Two Ravens

by Cecelia Holland

  Soft snow was falling. Kristjan came to her and pulled her by the hand across the frozen yard toward the barn.

  “Mother,” he said, when they were inside the barn, and embraced her. One hand on his chest, she forced them apart.

  “So you came back,” she said. “Where are the rest?”

  “In the ship,” he said.

  “And you want me to smooth things over for you with Hoskuld.”

  “Mother, he will heed you. Besides, it was all Bjarni’s doing.”

  She was shivering. Her feet were cold. In the back of the barn a horse snuffled. She said, “Tell Bjarni himself to talk to Hoskuld,” and turned back to the door.

  “Bjarni is dead,” Kristjan said.

  That silenced her a moment. Presently, facing him again, she said, “What happened?”

  “I am cold, Mother. That’s a story for the hearth. Talk to Hoskuld for us.”

  “You good-for-nothing,” she said. “You think so little of me.” She spat off to his left. “I regret that I am your mother.”

  “Who is this?” Hoskuld said, behind her.

  Barefoot, in his nightshirt, he came in through the door. He carried the axe in one hand.

  “Oh,” he said, and strode toward Kristjan. “It’s your cub. Where are mine?”

  She pulled Kristjan behind her. “They are nearby. I don’t care what you do with them, but leave him alone.”

  “It was all Bjarni’s idea,” Kristjan said, over her shoulder. “We came back as soon as he was dead.”

  “Dead.” Hoskuld lowered his hands. “You are sure? You saw him dead?”

  “Not exactly—Sigurd took him. We stole Sigurd’s daughter. Bjarni fell to them.” Kristjan was leaning over Hiyke’s shoulder to speak to his stepfather. His breath grazed her ear. “We came straight back, I swear it, as she is honest.”

  Hoskuld laughed. He took Hiyke by the hand and nodded to Kristjan. “They can come back.” He led her out through the snowy yard to the bedroom door. More than once he laughed.

  THE GIRL WITH ULF was tall and fair. Her face was lovely. Hiyke sat beside Hoskuld in the High Seat; she saw how her husband looked at the girl.

  “You are Sigurd’s daughter,” Hoskuld said. “You favor him. He was always a handsome man.” He ignored his three sons, standing behind her. “Are you here of your own will?”

  “Yes, my lord,” the girl whispered.

  “I am going to marry her,” Ulf said.

  “What is your name?” Hoskuld said.

  “Gudrun, my lord.”

  Whenever she called him that, Hoskuld swelled. Hiyke sat unmoving in the seat beside him and kept silence.

  “Well,” he said, “I will give you the shelter of my hall, and for your sake, pretty Gudrun, I will take them back. Come here and sit by me. And now tell me your story.”

  Ulf stood between Jon on the left and Andres on the right. He said, “We found Sigurd’s island and stayed there above ten days, but he and Bjarni could not agree. And he would not give me Gudrun. We left—we came back later and stole Gudrun while they were all in the church, but they caught Bjarni. We barely escaped ourselves. Sigurd had hundreds of men there.”

  Hoskuld smiled. He had forgotten Gudrun at his side; he looked only at Ulf. He said, “I meant Sigurd to do away with him. I thought he had outrun me when he left me behind. But you did my work for me. Fate’s work, it was; that is clear.”

  Andres said, “We did not wish his death—we did not cause his death.”

  Beside him, Ulf looked down at his feet.

  “You did,” Hoskuld said. “Don’t tell me otherwise. Haul Swan up onto the beach. We have hay to mow.”

  Gudrun would not marry Ulf until he took Christ. She slept on a pallet in the little room in the back of the hall where Hiyke and Hoskuld slept. Ulf never saw her alone; Hoskuld managed that. She spent the day washing her face and hands and putting clothes on. Ulf tried to talk her into marrying him as he was, but she refused. She fawned on Hoskuld. She had a pretty, shy, mild way about her that seemed false to Hiyke.

  The days grew short. They brought in the yearling sheep to be slaughtered. Hoskuld kept them all hard at the work, except Kristjan, who did as little as he could. One night when they were in their bedchamber Hoskuld said, “That is a lazy, weakling brat you have.”

  Gudrun was sitting on her pallet in the corner, listening. Hiyke motioned at her with her head, to remind Hoskuld. She did not want to argue with him in front of her.

  The man pushed her. “Did you hear me? I said that I will hasten him out of here unless he works.”

  She burned at that. “If he goes, I will go,” she said.

  “Go, then!” He leaned over her, shouting into her ear, as he always did. “Go beg on the road. That’s all he is worth. That, and drowning.”

  Gudrun was watching all this intently, a smile on her lips. Hiyke bit her lips to keep from swearing at him. He roared at her; he was half-drunk. He tramped out of the room and across the hall to the High Seat, and Hiyke heard him bellow for his jug.

  Her hands shook. She wished that she had struck him, to take the edge off her anger. Between her and Gudrun there passed an instant’s glance. Gudrun lowered her head over the looking glass in her lap. Hiyke went out to the hall.

  Hoskuld sat there in the High Seat. The pelt of a black bear hid the pagan carvings on the back. His shaggy fair hair stood out against the glossy fur. She went down the hall to the door.

  Kristjan was sitting in the grass behind the shed, playing on a little flute of bone. She took the flute from him and broke it in her hands.

  “You are a disgrace to me,” she said. “For my sake he tolerates it, but I will not. Either you work or you go.”

  Kristjan raised his dark frowning face toward her. “Why should I work for him? I hate him. I hate them all.”

  “Then do it for me,” she said.

  He caught her hand and kissed the palm. “I will,” he said. Getting to his feet, he put his arms around her; he was only slightly taller than she was. She put her head down a moment on his shoulder.

  SHE RODE along the beach, looking for shells. As she rode she thought that she might leave Hoskuld. Even while she considered it, her mind resisted it.

  Her first two years at Hrafnfell had been hard ones. The fish had disappeared out of the sea and half the lambs had died. She had worked beside Hoskuld and his sons until she could not walk. She had climbed up the cliff after eggs and gathered seaweed and boiled it for soup. Now the life here was better. She had earned her life here, and she would not give it up.

  The grey mare picked her way over the rocky beach. Hiyke kept watch for the small shells that she used to dye her wool. Her hands were cold. She reined the mare down toward the sea. Now she did not look for shells; she stared out to sea.

  Married at fifteen, she lost her husband to the sea barely a year later, with Kristjan still unnoticed in her womb. For twelve years she had lived with her husband’s family, carding the wool, spinning and weaving, as a good Christian woman did. Her husband’s family was wellborn, their house stocked with servants. Hiyke did no harsh work. Yet she longed for work, for the test. Then one day she had seen a blond-haired man at the gate who stood a head taller than anyone else on the farm.

  It was a sin, to love Hoskuld. Yet she paid her penance, every day, hauling water and scrubbing the floor, and bearing Hoskuld himself. She crossed herself, sure that God understood her. The grey sea churned the surf around her horse’s feet. She urged the mare on, looking for shells.

  WHEN HOSKULD HAD SLAUGHTERED the yearling lambs he culled the weanlings and took the finest of them and washed it. He made his yearly joke about giving a gelded sheep to the god of his manhood. This he did before everyone, not caring that it was against the law.

  “Who will go with me?” he said. “Kristjan?”

  Kristjan said nothing.

  “Jon? Andres?”

  “No, Papa.”

  “Ulf?”

  Ulf turned away. Ho
skuld pulled back his lip in a smile. “Cross-kisser,” he said. He took the lamb over his shoulders and the axe in his hand and went up the hillside, toward the great bulging rock of the Raven Cliff.

  Hiyke and Gudrun were watching from the side of the yard. Gudrun turned to her. “Where is he going?”

  “To sacrifice,” Hiyke said. “He gives the lamb to his demon, Thor.”

  Ulf was coming toward them. Gudrun held out her hands to him. “You did not go,” she said, and went into his arms.

  * * *

  ULF AND GUDRUN were married by Eirik Arnarson’s priest, in the church at the chieftain’s farm. They knelt down together to take the Body of Christ. Afterward the wedding party sailed across the bay to Hrafnfell to feast the couple. Hoskuld gave his son a fur cloak. He gave Gudrun a necklace of gold links. She laughed, thanking him, and kissed him.

  “Be careful,” Hiyke said, when the bride had left them. “She might confuse herself over the bridegroom.”

  “She might be the fatter for it,” he said. He lifted the jug.

  “Not from you, Hoskuld.”

  They were sitting together in the High Seat. Up and down the hall, the guests and the people of Hrafnfell were dancing. Even Eirik Arnarson had joined them.

  “It is not my misdoing you do not bear,” he said to her. He pushed the jug at her. “Drink.”

  She stuck her chin up. He leaned toward her and said into her ear, “What, do you not trust yourself with it?”

  Taking the jug, she lifted it and drank of the mead. He laughed at her.

  “Here comes Eirik Arnarson,” she said. “If I were you, I would turn sober before you make a fool of yourself.”

  Hoskuld put the jug down. The chieftain came to the opposite side of the table, and they shook hands. The table was between them; Hiyke had heard that was a bad omen.

  “There is no more word of Bjarni?” Eirik asked, when they had done with the amenities.

  “Nothing,” said Hoskuld.

  “That is much to our loss, here,” Eirik said. “Much to our loss.” Standing straight and fat and soft before Hoskuld, he said, “Even worse are these rumors about it. I would take it ill if you brought about what happened to your son, Hoskuld.”

  Hoskuld gave a careless laugh. “What, little man, would you fight with me over it?” He gestured to Hiyke. “She will tell you I am innocent. Tell him, woman.” Heaving himself out of the double chair, he went away down the room.

  Eirik looked at her, blinking. His small mouth was tucked down at the corners.

  “He did nothing,” she said, which was true.

  “Damn him,” Eirik said.

  “This is our hall,” she said, sharply. “And you would not curse him to his face, would you.” She went away from him. A few steps away, she glanced over her shoulder. Eirik stood there facing the empty High Seat. His mouth worked in and out. Swallowing the insults. There was no justice in him, not for Hoskuld or for anyone else. She crossed the hall, her throat dry, to find some drink.

  Near the wall she came abruptly face to face with Eirik’s priest. When she would have gone by him the priest stepped into her path.

  “Hiyke Ragnarsdottir, I would be pleased to see you at Mass.”

  “I have better things to do,” she said, “than spend half a day listening to you misinterpret the Scriptures.”

  She had gone once to his church, and he had chosen as his text for the sermon the words of Saint Paul that it was better to marry than to burn. Since then she had prayed by herself.

  The priest picked at his nose. His eyes burned with zeal. He said, “Remember the parable of the strayed sheep, my daughter.”

  “I will find my own way to God,” she said. “Let me by.”

  “Your way. That is your sin, Hiyke Ragnarsdottir, to prefer your own way over God’s way.”

  As he warmed to his lecture he waggled his finger and his voice swelled, and the people around them turned to look and listen. Hiyke brushed by the priest. She felt the eyes on her like venom in the air. She got a cupful of mead and drank deep to steady herself.

  She drank much that day. Night fell, and she was as drunken as the rest. The wedding couple were put to bed in the sleeping booth. In the yard the guests danced and drank by the light of torches. Hiyke’s head was pounding, and her stomach churned. The light dazzled her eyes. The murky shapes of the dancers whirled before her.

  A great goat danced before her. The horns curved back from its round brow. Hoskuld danced with the goat. He lumbered in a circle and the goat stood on its hind legs and drove its horned head at him.

  The guests screamed, laughing; all the sound mixed together in her ears. Her tongue flicked over her lips. Her gaze was fixed on Hoskuld. He led the goat around again in their clumsy dance. The goat reared and put its hoofs on his chest. Reaching down, crouching, he caressed the beast’s balls with his hands. The goat bleated, and Hiyke stirred, her thighs warm. The wild shadows of the goat and the man lapped against the sleeping booth, where Ulf and Gudrun shared the wedding bed.

  Hoskuld drove the goat away. He came toward Hiyke, bringing the scent of the beast. He spread out his hands for her to see. On his palms he had drawn the runes of her name. She trembled from head to foot. She coiled her arms around his neck, and their mouths met, and their bodies pressed together. He took her away down the hall to their bed.

  HOSKULD AND ULF played chess, and Hoskuld won. After that he would not play with Ulf again.

  “You are no challenge. I am used to opponents who know the game.”

  Ulf flushed. “Let me try. Once more.”

  “Bjarni would never have been trapped that easily,” Hoskuld said. “He never made mistakes.”

  “He made one,” Ulf said. “Or he would not be dead now.”

  “He is dead because you are a coward and a weakling,” Hoskuld said.

  Hiyke was watching this from behind her loom. Gudrun sat on the hearth; she watched also. Ulf stood to face his father. His face was dark with temper. His fists knotted.

  “Do not fight in the hall,” Hiyke said. She threaded her shuttle with the grey wool.

  “He will not fight,” Hoskuld said. “Because it is the truth.”

  “Come outside,” Ulf said.

  Hoskuld was placing the chesspieces back at the edges of the board. “Sit down,” he said.

  “Come outside!”

  Hoskuld got up from the High Seat. The bear fur was matted where he had been. Ulf went ahead of him toward the door. Before he reached the step, Hoskuld sprang on him from behind and struck him down.

  Gudrun screamed. Hiyke stood, dropping the shuttle. The weights on her loom clinked together.

  Hoskuld spoke to Ulf, lying at his feet. “Your brother was worth ten of you. He would never have trusted me behind him.” He came back to the High Seat.

  Ulf rose. He swayed, half-dazed by the blow. Hoskuld beckoned to Hiyke.

  “Come. I will teach you the game.”

  Hiyke put away her yarns. Ulf was staring at his father, but his arms hung at his sides, and he did not challenge Hoskuld again. He went to the door. On the steps he stumbled and nearly fell. Gudrun followed him out of the hall.

  Andres, Jon, and Kristjan were still sitting at the table. Hiyke took her place in the High Seat. Hoskuld turned the chessboard so that it was between them. His sons and his stepson watched him without looking away.

  “You are all as shameful as Ulf,” Hoskuld said. “You all killed Bjarni.”

  Jon lowered his eyes. Beside him, Kristjan put his feet outside the bench and walked out of the hall, and no one called him back. Hoskuld was bent over the chessboard, but all his attention lay on his sons.

  “Tell me again how you left him behind to die.”

  “Hoskuld,” Hiyke said. “That is between them and God.”

  “Keep quiet,” he said.

  Andres stood, his hands on the table bracing him. “If Bjarni is dead, then by his way of thinking he died well, and if he is not dead, then we are guilty of
nothing. I am going to sleep.” He too left the hall.

  Hoskuld said, “That is a mouse-minded thought.” His shadow lay broad across the table. Only Jon faced him now, his cheeks sucked thin, and his mouth tight.

  “Tell me how you left him,” Hoskuld said.

  Jon swallowed. Slowly he began to tell that story, already old. Hiyke studied the chessboard before her. She knew the actions of the pieces. She shut her ears to Jon’s voice.

  IN THE RAIN of an autumn storm Hiyke rode around the end of the bay to a nearby farm, to help a woman there bear a baby. Several other women of the farms around the bay had also come. They brought forth the baby in its time and Hiyke washed it and swaddled it; the other women went about neatening the room and making the mother comfortable. It was a small, mean hut with only one room, and the man too lazy even to make lamps. He sat in the corner by the hearth drinking birch tea as the women tended his wife and child.

  Hiyke took the baby to its mother. The woman lay like an emptied sack on the bed; she looked on the baby without love. Hiyke slid it into the curve of its mother’s arm.

  “Ah, well,” the woman said. “One more won’t make such a difference.”

  Her older children were all outdoors, even in the rain. Hiyke got a broom and swept the hearth.

  Later the woman called her over to the bedside again. She took Hiyke’s fingers in her moist hand.

  “Hiyke,” she said. “You are well off, there at Hrafnfell. We are so poor, and my children are sick. Please, can you give us something to keep us through the winter?”

  Hiyke glanced up at the other women, all watching her. Her neck and cheeks began to heat unpleasantly. She said, “I shall ask Hoskuld to give your man a place on Swan.”

  The woman in the bed let go of her hand. “Our stomachs won’t wait until the fishing begins.” She lifted the newborn in her arms for Hiyke to look at. “We’ll all starve.”

  One of the other women said, “For Christian mercy, Hiyke Ragnarsdottir—everyone knows how your storerooms bulge at Hrafnfell.”

  “Because we work,” Hiyke said. “Because we care for ourselves.”