Their faces were shut against her. One said, “Mysterious it is, why God exalts some people, in spite of their sins.”
“For Christ’s sweet sake,” another said, “Hiyke Ragnarsdottir, have you no reason to crave Christ’s mercy ? Think, now.”
They stood there talking about sin to her, talking about mercy, while in the corner by the hearth the man drank tea she had brewed.
“I shall ask Hoskuld to make a place for him on Swan, when he goes fishing again.” She nodded to the other women. “And now I will go.”
She went out slowly, so that they would not think she was running away. The grey mare was tethered in the lee of the hut. The oldest child had brought it some grass in his hand and stood feeding it. Seeing her, he stepped back hastily to let her by. His face was pale. He watched her with awe. She knew that the women called her witch-names behind her back; the children heard it, made it into songs, which they sang in her hearing. She swung her leg and her skirt up across the saddle and turned the mare’s head toward Hrafnfell.
The rain had stopped. Round clouds still covered the sky. She rode at a gallop along the green slope. On her left the dark mountain stood; on her right was the head of the bay, the waves softened to little curls of foam. She rode to the stream that came down the mountainside from the glacier.
Someone sat on a stone on the far side. She reined in. It was Kristjan; he stood up and crossed the broad, shallow stream toward her. The water was smoky from the glacier. It piled up against his legs as he waded through it.
“What are you doing out here in the rain?” she asked. Her temper was still mean.
“The rain has stopped,” Kristjan said.
She put the mare at the stream but it refused. Kristjan took the bridle and together they urged the horse to cross the water. Hiyke looked up into the sky. The clouds were parting. She saw blue through the grey.
She said, “These people have no idea of justice.”
Kristjan raised his head, turning his dark eyes on her. “What happened?”
“Ah, they begged.”
He led the mare onto the dry land, and she took him up behind her. The mare started off at a trot. Ahead the trail wound up the slope toward the pass through the mountains. The ditch was full of hawkweed. The sheep had clipped the grass on the far side almost to the ground.
“There is no value in justice if God will forgive all sins anyway,” she burst out. “We eat because we work—if we feed all the lazy people through the good years, when the bad years come, we shall all starve and die.”
Kristjan said, “Do what you will, Mama.”
It rankled like a thorn under the skin that the other women should have spoken so to her. She urged the mare into a flying gallop toward the walls of Hrafnfell.
* * *
THE NIGHTS LENGTHENED into winter. Rain and snow fell. The earth shook several times a day for a few days. When the rain paused, Hiyke saddled the grey mare again and rode over the hill, to make certain that the springs where the sheep watered were still sweet to drink. On the way, Hoskuld and another man came into sight ahead of her, moving fast along the path toward her.
The other man was Jon. He walked hunched over like a crone; she did not recognize him until he was close. Hoskuld’s lips were moving. He talked steadily to his son, who hurried on ahead as if he could outrun what Hoskuld said. Hiyke reined in the horse.
Jon passed her without a word. She pulled the mare around to block Hoskuld’s way.
“Did you taste the water at Grim’s Meadow?”
“Yes, yes,” he said.
Jon was disappearing over the top of the hill. She said, “Why are you doing this? Why are you ripping at them over Bjarni?”
“He was my son,” Hoskuld said. “Who else but I should avenge him?” He struck the mare on the flank, and she shied away. He walked past her, after Jon.
IN THE LONG NIGHT Hiyke kneaded her bread by the deep yellow light of a soapstone lamp. The wind slowed her way to the barn and helped her along on the way back. The men sat in the hall drinking and playing chess. Andres read to them. Hiyke worked at her loom. No one made poems.
Hoskuld suddenly stood up from the High Seat and staggered a step and fell headlong.
Hiyke threw down her work and knelt by him. He was breathing. He stank of drink. At first she thought he was only drunk, and she made Ulf and Jon carry him to his bed.
She sat there in the flickering light of the lamp and said her prayers. The storm boomed and flapped against the gutskin window over her head.
“Stop muttering your female curses,” Hoskuld whispered, “and bring me the jug.”
“You don’t need any more of the jug.”
He heaved himself out of the bed and tramped through the door to the hall. Hiyke followed after him. Standing on the threshold he staggered a little and caught himself again.
His three sons and her son had put their heads together across the table. They watched Hoskuld enter; their eyes glittered. He crossed through the yellow light of the hearth and picked the jug off the table. When he turned to go, the four younger men set on him.
Hoskuld went down. Hiyke seized the heavy fire-iron. Swinging it full around her she beat them away from him. She stood over him, protecting him; Ulf and Jon and Andres crouched before her, their fingers hooked and their faces twisted into snarls. Kristjan backed away from them. By the table, Gudrun watched with shining eyes.
Hoskuld tried to stand. Hiyke caught his arm; she braced him up, his great weight pressing on her shoulder.
“Come to bed,” she said.
He resisted her. Unsteadily he moved forward down the hall. With the fire-iron in her hand she guarded him, and he rounded the table and sat in the High Seat.
His eyes closed. Frightened, she wheeled around, shielding him from the others. “Get out!” She brandished the fire-iron at them, and they fled her, all but Gudrun, who stayed where she was.
“Go with them,” Hiyke said to her.
The fair girl raised her eyes, wide and clear as glass. She said, “Poor Hoskuld,” and laughed. At her leisure, she went out of the hall.
“Those dogs,” Hoskuld said.
She sat beside him, wondering how she would get him to the safety of his bed. He put his hand to his chest.
“It hurts here.” He sounded puzzled.
She realized now that it was more than the night’s drinking. She clasped her hands together. “Holy Father,” she said, and knew she could ask for nothing.
“Hiyke,” he said, “stop mumbling.”
“Can you walk?”
He pushed himself onto his feet. “I am just drunk.” His cold fingers gripped her hand. “Come to bed, wife.” His feet dragged over the floor. She helped him; it seemed to take the whole winter night, that traveling to their marriage bed.
* * *
Hoskuld did not rise. He kept the jug by his bed. Hiyke would not fill it, yet it was always full.
Once she came into the bedroom and found Gudrun there, sitting on the foot of the bed.
“The poor man, someone must keep him company,” she said. She slid down to the floor and went out of the room, past Hiyke in the doorway. Hoskuld snored full-throated in the bed, the jug under his hand.
After that she sat in the room with him whenever he was awake. When he was cold, she brought him blankets, but then he complained that he was too hot.
“I am dying like a woman,” he said. “Bjarni had the better death.”
She lay down on the bed beside him and held his hand. “You need not die.”
“I am dying.”
“Say only, I believe in God, and you will not really die.”
He turned away his head, groaning.
She tried to pray but it was as if a wall rose between her and God. For hours she crouched on her knees on the floor by the bed, wordless and hopeless. From one such false prayer she rose to find him unconscious in the bed. She went to the cookhouse and there in the warmth covered her face with her shawl and wept.
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Gudrun found her there. “Well, Hiyke,” she said, “you are a river of tears lately.”
Hiyke thrust her shawl back. She turned to the cupboard and snapped open the doors.
Behind her, Gudrun said, “You have never taken any pleasure or joy of life; I do not wonder Hoskuld is dying of it.”
Hiyke wheeled around on her and slapped her. Gudrun stepped back. Her pale eyes narrowed like a snake’s.
“You will pay for that,” she said. She went out of the cookhouse. Hiyke rubbed her stinging palm on her skirt.
HOSKULD WOKE AGAIN. He seemed a little better. He called them all into the room and sat up and told them his will for the inheritance of his goods.
He gave the farm to Ulf, with Swan and the stock and the fishing rights and wood-cutting rights. To Jon and Andres he gave ten marks each, and he paid it out to them there, stacking the silver money on the bedcover before them. To Kristjan he gave five marks.
“You may stay here as long as you wish,” he said to Hiyke. “You may live here forever if you wish. We had differences, but in all my life no other woman suited me as well as you.”
She could not answer him. With Kristjan’s silver in her fist she stood at the side of the bed, her dry eyes burning. He lay down again.
“As for Bjarni, I leave him nothing.”
“Bjarni is dead,” Ulf said.
“You did not see him die,” Hoskuld said. “He will come back. I came back.”
He shut his eyes. When he began to snore, they left him there with Hiyke.
Hoskuld died there, in the dark. On hearing it, Ulf and his brothers cheered and shouted like fools in a game. Kristjan dug the grave. The ground was soaked from the rains and the pit filled rapidly with water. None of Hoskuld’s children came to bury him. Hiyke knelt down in the mud and prayed, but the prayers were for herself, not for Hoskuld. Kristjan stood behind her. When she could not pray anymore, she fell to weeping, and he lifted her. With his arms around her, he turned her away from the grave. He stroked her cheek. For the last time she wept for Walking Hoskuld.
GUDRUN CAME TO HER, a few days later, and said, “Now that Hoskuld is dead, I suppose you will go home to your family.”
Hiyke put her feet on the rails of the loom. The cloth filled the top third of it, light grey, with the double black stripe up the side she used on all her goods.
“You heard Hoskuld,” she said. “I shall stay at Hrafnfell.”
“If you wish,” Gudrun said. “But you cannot sleep where you are. That is the finest bed at Hrafnfell, and I mean to have it.”
“It is my bed!”
Kristjan was by the hearth, watching. He came closer to listen.
Gudrun said, “I am mistress here now, Hiyke.”
Hiyke did not answer that.
“I shall speak to Ulf,” Gudrun said, and made as if to go. Hiyke caught her arm.
“I have no wish to be humiliated. I will sleep in the loft in the barn.”
Gudrun put her head to one side, smiling. “You may have the small clothes-chest.”
Kristjan came past her to his mother. “I will help you take your things to the loft,” he said.
They gathered the sheets and the featherbed she had brought with her from her husband’s home, packed her clothes, and took them through the yard to the barn. The loft was half full of straw. She spread out some and laid her bed on it.
“Perhaps we should go,” Kristjan said. “My father’s brother will take us in again.”
She picked straw from her hair. “I will be here when she is wormridden,” she said. Her voice trembled. “I swear it. I swear it.”
PART THREE
Climbing toward the pass through the mountains, Bjarni came into the sunshine, and he paused there, in the light. Gifu huffed and groaned up the steep trail behind him. After the weeks at sea she was soft and easily tired. Waiting, he lifted his gaze to the black peaks all around him. The wind keened off the serried edges of the rocks. He went on a few steps.
“Wait!” she cried, still many yards below him.
“I am waiting.”
He had moved only to widen his view to the east, through the gap between the lava blades of the mountains, to where the sun burned on the glacier. Panting, Gifu reached his side.
“Shall I carry you?” he said.
“No—” She came gratefully to a halt. Her hand rested on the curve of her belly. “How far now?”
“Just a little farther on.”
“You said that an hour ago.”
“We are close now.” He nodded up to the summit of the pass, where the trail ran through a notch in the stony slopes. “That is the top. It’s easier walking downhill.”
She started off again. Bjarni went along beside her. He carried both their bundles on his shoulder. They climbed past rocks spotted with lichens. In the joints of the stone, coarse yellow flowers grew. They reached the summit, and the path turned down.
He held himself to Gifu’s pace, although he longed to go on at top speed. A fold of the hillside shut him in against the mountain. The downward slope pulled him faster, and he slowed his feet. Gifu breathed harshly beside him. The path ran out along the bare side of the hill, and the whole valley opened up to his view.
He stopped. There was his home before him, the long narrow bay, the faceted water winking in the sun, and on the left the sheer face of the Raven Cliff. Sheep trails crisscrossed the slope below it. The buildings were small and low in the grass.
He started down the path and stopped again. Midway between him and the bottom of the path was a little dale where birch trees grew. The wind had bowed the trees and turned their branches all to one side. A woman was walking through the trees toward the path.
At the edge of the path, she saw Bjarni and Gifu above her. She paused. It was Hiyke.
She recognized him; she dropped the bundle in her hands and stood staring at him. He went down the hillside toward her, leaving Gifu behind.
He said, “Well met, Hiyke.”
Hiyke stooped to gather up the bundle. She had been carrying pieces of birch bark in her black shawl, and the bark had scattered over the ground at her feet. She collected everything into the shawl again. Straightening, the bundle tight in her fists, she came a step toward Bjarni.
“Bjarni,” she said. “It is you. So you have come back. Hoskuld said that you would.”
“Did he say what I would do to him, when I was here?”
She said, “Hoskuld is dead.”
“Dead. Of what cause?”
“He died of drink,” she said. “Last winter. In the long night.”
He noticed now that all her clothes were black. Fine lines webbed the corners of her eyes. She looked weathered and hard. He could hear Gifu coming down the path behind him, and Hiyke was watching her, intent. She lifted her thin black brows at him.
“Where have you been? It was nearly a year ago that you sailed away.”
“In England,” he said.
Gifu trudged the last few steps to his side and slid her hand under his arm and leaned on his side.
Hiyke said, “Is this your wife?”
“No. She is not my wife, the child is not mine.”
“Well, come home,” Hiyke said. “You must be tired.”
They started on again. Gifu walked between them. Bjarni told her Hiyke’s name, and told her name to Hiyke. They walked a little way in silence. Bjarni thought of his father. He had leaned on his hate of Hoskuld; the death unsettled him.
Hiyke said, “That is a beautiful coat you are wearing, Bjarni.”
“The King of England gave it to me.”
“And the gold belt?”
“Yes, that too.”
Hiyke wagged her head a little. “All this while, we have thought you were dead.”
They were coming toward Hrafnfell. The high grass rose and fell like waves of the sea; the sod roofs of the buildings stirred like the rest. Gifu clung to his arm. Hiyke went ahead of them toward the farmhouse.
Ulf
was in the yard, saddling the grey mare. Bent to reach for the girth, he did not see Bjarni until he was almost on him. He wheeled. All the color fled out of his face, and he clenched his fist in the mane of the mare.
“Bjarni.”
Bjarni put out his hand. “Welcome me back, brother.”
“I welcome you,” Ulf said. He gripped Bjarni’s hand hard. “Well—well—you are welcome.” He pumped Bjarni’s hand up and down.
“Who is that?”
Bjarni turned and raised his head. Kristjan stood before the barn. He saw who Bjarni was, and he yelled. His hand flew up to cross himself. Andres came out of the barn behind him.
“Bjarni.” Widely he smiled, his two hands out. He brushed past Kristjan. “Bjarni. Where did you come from ? Who is this?” He nodded to Gifu; he set his hands on Bjarni’s arms, smiling.
“Come inside,” Ulf said to Bjarni. “You look as if you’ve traveled far.”
Bjarni put his hand on Gifu’s shoulder. “She is tired. Let me show her where she can rest.”
Ulf had put a stiff smile on his face. “Yes—naturally—”
“I’m hungry,” Gifu said.
Hiyke reached for her hand. “Come with me. You can rest in my bed.” She paid Bjarni’s coat and belt another look and took Gifu away.
Bjarni followed Ulf into the hall. The room was hot from the buried fire in the hearth. Ulf walked one step ahead of him toward the High Seat.
A woman sat in it. The black bear fur set off her pale beauty.
“See who has come back,” Ulf said to her. He swung his hand toward Bjarni.
Gudrun’s face did not change. For a moment, her gaze on Bjarni, she said nothing. Finally she turned to Ulf.
“Is the horse ready?” she said.
“Yes.”
She stooped for the red cloak on the bench by her feet. She said, “Welcome to our home, Bjarni Hoskuldsson.” The red cloak went around her shoulders, and she came down from the High Seat toward Ulf. “Now I am going to hear Mass. Are you coming, husband?”
Bjarni fingered the gold rings of the buckle of his belt. Ulf hesitated. At the steps up to the door, his wife waited for him. He clapped Bjarni on the shoulder. “I will be back. You must be tired. Rest and eat.” He followed Gudrun out to the yard.
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