Sidroc had just turned his horse into the paddock at Tyrsborg. He had ridden to see Ring at the upland farm, and as he fastened the gate behind his stallion he looked to the second paddock where the ren deer stood. His bridle was in his hand, and his eye fell on the simple halter the deer wore. This morning he had watched Osku’s boy Ulmmá ride one of the ren around the paddock, and then laughed with Eirian and Yrling as the boy had lifted each of them in turn before him on the ren’s back. The children had whooped in pleasure, the deer steady and placid under their delighted calls.
Now as he turned to the stable he saw Tindr and Šeará step from the dimness of the forest path. The hurried way in which they walked, and the set of Tindr’s face made him stop and await them. As they neared his eye scanned them, and he took a long and slow breath.
He did not need Tindr to tell him what had already occurred. He could read it in the way he had her hand tightly clasped in his own. They walked hip to hip, arms extended straight down between them, as if he feared letting even a hand-span come between him and the Sámi girl.
He had had her on her back, that was clear. Osku had left his daughter with him, and now she stood before him, clinging to Tindr, who had claimed her. He looked up at the sky and ran his hand through his hair.
Tindr did not let a moment pass. He stopped before him, lifted the hand which held Šeará’s to his chest, pounding on it as he grunted out his distress. Sidroc nodded, raised his hands to signal calm.
He looked at the two, the girl standing slightly behind Tindr’s shoulder. There was hope in her face, but real fear in Tindr’s. He wished Rannveig was there, and Gautvid and even Osku too, so they could settle this now. As it was he asked the question he could. He laid the bridle on the fence rail, and clasped one of his hands in the other, the sign for hand-fast.
The girl did not know the gesture, but Tindr grunted, nodding his head, já, já. Hand-fast. This is my wife. All Sidroc could do was nod back.
Chapter the Thirty-second: A Chieftain’s Daughter
TINDR and Šeará spent that night in a round tent they built in a forest glade, not far from Tyrsborg. Tindr brought axes from his workbench, and together they cut saplings for uprights, fixing them above a bed of fir boughs Šeará chipped from trees. With Ceridwen they collected enough deer hides from the hall to serve as ground cloths and covering, lacing the hides together with thongs cut of more hide.
They took their small bridal supper at the table where they had eaten the night before, but this time Šeará sat next Tindr. Ulmmá listened with questioning face as his sister spoke to him in the lilting speech of the Sámi. The boy seemed to understand, and when all cups were raised and smiles wreathed the faces of those around him, he too smiled.
Another woman sat there with the household of Tyrsborg, Rannveig. She had brought a jar of mead with her, and as she watched the Sámi woman take her first sip of it, she hoped that the new day would bring them to a feast unclouded by uncertainty. They could salute the young couple tonight, bless and wish them well, but on the morrow Šeará’s father would return. She knew from watching Tindr’s face, changing in turn from happiness to worry, that this was never far from his thoughts.
Ceridwen too worked hard to show the joy she truly wished to feel. Gunnvor had made honey cakes, and seeing the pleasure with which the new couple ate them together gave her hope. Her twinned children were clamouring with excitement, thinking that the ren would stay here at Tyrsborg too, and nothing she could tell them would disavow their belief.
None went far from Tyrsborg next day. Tindr and Šeará walked back hand in hand from their forest shelter, slowly this time. As they entered the kitchen yard Ceridwen saw them and went to embrace each in turn. They looked as if they had known but little sleep, and she did not think it was due only to the joys of each other’s bodies.
All knew when Gautvid’s ship sailed in; Yrling had been set to watch for it from the crack in the stable loft wall, where he could peer far out to sea. Rannveig, watching from her brew-house, saw it too.
Sidroc stood outside the front door to greet them; the others awaited by the table in the kitchen yard, which held ale to greet the returning traders. It was still early in the day, and as Osku and Gautvid carried nothing with them Sidroc could read that they intended to be off again as soon as they could load the ship.
Gautvid grinned at him. “Fair sailing?” Sidroc asked, to which both men nodded.
“And good trading,” added Gautvid, as he came up nearest his host.
Osku, as the older man, trailed a little behind on the steep hill. Sidroc took this chance to speak.
“Ah – Gautvid,” he began. “I will need your help. While you were gone, Tindr and Osku’s daughter –”
Gautvid’s head jerked back.
“Já,” affirmed Sidroc. “They have hand-fasted, and as you will see nothing will pry them apart.”
He did not have time to say more, for they were crossing the grassy sward along the hall’s long side. There, arrayed in a half-circle near the table, waited every member of the household, even the youngest. In the middle stood Tindr, and next him Šeará. They were not touching, but the look on their faces made her father slow and look at all standing before him.
Osku’s eyes shifted to Sidroc. He took a breath and began, slowly, and with care.
“Osku, we have been partners in trade these several years. We have dealt honestly and honorably with each other. You have seen my man Tindr, many times.”
Sidroc was watching the Sámi’s face, making certain he understood, looking often to Gautvid who stood at Osku’s side. Osku nodded as if he followed, and Sidroc went on.
“Today Tindr asks that your daughter may be his wife. He cannot speak for himself and so I speak for him, just as his mother Rannveig will speak for him.”
Osku’s mouth dropped open, and he turned to Gautvid. Gautvid repeated what Sidroc had said.
“Tinder is the finest hunter on Gotland,” Sidroc went on. “No other man is as true with bow and arrow as is Tindr, all will tell you this. You have stepped inside our hall and seen the deer skins there, and eaten of his kill as well. He takes as well the mighty boar. Your daughter will always be fed.”
Gautvid added a few words here, raising his hand to the hall, gesturing an arrow being set to a bow.
Sidroc could not read the Sámi’s face, other than his surprise. He saw the man look to his daughter, to Tindr, and back to her.
Tindr, looking at both men, could only wish he knew what Scar was saying. He glanced at his mother, who with a stay of her hand tried to reassure him.
All Sidroc could do was go on. “He does not get drunk. He does not squander his silver in gaming. He is a hard worker.” He was running out of things to say to convince the man of Tindr’s merit. “His bees make the sweet honey that you favour.”
“And he is the cousin of my cousin,” Gautvid thought to add, for which Sidroc was grateful.
“His mother Rannveig owns the brew-house at the pier.” Sidroc finished. “She is respected by all. She will speak next for her son.”
Rannveig had waited long years to bargain for a wife for her son. Now she must speak to a man who she was not certain could understand her, and might not value those qualities which marked Tindr above other men. Sidroc had already said that which most fathers would wish to hear. As a woman she spoke now those things which the girl’s mother would want to know, should she be here before her.
She took a step forward and looked at the Sámi. The mass of keys at her waist jingled as she did, catching the man’s ear and eye. He liked how she sounded.
“Tindr has no other woman,” she told him. “He has waited for your daughter for a long time. He is kind, and will treat her with gentleness. And I will love her as my own daughter.”
Her eyes went to Gautvid, bidding him add that which in the man’s own tongue would make clear what she promised.
Gautvid turned his head to speak to Osku,
but the Sámi’s eyes were fixed on his daughter.
“Come here, Šeará,” he told her, in their own tongue.
She left Tindr’s side and went to stand before her father.
He looked at her, as slight and slender as a birch-wand. But she had shown that her will was strong as iron, one which had caused much grief to two villages. He heaved a sigh, recalling it all. He could not look back at what had happened; like them all he must look forward.
“Do you want this man?” he asked.
“I do want him, father. And Wolf Eyes wants me.”
A smile flickered at the corners of his mouth at her words. “Wolf Eyes. I thought the same when I saw him. He has another name. It is Tindr.”
She tried the name. “Tindr,” she repeated. She liked the sound. But he could not hear her speak it. She would go on naming him as she had the first time she saw him, and touching her eyes to mean him. She wished to know him by his striking eyes, and not his deafness.
“His Gods are not your Gods,” he cautioned. He looked about a moment. “Your Gods may not follow you here.”
She had thought of this; perhaps her Gods would not wish to come and live with her here. “His Gods will be my Gods,” she answered.
She and Wolf Eyes would build a house in the forest, one of wood, and when it was done she would ask the Goddess Máttaráhkká to come and dwell beneath the floor boards. Perhaps the Goddess would not wish to come, but she would invite her just the same.
Father nodded at daughter. He had heard enough. He gestured her to return to Tindr’s side.
Osku now spoke to all, and in Norse. “She is a chieftain’s daughter,” he warned.
He looked to Gautvid, and Osku seemed to struggle for his next words. They spoke.
“What does he offer for her,” Gautvid asked, turning from Osku to Tindr.
All looked to Rannveig, waiting for her to sign to her son. But she herself spoke.
“Gold,” she said, with no hesitation. “He offers gold.”
She had a thick coin of it ready in her palm, and all the rest of the gold coins she had won from the sale of Dagr’s narwhale horn in a little pouch hanging amidst the keys at her sash. She would give all of it if need be to win this woman for her son.
She pressed the coin into her son’s hand, pointed to Šeará, then to Osku. She made the gesture for payment, something being passed from hand to hand.
Tindr held the gold up between thumb and forefinger. He moved to Fur Man, placed the coin in his hand. When he had done so he dipped his head before the man, cupping his hands together, Please.
The Sámi’s face was unmoving. Tindr looked back at Deer, watching him.
Osku considered him, considered the gold. It would make right his losses when he fired his house. He would have enough to bury rich Offerings on the old site, so that Máttaráhkká would stop shrieking.
He spoke again to Gautvid, and at length.
“You will not take her from this place; you will live here so he might see his daughter each year when he brings his furs, so he may make sure she is well supplied,” Gautvid dictated.
Rannveig did not need to ask Tindr about this. “They will live here, in a house such as your daughter chooses,” she assured the man. She looked at the two young people. “She will have all she wishes,” she added.
After Osku heard Gautvid’s version of this, he closed his fingers around the gold resting in his palm. He again spoke now for himself, haltingly, but clearly enough.
“Then Osku accepts this gold for his daughter,” he announced.
Tindr was still before him, and saw the man’s face crease in a grin. He turned to see the others raise their arms in joy. Osku extended his arms to embrace him.
Šeará turned to Rannveig. The older woman opened her arms to her. “My daughter,” she said. Šeará could not know the words, but the kiss Rannveig bestowed on her was clear.
Osku was moving to the waggon where waited his furs. He pulled out a bear skin, and passed its bulk into the hands of Tindr and Šeará.
“For your bed,” he told them. “You will sleep as well as bears do in their den.”
That night a feast was held at the brew-house that the trading road had never seen. Gunnvor and Helga joined with Gudfrid to cook for all. Fresh fish were baked with green herbs, and salt fish was pounded and boiled with dried peas made plump by soaking. Haunches of deer meat, brined and then smoked, were carried from where they had been hanging. Deep bowls of apple sauce graced every table. Geese were roasted, and eggs beaten into puddings scented with mint and lavender. Gunnvor turned out honey cakes by the score. Rannveig opened cask after cask of her good ale, and wore a smile on her face that few had ever seen. At one point she stepped through the curtains from brew-house to the store room, and thought she saw Dagr in his green fishing tunic, turning to fetch more cups for thirsty revelers. She put her hand on her heart and spoke his name.
In the middle of this sat Tindr, with Šeará at his side, flanked by her father and brother. Ceridwen and Sidroc sat with Gautvid and the children on the other side of the table, along with Ring and Astrid and Ragnfast and Estrid, come from their farms. Rannveig was everywhere at once, receiving the good wishes of the townsfolk, coming to sit down when she could.
Before it grew dark the hand-fast couple was sent away, up the hill to their round tent, waiting snug for them. They stopped at the paddock that held the ren, and Šeará went to them and clasped her arms about their furred necks. Tomorrow her father and brother would be off, with Gautvid, heading overland in the waggon. They would be back in a week or so, but after that she would not see her father for a year, and the ren, ever.
Of all she was leaving the ren would be hardest for her to lose. All women must leave their families and villages and go live apart in their husband’s new home, and this she knew. But wherever she went she would find ren at her new home. If her parents owned many they would give her her favourites to take with her. This green island had no ren, and this would be the last she saw of them, unless one day she and Wolf Eyes could sail North to visit the wind-swept steppes and birch forests of her homeland.
Tindr watched her make her fare-wells to the deer. Tears were running from her eyes, but she tried to smile. When she turned to him he took her hand and placed it over her heart, then over his own. Then with her he bent over and pressed her hand to the Earth she and the ren stood on. These beasts. And you. And me.
Late that night Sidroc and Ceridwen walked up the hill together, back to Tyrsborg. Helga had gone ahead with the sleepy children, and Gunnvor was enjoying a well-deserved rest, sitting with her feet up with her sister Gudfrid, down at Rannveig’s.
The breeze off the sea had picked up, reminding them that despite the warmth of the day, Fall winds would soon shake the leaves from the trees. Ceridwen pulled her mantle about her more closely.
“Years ago, on one awful night, you told me Tindr would not find his wife in a hall,” she remembered aloud.
“And you were right,” she went on. “Šeará is not a woman of any hall. Nai, she is akin to a woodland creature, like Tindr herself. The man she loves. The man she wants.”
Sidroc stretched his arm out around his shield-maiden’s waist. “I did not know then how his tale would end,” he agreed, “only that the Gods were saving a special woman to be his.”
They neared their front door, over which he had carved his bind-rune during their first days there.
“Just as Freyja saved you to be mine,” he went on. He smiled down at her.
“You wear your red gown,” he observed next. “That which you wore our first night here. I have sat next to you all through the feast, watching you in it, wanting to take it off you. In a moment we will walk into the treasure room, and I need wait no longer.”
Tindr walked alone in the woods. The first snow had yet to fall, but the leafy trees were now bare against the deep green of dark pines and firs. He had taken many stags this season, a
nd the smokehouse at his mother’s was full of their haunches. He was not hunting today; his bow and quiver hung at home, untouched. He had awakened and kissed Deer as she lay curled next him under the furred skin her father had given them. Then he made his way into the trees, called into the woods just the same.
He walked slowly, for the pleasure of seeing his woods revealed to his sharp eyes. Rivulets of water still ran; no frost had yet locked them into ice. Ferns lay limp but still showed the curling openwork of their leaves, and the green mosses and yellow lichens lent vivid splashes of colour to a brown landscape.
He thought of Deer, and the tender warmth of her body as he had arisen. He and Deer had built a small house of wood planks on stone, built it with the help of Scar and Ragnfast and Bright Hair. It was a fine house, filled with the hides of stags he had taken, and down cushions Bright Hair and Nenna had made them.
He went each day to Scar’s hall and cared for the beasts there, and filled its kitchen yard stores with meat just as he did for Nenna, and for Deer and himself. Most days Deer came with him to the hall. The little ones crowded round her, and she had sewn them each a set of hide leggings and tunic as she wore. He saw how they laughed and spoke to her, and how they made her laugh.
Bright Hair and Nenna spoke to her too every day, and now Deer spoke back to them.
One other thing had changed. All signed for him now using the name Deer had given him. He was no longer known by a touch at the ear, to mean his deafness. When others gestured to him about himself they pointed to their eyes, the way Deer did. She tried to tell him his eyes were those of a certain and powerful beast. It did not live on the island, and Bright Hair had understood Deer. Bright Hair knew this beast, and made a drawing of it for him to see. It was like a dog, but with a thick furred coat. Deer had renamed him.
He thought of these good things as he walked. The weak Sun was rising higher in the sky, and he would turn back soon. Deer had been sleepy these past few days, and might still be under the skin Fur Man had given them. He thought of the sweetness of her sleeping, how he had looked at her in the dim light of dawn. His heart had swelled within his chest, she so filled it. He wondered what more could make him happier, or more complete.
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