisper.

  He smiled at that. “Nai. My boat was taken by Danes.” He looked about him for a moment before he went on. “They set me to the oar in their war-ship. When I had proved myself I gained their trust. I raided with them a year, then they let me go my way.”

  He told the story as briefly and as tersely as this, like a man who had recounted it many times already and was sick of hearing it himself.

  Sigvor was shaking her head at all this, as if she could not believe his presence. She raised her hand to touch him, but he drew back once more.

  “Why…why did you not come home then?” she asked. Her older boy had come around from the garden and looked at them before scampering away once more

  He gave a short laugh. “I meant to. I got as far as Skania in Svear-land, and found I liked it.” There was a carelessness in his tone that chilled her, yet reassured her that it was truly Eirik.

  “What were you doing there?” She did not wish to cry before him; he hated tears. She bit her lip to try to keep herself from breaking down before him.

  He did not reply at once. When he did he was looking once again at the house, and not at her. “Fishing, and some raiding, when the take was easy.”

  He had been raiding. Sigvor did not know what to say to that, but she hardly knew how to answer anything Eirik said, or the fact that he was alive and before her now. She spent some time just looking at him before she went on.

  “You have been gone so long…we all thought you dead. Other boats came back and said a storm was gathering, that surely you had gotten caught in it.”

  “Nai. Just the Danes.”

  “When did you come back?” she asked now.

  “A week or two ago,” he said. He looked over to the small boy sitting under the tree.

  She winced. “All this time, and you have not come to see me?”

  “They told me you had wed,” he remarked.

  “Já, but that boy is yours,” she told him, pointing at the child who ran the length of the bean rows.

  He glanced at the toddling boy who sat watching them, pulling stalks of grass in his chubby fist. “They look the same to me,” he told her.

  “The older boy is yours; anyone will tell you. I was big by the time Toste wed me.” She had not meant to allow her hurt come out as anger, but it had.

  There was the merest shrug of his shoulders. “And Toste, of all men,” he taunted. “My stiff-necked old cousin. Why him, of anyone?”

  She looked about her, flustered. “He was settled, owned a house, this farm…and he would have me…” She knew she made it sound as if she had been desperate, yet bargaining for the best deal; and she had been.

  “But I never wanted him,” she ended.

  “It matters not; you made hand-fast with him. You could not have waited,” he returned, not a question, but an accusation.

  “How could I? We thought you dead. I would bear your child soon. I went to your parents, who sneered at me.” She was near tears now, and risked stepping near to him once again. “Please let me touch you, Eirik.”

  “I do not think that is smart,” he answered.

  “Yet you are here. You must have wanted to see me,” she pleaded. He made no answer, and she clung to his silence. “You did, did you not? You learnt that Toste would go to his mother’s today. You waited until you saw him leave. Because you wanted to see me. Is this not true?”

  “I only came to say good-bye.”

  “Where…where are you going?”

  “Gotland is a small island. I will go back to Svear-land, and make my way there.”

  “Take me with you!” she cried.

  He gave a snort. “You are Toste’s wife. You have made your decision.”

  “It was never mine to make. I hate Toste!” She had never thought of it just like this, but the moment she said it it was true. The remembrance of Toste climbing aboard her, pawing at her with his roughened hands, rose in her gullet and sickened her. “I want you, and only you. Take me with you!”

  He paused a moment before he answered her. “You are burdened with brats. I must travel quickly when I go.”

  Sigvor had never found happiness in her first son. Eirik’s parents’ rejection of her made her hate the child in her womb. This boy had caused her to make an unhappy match with a man she did not care for. She looked to the second boy, whom she had had with Toste. She had some tenderness for him, even given her disdain for his father. Já, she thought, if I must give you up too, I will do so.

  “I will leave them behind,” she declared. “You need take only me.”

  Eirik considered this. “You are harder than I thought.” He smiled at her then. “You must want me.”

  “I love you, Eirik. Please take me from here. We can go to Skania; our lives will be what we used to dream about before the Danes caught you.”

  “Our memories differ,” he answered. He shifted on one foot, as if he was weary of their talk.

  Sigvor paused, looked about her for answers. “If I can bring you gold, will you take me?”

  “Gold? Where would you find such?”

  “It does not matter. A friend, who will give it me.”

  “Bring me the gold, and we will talk about it.”

  Her answer was firm. “Nai. Tell me you will take me away, and when we are ready to leave, I will give the gold to you then.”

  He studied her face. Her hands were closed into fists at her sides like a demanding child. She was still very pretty, and he was not unmoved by that fact.

  “When will he be back?” was what he said, inclining his head down the road.

  “Not until near dusk,” she answered.

  He looked past her into the dimness of the house to the
sleeping alcoves, and jerked his head.

  “Then…”

  He took her by the wrist and moved into the house. She closed the door behind them, closing it too on her boys. She tried to lead him to one of the alcoves the children slept in. But no, he looked about, spotted it, and pushed her into the alcove she shared with her husband. She felt shame at this, letting him take her in her marriage-bed, but her need for the reassurance of his touch was greater than her shame.

  Four days later Sigvor, through a series of lies, found a way to come to the trading road alone. It was a long walk; she had started just after daybreak, and it was nearly mid-morning when she stopped at the stall in which she had once worked. Only her older sister Sigrid was there now; her other sisters were at their husbands’ farms. Sigrid had, years past, wed a man with even more sheep than her parents, and had now taken over the sale of the woollen wadmal that she and her sisters made at home and brought to her.

  Sigrid was glad to see her, gave her ale and brought her a basin of sea water in which Sigvor bathed her sore feet. When Sigvor had rested she told her sister she wished to go to the end of the road and see the brewster, whom she remembered with fondness. She smoothed her hair under her head-wrap, shook the dust from the hem of her gown, and set off.

  Sigvor did not stop at Rannveig’s. She walked straight up the steep hill to the hall Tyrsborg at the top. As she neared she kept to one side of the pounded road, so she might see, without being seen herself, if any folk be out in front of the hall, or at the well.

  No one was there, and the broad oak front door was closed. She would need luck to stay with her to avoid being seen in the kitchen yard, which she now must enter. It was empty. And there, framed in an arch of sunlight in the doorway to the stable, stood he who she sought.

  Tindr stood at his workbench, half-turned from the open stable door. When Sigvor walked in, her shadow fell upon the horse carved of wood he was smoothing, a toy for Yrling. He saw the shadow was a woman’s and turned with a smile. It was not the mistress of Tyrsborg who stood there, and his lips parted in surprise.

  Red Cheeks. He had glimpsed her a few times over the last four years on the trading road, but she had never looked at him. She had been with her husband and child, and one year he saw there were two little ones with her. Now she stood before him, alone, and back at Tyrsborg.

  Despite the change on his face Sigvor made herself smile at him. She neared him, and he stepped back slightly, forcing him into deeper shadow. She had planned in her mind how she would tell Tindr what she needed from him, and now she must do it.

  “I need,” she said, stretching out her hand and bringing it to her chest, “a piece of gold.”

  She thought that gesture meant Want, not Need, but Tindr often used one and the same sign for similar feelings. For the gold she had ready a whole coin of silver, which she opened in her hand, then touched, shook her head Nai, and brought the gold-coloured fabric of her sash to. “Gold, not silver. I need gold. One piece. Please.” She had racked her brains recalling how Tindr gestured this, the cupping of his hands together, and did it for him now.

  He looked at her, shaking his head slightly, watching her hands and lips.

  She repeated it all, the reaching, the coin that was not quite right, the yellow-gold of her sash touching the coin. The cupped hands, begging. Tears were coming into her eyes, at her helplessness to express her need, and her frustration that he could not hear her. All knew he had many pieces of gold somewhere. She asked for only one.

  “It is no good to you,” she told him, as her tears ran. “It will be everything to me. One piece. Of gold. Please.” She went through the signs again.

  Tindr looked at the coin, the gold-coloured sash. He understood, and nodded. She had hurt him badly once, but now she needed help. He did not know why she wanted gold, nor why she cried to him about it, but it was clear her need was great. The gold coins from the sale of the great narwhale horn lay in a small pottery jar under the floorboards of his alcove in his mother’s house. He and his mother had put them there together, and she had told him over and again they were his. He would give her one.

  She saw he understood, saw he agreed. She clasped her hands together. “Tomorrow morning, in the cove beyond the fish drying racks. Bring it to me then.” She did not know how to sign this, and looked about her. Tindr’s workbench was covered with fine sawdust. She drew the Sun with its rays with her finger, then a half Moon. Then the Sun, rising from the wavy lines of water. “In the morning.” She drew a fish, on a stick, then pointed with her hand to where the great racks of salted stock-fish were hung to dry. The coin again, in her palm.

  He nodded, smoothed the sawdust, drew an outline of the wooden figure of Freyr, and just past this a quick lattice work of lines for the fish racks.

  “Já, já,” she nodded. “That cove. In the morning.” She felt of a sudden wonderfully free, and on the edge of great happiness. She wanted almost to kiss him.

  He saw the tears dry on her face, and the gladness in her eyes. The promise of a piece of metal did this for her. He would be there in the morning, with the gold for her.

  Ceridwen was walking up the hill with Eirian and Yrling, and her serving woman Helga. Yrling had run ahead a little to see what their neighbour Alrik was working on in his croft; he always had planks of wood he was sawing or smoothing, and little waste-blocks he gave to the boy. Eirian was walking between her mother and Helga, with a hand clutching at both their skirts, and was singing a nonsense song as she swung the fabric back and forth in her fists. Both women were laughing.

  A woman hurried down towards them, coming from Tyrsborg. She was short and plump, with yellow curling hair streaming out from under her linen head wrap. She had lowered her face as soon as she spotted the approaching women. Helga did not recognize her, but Ceridwen knew her at once. As the woman neared, Ceridwen opened her mouth to voice her greeting. Sigvor kept her face resolutely down, and Ceridwen did not speak after all.

  After Sigvor left him, Tindr turned back to his work, but after a few minutes set down the horse figurine. He was troubled enough by seeing Sigvor to want to get the coin now and have it ready, so he would not have to think of it later. He brushed the sawdust from his hands and began to cross the kitchen yard. As he did he saw Bright Hair and Helper come back, with the little ones. Bright Hair looked at him in a way that made him slow. Her green eyes were wide, and her mouth looked worried. She left Helper and came to him.

  Ceridwen rarely saw Sigvor, and was not happy that she had been here at Tyrsborg. There was only one person she would wish to see, and she feared for him. As she stood before Tindr she touched her eye, then lifted both hands to her cheeks to name Sigvor. Then she turned and gestured down the hill.

  Tindr nodded. He had lowered his eyelids over his blue-white eyes. She did not know what had brought Sigvor to see him, but pausing before Tindr she reminded herself that he was a man with a right to his own life. She had at times to check her protectiveness towards him, just as she urged Rannveig to worry less about her son’s future. In the past when Tindr needed help, he had come to her and Sidroc, just as he had gone to his mother for advice. Looking at his lowered lashes, she wished to leave it go at that, sorry she had even let him know she had seen Sigvor.

  Tindr went on his way down to his mother’s. He passed through the empty brew-house and found Rannveig, where she was almost sure to be, standing in her open brewing shed. She was crumbling dried barley and looked up and smiled as Tindr waved to her. He passed Gudfrid where she sat crouched by the ash-covered baking pans, checking her loaves for doneness. The door of his house was open and he walked through it.

  His gold was buried in a little pottery jar set into the soil under the floorboards of his old alcove. He folded the deerskin which lay upon those boards, giving it a pat; it was that from the great hart he had taken, his first, in the company of his Uncle Rapp and cousin Ragnfast. The boards fit closely together but the tip of his knife slid between t
hem was enough. The jar was not sealed, just had a wood stopper. His fingers reached in and closed around one coin. It was a pretty thing, and on rare occasions he had seen men or women wearing jewellery, necklaces or arm rings, of the stuff, which were even prettier. But many folk died for gold, he knew.

  As he was spreading his deer skin over the boards his eye fell on the little bone whistle on a thong of leather hanging above his bed. It was just like that which hung about his neck now, inside his tunic, but the one on the wall was the last bone whistle that Dagr had carved for him. When he was little his father made him whistles from the leg bones of sheep. Tindr oftentimes broke or lost them, so his Da had made him many. When Tindr began to hunt deer, he asked his Da to use the deer leg bones. One day Tindr wanted to make his own. He had chipped the mouthpiece of this one, and used it for his model as he fashioned a new one. He remembered going to Da afterwards, and blowing it for him to make sure it sounded, and his Da ruffling his hair and smiling, Já. But he kept this last one Da had made. It was a precious thing, far more precious than the gold in his hand.

  Chapter the Twenty-ninth: The Cove

  TOSTE was hacking at weeds in the cabbage beds with his oldest daughter when his neighbour reined up in front of the house. Krok was rich and owned a horse. Toste put down his hoe and went to greet him.

  “You were down to the trading road yesterday,” Krok observed, leaning slightly over the pommel of his saddle.

  Toste’s face clouded with confusion. “Nai. I was out moving my sheep with my boys.”

  “Ah,” returned Krok. “Well, I saw your wife there; I was at Rannveig’s and watched her walk past.”

  Toste did not move for a moment. Sigvor had told him she wished to see her sister who lived further upcountry. She had said nothing about going to the town.