by Julia Knight
Bebba bustled about doing nothing much, her shoulders stiff to ward off any comment, but finally she sat down across the fire. Sparse tears lay scattered on her cheeks. “Breaks my heart, that it does.”
“What does?”
“Idunn in there. Dying she is, no doubt about it, but won’t show a damn thing to Agnar. He don’t know, the old fool. Thinks she’s just tired of late is all. The spae-wife—that’s like their, I don’t know, not a priestess, more like the goodwife, see? Knows all the old charms and herbs. Anyway, she brings up a thing to dose her with, make the pain go enough so she can sleep. A sad thing, I calls it, when she won’t take comfort from a husband she loves, and who loves her. But there, one way they’re different, the Norsemen. Courage is everything to them, even the women.”
Bebba wiped her face with her apron and got up, all business again. “Can’t be sitting around with idle hands. Here, you take the wool. It’s washed and it needs combing. Their combs is much the same as at home.”
Bebba took out two long-tined bone-handled combs and left her to tease the wool into order while she went into the ale room. Wilda set to, almost happy in it. Combing she could do, without too much taking the Lord’s name in vain. A mindless task she could lose herself in, not think, just do. Lose herself she did, in the soothing movement of hand and eye. She could pretend she was at home, that Myldrith was just waiting for her next “Goddamn!” or that Bayen would be here any moment—soft, comforting thoughts. Even if it hadn’t been her life of choice, it was a life she knew, where the rules made sense. And yet that seemed pathetic, to want what she hadn’t wanted, just because it was familiar. As though she had forgotten who she was.
The bang of the door made the combs skip from her hands as she jumped up, half expecting Bayen to be standing in the doorway. Instead, it was Toki. He hesitated, as though gauging her reaction. When she made no move, he ducked his head shyly and bent to pick up the combs and wool, now tangled worse than when she’d started.
Bebba came out of the ale room, wiping her hands on her apron. When she saw who it was, she tutted and began to hector Toki, but he paid her no mind. Instead he handed Wilda the combs, his head still ducked, and went to sit on the same bench as before across the fire from Wilda. Bebba’s voice trailed off when he still took no notice and instead went to fetch him a cup of ale with a weary sigh.
When she came back, she eyed Wilda thoughtfully. “No trouble, that’s what I told him. Don’t want no trouble disturbing Idunn. Same goes for you. I got a powerful lot of work to be doing, but I’ll be keeping an eye, don’t think I won’t. Whatever’s going on, you keep it quiet.” She disappeared back into the ale room, though the door was left open and she kept a careful eye on the two of them. What trouble was she expecting?
Wilda went back to combing, but her eyes were drawn to Toki. The way he sat, hunkered in on himself as though he was ashamed even to exist. It shouldn’t be so. He’d saved her life once and paid a price for it, and she wanted to tell all of them, everyone who Bebba said treated him as worthless. Yet he didn’t want her to.
When he’d drained his cup, Wilda fetched him another, wilting a little under Bebba’s glare. She stood so she was on a level with Toki’s eyes and held out the cup. Toki chewed on his lip a moment before he reached for it, his head still ducked. She wished he’d at least look at her, like he had last night, when there had been something more than dimwittedness behind his eyes, When she’d seen the deep thought, the sharp glance of a boy who’d saved her.
“Toki?”
Toki knew he shouldn’t have come. Agnar had said he was welcome to come for his ale, if he kept away from Wilda and gave no trouble. He’d meant to come and sit, just watch Wilda and think, plan what he was going to do. He had time now that Bausi had gone to negotiate his new marriage. Time to work out how he was going to get Wilda away. In the meantime he wanted to sit and watch her, the only good thing he’d ever done, kept her alive. A warm thought in the ice of his life.
Yesterday he’d seen her and thought that here was the one person who could make everything fall around his ears, and that he had to make sure she said nothing. Today—she hadn’t sneered at him, she hadn’t looked at him as if he was a coward or an idiot. She’d looked as though she was both surprised and pleased he was alive. No one looked at him that way, and that had drawn him back because he wanted it again. To be looked at like the man he knew in his heart he was, even if he dared not show it.
Even if he just sat in the same room as her, which was all the courage he could conjure—to come here when Agnar had such hard words on it. He couldn’t find the courage to look up and maybe find that she knew now what they said about him, that she would look at him as they did.
He kept his gaze on the floor as he took the cup. Her voice, soft as falling snow, saying his name made him jerk in surprise and he almost spilled the ale. When her hand touched his, he did drop it, spilling ale across his breeches and the floor.
“Toki?”
Her hand was still there, burning him with his own want. If he looked up, he’d be lost. Either she would look at him as they did, and the faint flicker of hope would die in him again, or she would look at him as she did yesterday, as though he was a man. If she did that, he was lost to her.
“Thank you,” she said, stumbling over the words, and then he had to look.
And was lost. She was smiling, she was looking at him as though he was a man, as though she could see inside to his dreams, where he was tall and strong. A clatter from the ale room and Bebba muttering something under her breath broke the spell. Wilda turned away, back to combing wool, but it was too late.
It was no longer just because of Sigdir and Gudrun that he had to get her away, no longer because of the curse over his head. It was because of her. Because she’d looked at him like that, with a smile and a softness around her eyes that bewitched him. For that, he would find the courage to do something, to save her from Bausi. His dreams would come outside his head.
He had time, and while he planned he would sit and watch her, hope that she’d smile at him again. A small thing to wish for, but he was reduced to taking comfort from small things and had been for a long while.
Toki watched until Agnar came back but no coherent thoughts formed, and he was content to just sit. He was entranced by her, by the thought that Wilda, the untamed wild girl who’d saved him, had become so controlled, so changed. The collar at her neck pained him to see, a symbol of the chains that seemed to bind her inside as well as out.
Agnar’s glower and the lateness got him to his feet, ready to return to his lonely little hovel that would seem all the lonelier, all the colder tonight. He tried a smile at Wilda before he left and was rewarded with one in return, one that made him think that girl was still in there, somewhere, waiting to break free. Just as he was wanting to break free of his chains. The snowy air outside didn’t seem so cold after that.
Once home he sat in the darkness of his little hut, lit only by a feeble rushlight and the flames from a meagre fire, and thought. Wilda being here was too dangerous. Toki could make sure he didn’t curse Sigdir and Gudrun by talking, but what about Wilda? Bausi had laid no such thing on her, and she was thrall, worthless.
She couldn’t run, Agnar was right about that. It would be the recourse of desperation. The snow was thick, clouds gathering around the mountain tops even now, piling up to great cliffs of waiting snow, grey and threatening, waiting to spill white blankets. The pass over the mountains would be all but blocked already, and Toki couldn’t leave, by the curse he couldn’t. That was his courage—staying amid this. Yet every day she stayed was a day closer to Bausi working out who she was, or her seeing him, knowing him and saying something. He couldn’t tell her why she should be silent, because he knew none of her words. He couldn’t even ask Bebba or one of the other Saxon thralls to translate, or then it would be out, and all their lives would be forfeit.
Say nothing of that night’s work.
Every day was a d
ay closer to her death, though she didn’t know it. Toki was determined that wouldn’t happen. He had saved her once, and she had saved him in return. He had to do it again.
He could buy her. The only way he had to help her. He could buy her from Agnar and keep her here out of Bausi’s sight until spring, until he could send her away. Horse-Einar snorted in his stall, leaned his head over and blew warm air down Toki’s neck. He patted the horse absently.
He rummaged around in his chest and pulled out his meagre possessions. There was precious little. A knife with a walrus-bone handle that he used for skinning. A small, burnished bronze cat of his mother’s. How she’d preened the day Toki’s father had given it to her, a present from one of his raids. Another little ornament Toki had carved from bone, long ago, meaning to give it to Ragnhilda. One white fox fur, soft and downy, that he’d intended to barter for some food to see himself through the winter, to add to the meat he’d got from the pig that hung above the fire to smoke. But one fur wasn’t enough, and he couldn’t hunt as the others did, his bad leg too stiff, especially in the cold. He laid snares, but foxes were too wily, or if they were caught, had often been scavenged by wolves before Toki could get to them. Horse-Einar had helped this last winter, so that the snow did not make his leg a cold, wrenching ache when he climbed the mountain, but still, only one fur.
All he had apart from what vegetables he’d salvaged to see him through winter, hay enough to feed Einar and meat from the pig. Not much. It wasn’t enough to buy a thrall. Maybe—if he could hunt more, get more furs and made them into something? A cloak of fox fur, that would be worth more, maybe enough if it were well-crafted. He patted Einar’s nose again and smiled at the silky feel of it under his hand. Einar never judged him.
For a decent cloak he’d need at least another four furs, maybe five, and time to work them. He had two weeks, he hoped. He also hoped two weeks would be long enough.
Chapter Seven
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.
Ecclesiastes 9:10
Wilda followed Bebba’s gaze as she shielded her eyes against a rare glimpse of sun that turned all the snow to glaring whiteness. Wilda shaded her own eyes with one hand and watched a shape move down the mountain. A man on a horse picking its careful way through the snow. Toki.
“That’s every day for the last week,” Bebba said. “And every day he’s been coming here too, to watch you. But every day up the mountain—that’s hard for him, what with that leg the way it is, even on a horse. No wonder he’s looking so weary. What’s he up to?” She gave Wilda a knowing look at that last.
“I told you, I don’t know. Even if he spoke, you know I wouldn’t be able to understand him.” Wilda had picked up a few phrases here and there, but not enough to have a conversation.
With Toki it didn’t matter. He came every night to sit with his beer and watch her as she worked. She found herself looking forward to sunset and him coming. He said nothing, but that wasn’t it, or maybe it was because he said nothing, expected nothing. He just was, and so she could just be too, a luxury she couldn’t recall having before. He was a comforting presence, maybe like he’d wanted the amulet to be.
Toki rode the horse down past a far toft puffing out smoke, and children ran beside Toki’s horse, calling names, throwing snow and chunks of ice. He kept his eyes forward, but his shoulders hunched.
“Why do they do that? What are they calling him?”
“Coward,” Bebba said.
“But—”
“Not coward like you or I see it, maybe. He sits and he takes it, that and worse from every last man, woman and child in the fjord and he says nothing, never hits back. Never even a nasty glare. That takes some doing, for you or me. For him it’s more—a Norseman sees that as cowardice. Especially to bear that from children, from anyone. A true man of Thor wouldn’t take it, wouldn’t sit and bear it. They’re different, see, in how they think. A man don’t take cheek from anyone, not from a woman or a child or a thrall. Or another man. Any slight to their honour is an excuse to fight, and fight they do. They hold that honour above everything, above land and wealth and wives, second only to their gods. So Toki there, you and me may see he’s turning the other cheek, like a good Christian would. To me, that looks like a brave man. For him, turning a cheek is the worst shame, an admission he isn’t a man. They see a craven weakling boy, not a man in their eyes, not before Thor. That’s the difference between us. White Christ they call him—milk-blooded and cowardly versus Red Thor—red of blood, red of war, who wouldn’t turn a cheek to anyone, unless it was his arse cheek. A brave man, I see, but he thinks it makes him coward.”
Bebba fell silent as another chunk of ice hit Toki on the shoulder, shattered across his horse’s neck and made it shy. He made it past the toft and the children found something else to torment.
Bebba chivvied her inside, and Wilda went, thinking hard, hurting in her heart. What Bebba said was true—a brave man to stand what he did with no complaint. Yet he thought that shamed him. Not to her. To her that made him a good man, a strong one among barbarians. She wished she knew enough words of his to say it to him, but all she had were actions.
He’d be here soon enough—the sun was already lowering behind the high mountain forests and sending long shadows creeping across the valley. The thrall boys came in, loud and laughing. Bebba cuffed one round the ear when he had the cheek to pinch her, but she was smiling and the blow had no force. “Pair of devils. Come on, Wilda, look smart.”
Wilda jerked out of her reverie and set to work on the night meal, but her mind wasn’t on it. She could think only of Toki, of how he bore what they said, what they did. To her, that was courage, the courage not to turn like a wild animal and hit back, the courage to be better than that, to turn the other cheek. Her father had taught her, in long, tiresome lessons, that meekness was courage—the courage to be human.
She kept stealing glances at the window, checking how dark it was. How long till he came. The meal seemed to last an eternity before the thrall boys went to their beds and Agnar levered himself to his feet. Off to the feasting hall as he did most nights, to sit with the warriors and join in their talk, pretend he was still young enough to be one of them. Bebba got Idunn settled in her bed and dosed with whatever concoction it was that made her sleep.
When she came back in, she shook her head at Wilda with exasperation. “Don’t think I can’t see what’s in front of me.”
Wilda stopped trying to tidy her hair and felt her cheeks flush, but Bebba said no more. They fell to combing the last of the wool, ready to start spinning. Wilda had just finished the last comb-full when Toki came in. He walked differently now, though still with the limping drag of one leg. Yet his shoulders no longer hunched, and he didn’t hesitate to look at Wilda, no longer held his head down. He seemed almost happy.
Wilda got him his ale and his sudden smile was shy, reticent, but it changed him, changed his face from well-set-up and strong to startlingly handsome in a heartbeat, or maybe that was her own eyes only now showing it to her. Her cheeks flamed and she turned away when Bebba clucked with disapproval.
Bebba handed her the spindle and Wilda’s stomach dropped.
“Lord, girl, what are you doing?” Bebba shook her head when Wilda managed to snap the thread almost straightaway. “You need to get your rhythm right. Thought you’d be able to spin, being a lady and all.”
The bench beside Wilda creaked as Toki sat down next to her and took the spindle and the mass of combed wool. He was quick and sure in his movements and soon had it all arranged again. He took her hands—to a sharp tut from Bebba—and held them on the wool. His hands swamped hers, making her feel almost childlike in comparison, and though his skin was rough from work, his touch was feather-soft. Her face heated up again, and she couldn’t seem to take her eyes from his as he guided her hands along. He smiled again, with a little duck of his head, and again it changed his face, and how she saw him. A brave, kind man, hiding it when s
he would shout to everyone if he would let her.
“That’ll do, I think.” Bebba stood over them, glaring with disapproval as though they were the two thrall boys who had pinched her, children who needed chiding. She spoke a few words to Toki in a sharp tone that made his smile disappear like smoke and his head dip again so that he looked at the floor. He put the wool down and shuffled to his feet. Yet he cast Bebba a hard glance before he went, and left Wilda with a last, sad smile.
“What did you say to him?”
“What Agnar should have said to him long since. He ain’t got no business with you, and you got none with him. People are already talking. It’ll end in blood, else. Toki’s, more than like, and I won’t have that. Poor sod, he’s had enough of that even if he’s got the courage to bear it, no matter what they say on it. He bears it, and well, that boy. He’s got iron in him, like they all do, though the rest don’t see it. But I told him good, this’ll end in more than that, this’ll end in blood. His, and yours too most like. He won’t be back.”
“But—”
“That’s all I’m saying on it. Now get on with the spinning.”
Wilda set to with her mouth pinched, wondering what spite Bebba had said to him to turn him back to the man hunched against the world. She promised herself she would be extra attentive to him when he came the next day, make sure she let him know how much she liked him and his soft presence, that she saw the wit behind his eyes, the only bright point in days dull and bleak.
But the next night he didn’t come, and Agnar took to watching her instead, a worried look about him and his heavy knife across his knees, as though he’d failed in some task and would not do so again. She didn’t care about that, or anything. Only that Toki didn’t come to lend her his quiet strength or grace the night with his shy smile.
