The first place they went was to the smaller of the kitchen outbuildings. The door was still opened and she followed him within. Ranks of wooden shelves met her eyes, crowded with crocks and pots, small wooden boxes and baskets of wicker work. Tindr took a crock from a shelf of many of them. He lifted the wooded lid, dipped his finger in. It was honey.
He had watched Deer take some at the table, dribbling a small spoonful over the bread she held in her white hand. She had taken so little of it; he wanted her to have more.
She knew what it was, knew it was costly and rare, for her father had been bringing it back to her village for the past few years. Last year when he did not come here there had been no honey, none for her family, nor to trade with others. Here was jar after jar of it.
Wolf Eyes brought his finger to her lips, touched the honey to them. It was the first time he had touched her, his finger lightly on her lips. Then he took his hand away. Her pink tongue slipped out, licking at the sweetness. It made Wolf Eyes smile at her. He made the smallest sound, and with his hand offered that she dip her own finger in, and eat of it. She did, coating her finger with the thick and sticky goodness. She placed it in her mouth, a flood of sweetness.
The mistress of Tyrsborg saw Tindr and Šeará enter the path into the forest together. She stood a moment, looking after them, until the flash of the light coloured skins the Sámi woman wore was lost in the trees. She put down the linen-charged shuttle she had just taken up.
When she reached the brew-house she found Rannveig in her larger brewing shed. The older woman saw from her friend’s furrowed brow that something was amiss. She had been mixing dried herbs to flavour her ale, and now shook her hands free of the fine particles.
“Osku is with us,” Ceridwen told her, without any other greeting.
“Já, I saw Gautvid’s ship yesterday, and the tame deer that pulled the big waggon. I thought Tindr would be down here by now, to tell me of them.”
“The Sámi you saw driving the deer – she is a maiden. Osku’s daughter.” Ceridwen returned. “Tindr is much taken with her.”
Rannveig’s eyebrows rose. She had all but lost hope that any woman here on Gotland would choose her son. A hundred questions began flooding her mind. Ceridwen answered the first one.
“She is strange,” Ceridwen began, “but beautiful. Her hair is almost white, and she dresses as does her father, in the skins of deer. She wears leggings, like a man, and a tunic longer than her father and brother. Her name is a lovely one, Šeará.”
“How strange?” Rannveig asked. She did not want her boy mixed up with a sorceress, or one mad. Then she shook her head at herself. “Tindr is strange,” she reminded them both aloud.
Ceridwen tried to answer her question. “When I first saw her, I thought her the skogsrå. She looks like a deer.”
Rannveig caught her breath a moment. “Then no wonder Tindr likes her.”
“They have gone into the woods together,” her friend told her. “I came as soon as I saw them leave.”
Rannveig’s mouth opened. “What are their customs?” she asked.
“I do not know. But Gautvid told us last night that Šeará may be in disgrace. She refused to wed the man she was pledged to. He returned to her home and killed himself there, defiling it so that it must be burnt. Gautvid thinks perhaps no man will wed her; she has the taint of the dead man’s blood upon her. But none of this seems her true fault.”
Rannveig searched Ceridwen’s face. She had spent hours in the Sámi maiden’s company, and had instincts about folk that Rannveig trusted. “Is she good?”
“Já, I think she is. At least I cannot help but like her. She has an inner quiet about her, like Tindr himself.”
“And they are in the woods now, alone and together,” recounted Rannveig.
Her friend nodded. “She is not a child; she has eighteen, twenty Summers, perhaps.”
Rannveig wore her worry on her brow. “We do not know their customs…We do not know if Tindr would be considered by Osku as fit for his daughter. Or if he is giving great offense by being alone with the maid.” Her hands had risen to her face as she said these things.
Ceridwen could answer none of these concerns, and waited for Rannveig to speak again.
“And you say he is much taken with her?”
“He has scarcely lifted his eyes from her, or from her ren deer, those that come to her as if they were oxen.” She did not wish to raise false hope in so dear a friend, but must also say the next. “And Šeará – she has looked at Tindr. Her eye is not bold, but I believe she knows the regard he holds her in.
“She is already signing to him, making herself known. She speaks no Norse, and so they are almost equals. Even if Tindr heard she could not speak to him.”
“Do you think then…Osku would consent…?”
A flush of gladness came over Ceridwen at this. “I am so happy to hear you wish this for him,” she said. No mother was more devoted to her son than Rannveig to Tindr, and Ceridwen knew she wanted a love match for him, not just a woman who knew that Tindr had wealth.
“Tindr’s gold means nothing to Šeará, indeed, she or Osku do not even know he has such treasure,” she pointed out.
Rannveig’s eyes had moved to the empty pier. “When will Gautvid’s ship return?” she asked now.
Tindr led Deer up the path through his woods. The trees and shrubs were still fully clothed in their greenery; only those who looked with care would see the slightly browning rims on the pointed ash leaves, or crisping edges of the curling ferns, warning that Fall was soon to come. The coolness of the morning and night air foretold it, but the warmth when the Sun was fully overhead was nearly that of high Summer.
Šeará saw the half-ring of white birches before Wolf Eyes left the path for them. The six trees rose straight up behind a curtain of shrubbery. She caught a glimpse of something else, just rising above her sight line. A rack of deer antlers, resting atop a great standing stone.
A push through some hazels and then they were before it. Wolf Eyes stepped aside so she might see the place fully.
A huge stone of light grey rock stood upright. It was far taller than she. At its top was set a much smaller, flatter stone, and on this lay the double rack of antlers. They were not ren horn, she saw. Perhaps they were of the big deer with the red coats; the spread of the antlers was great.
Her eyes dropped to the large stone itself. Its surface was covered with ranks and files of small drawings of animals, beginning at the base and extending half-way up the stone. She took a step closer, saw the drawings had been scratched into the stone itself with a sharp point. There were deer after deer, each crowned with antlers, a huge herd of them; and mixed in with them, boar with flaring tusks.
She turned to Wolf Eyes, found herself taking a step back to his side. It was a holy place, but not taboo for her to see it; she felt he would not have brought her to harm her.
Tindr saw the uncertainty in Deer’s face, saw how her lip nearly trembled. He gave a smile, nodding his head once at her. Then he extended his arms out, strong bow-arm straight, string-arm cocked at his eye, phantom arrow resting against phantom bow. He aimed for the many figures crowding his memory stone, opened his fingers, and let fly the arrow. These are the beasts the Lady has sent to me. This is how I feed myself, my people. This is where I give thanks for the lives I have taken, that we might live.
She lifted her head in recognition, eyes looking upward to the patch of blue sky above them. She looked back at Wolf Eyes, her wonder in her face. He was a great hunter.
She turned back to the stone. She let her eyes drop to the grass that grew around its base, and saw the very first etching there, a hart with huge antlers. A boy’s first kill, and he had taken a forest giant. The Deer-Spirit loved him to have given him thus. Her eyes travelled up the ranks of deer and boar. She thought of each beast, of the skill it had taken to down them, of the reverence the hunter had shown in recording them here.
Tindr watched Deer stand before his stone, saw her arms lift, her eyelids drop a moment over her dark blue eyes and then open. She was praying, he knew, speaking to the spirits of his deer and boar, or perhaps to the Lady herself.
Now her mouth opened, her lips moved in full throated song. He watched her eyes trace the lines of beasts he had drawn, and how she sang for each and every one.
He came closer to her, within her line of view. Her lips were bowed in the slightest of smiles as she sang, and as he smiled at her her own smile deepened. He risked lifting his hand to her throat. She moved not, let him place his fingers over the small knob there so he might feel the song she sang through his fingertips.
Šeará did not know where this joik came from; she had shaped joik for folk and animals and trees but never for a holy place where deer and boar were recalled. She would never sing this joik again, but she had made it. She had no choice but to make it; it had been summoned from her. And the holy place had heard it, and Wolf Eyes had heard it too, felt her song fluttering in her throat.
She came to the last drawing, that of a deer, the last he had killed. Perhaps its flesh was in the food she had already eaten with him. She lifted her head higher. She finished her joik. Her mouth closed, and after a moment Wolf Eyes let fall his hand from her throat.
She dropped to her knees. She must pray, here and now. She raised her arms, elbows bent at right angles, and bowed her head rapidly to the Earth her knees were pressed upon. Ren did not live on this green island, but the heart of the Earth was a ren heart. Perhaps that heart was also the heart of these beasts.
When she straightened up she saw Wolf Eyes was on his knees at her side.
Tears were in her eyes at the wonder of it, at his prowess as a hunter, at this holy place he had made. And the joik she had shaped had taken something out of her heart, something dark. Even kneeling on the ground she felt light.
He looked troubled at her tears, and she smiled at him. He used the same gentle hand to touch one that welled at her eye. She watched as he brought his fingertip to his mouth, tasting this drop of sea that she wept.
She smiled now, fully, and took her hand and pressed it to the Earth. Ren deer heart. He nodded back at her. Then she looked to his stone, pressed the Earth again. And these beasts too.
He nodded. These beasts too.
She took his hand and placed it on the pale leather of her legging, placed it on the napped hide of her tunic. Then she pressed his hand to the Earth.
She let go his hand, pressed her own over her heart. Then she placed her hand over his heart.
She felt of a sudden his chest trembling under her palm. His wolf eyes were staring into hers as she pressed her hand back on the Earth. We are part of it, this beating heart of our Earth.
She was leaning forward towards him, hand still upon the Earth.
He moved his arm around her, pulled her to his own heart. Their knees and thighs touched. Their arms wrapped about each other’s backs as they pressed their hearts together.
Tindr felt her slight form in his arms, the narrowness of her waist, the small breasts pressed against his chest, the strength in her slender thighs. Her yellow-white braids fell down her back; he felt them against his wrists. Her chin was on his shoulder. He could feel her ribs expand as she drew breath, and feel as well her arms wrapping his own back, moving with his breathing.
He did not want this moment to end. All he wanted was here in his arms.
But she pulled away now, with urgency on her face. She must feel his heart against hers, skin to skin.
Her hand went to her leathern cap, covered with the bright thread work. She pulled it off, and he saw the top of her head for the first time. She untied the sash at her waist. Her hands went to the hem of her tunic, and in one gesture she pulled it over her head and dropped it on the grass they knelt on.
He caught his breath. Her skin was paler than milk, and her nipples looked like budded roses. An odour arose from her; she smelt of the spice of pine needles and female musk and something too of that bright smell before rain.
He lowered his forehead a moment on her bare shoulder, just to breathe her smell, know it fully.
His own hands went to his tunic, and he pulled it off, and the tiny whistle hanging there. He pressed his chest against hers, flesh against flesh, heart to heart. His own was pounding so he felt it one with hers. Her warmth spread over him. His hands reached up her naked back to the nape of her neck. He felt her own small hands slide into his hair and grasp the roots of it, their cheeks pressed together as they breathed as one.
Lady, give me her, he was crying within him.
The heat inside him grew so that he felt aflame. He made a sound, like one almost of pain. She pulled her face away so she might see him. He placed his hands at her waist. There were laces there, at the top of her ren skin leggings. His fingers went to them and began to pull them loose. She was trembling under his hands, and she felt him quiver as well. Her hands went to his own leggings, found the toggle, freed him. He turned to the furred boots she wore, and he drew them from her feet. She slipped the boar tusk fastener from his own, and pulled them off. He stripped off her leggings, seeing the tuft of yellow curls where her slender thighs met. She pulled at his own, and together they took them off.
Still on their knees they looked at each other, not touching, their naked bodies straining towards the other.
He paused a moment, uncertain if he should lie back, as the Lady had bid him do, so she might straddle him. The long-ago image of the man and woman in the hay field flashed before him, she on her back and he moving above her. Stags reared up behind the doe, as did all beasts he had seen in this sacred act.
Deer too paused, waiting. He looked at her face, her eyes. She looked happy, and frightened too; she had not done this before. She was not the Lady, he knew. Her flesh was warm, without the under touch of coolness the Lady’s had borne. He took her in his arms and laid her on her back.
He pressed his legs between hers, pulling her knees apart. Her blue eyes were wide as she gazed into his. She lifted her head and looked down the length of their bodies at his prick, hard and craving. He lowered his face to hers, brought his mouth to her mouth. He tasted the sweetness of the honey she had eaten at the corner of her lip. No honey had ever been as sweet.
He began to kiss her, her mouth, her face. His few days’ growth of beard surprised her; it was light, and stiffer than it looked. A man had never touched her face with his own before. She kissed him back, her lips lingering on his, her mouth seeking his chin and brow.
He brought his hips to hers. She shifted beneath him as he sought the deep warmth of her hollow. She arched her back, raised herself to meet him. He pressed hard to open her and saw her flinch in pain. He stopped, looking down into her eyes, but she smiled up at him, biting her lower lip. He went on, until he had gained the ease of her body.
She did not take her eyes off of his, did not close them against him and what was happening. He moved within her. He felt the magnificence of his body, and the beauty of hers. She was a woman, not a Goddess, and she was come to him, and was giving herself to him.
Šeará had her arms about him, holding him at the waist. He had lowered his animal eyes, and gave a thrust deeper than the rest. Beyond his closed eyes he saw deer, leaping through dark woods, yet bathed in the most brilliant of light. A cry came from his lips, and his body quaked above her.
He brought his head to her shoulder, let his brow rest there a moment, then lifted his head and kissed her mouth. Her hands stroked through his hair, and once more they were heart to heart. They lay a while like this, the warmth of their bodies dissolving all that had come before that moment they had
first seen each other. All began anew.
He pulled slowly back from her, and saw her flinch the slightest bit. He placed his hand over the tuft of golden curls he had just moved from, and with his lips touched her belly. When he looked at her face she was smiling at him. He lay on his back and pulled her over and across his chest, her cheek against his heart.
For an instant he thought he slept. Then his eyes were wide open, and his hands clenched about Deer so that she started.
Fur Man would come tomorrow and take Deer away. He had never felt as panicked as he did at this moment. He would not let that happen. Deer was his woman, she had given herself to him, and he to her. He would fight to keep her.
He was almost panting, and he knew sounds were coming from his throat. Deer hung about his neck, trying to calm him, but he saw the fear she too felt.
He must find Scar; Scar would help him. Scar would speak with Fur Man and tell him Deer must stay here.
He tried to tell Deer this, touching his cheek to indicate the scar of he who could help.
They dressed. Deer once more dropped on her knees before his memory stone, once more raised her arms and bent her head to the Earth they had lain upon.
Then they were off. As they moved through the forest many things tumbled in his mind. If Fur Man would not give him Deer, he would run off with her. He knew places no one would find, caves and hidden shelters. He would feed them with his bow. He would leave Scar and Bright Hair and even his Nenna if it meant keeping Deer at his side.
Tindr Page 36