Hidden

by Donna Jo Napoli

  Good. Anger keeps me from being too afraid. I don’t like walking alone at night. I don’t like the unfamiliar sounds around me. It’s undoubtedly just animals scurrying about, more frightened of me than I am of them. But still I hate it. Plants scrape at my ankles. Now and then branches smack my arms or face. A few times I stumble over big rocks because it’s just so dark.

  Gradually, though, the world around me assumes shape. The sun rises, setting a meadow of heather aflame. I cry at how glorious it is. Well, that’s ridiculous. I’m too old to cry at something like that. It’s just because I’m so anxious that seeing something beautiful overwhelmed me. I have to act sensible. Mature. It’s morning. What can make things feel more normal?

  Breakfast. Of course. I reach into my pouch and walk along eating cod and onion. I wipe my nose and mouth with grasses that I yank without stopping. Food cheers me up. I walk all morning, through the afternoon, all evening. Whenever I have an unobstructed view, I turn in a circle to spy first whatever can spy me. I pass a spring and slake my thirst with the sweetest water ever. Birds perch on top branches of shrubs. Their backs and wings are orange, their heads gray with a black mask over the eyes. I make a game of sighting them. They’ve come to breed. They must be disappointed at spring’s tardiness, but they don’t show it. Good for them.

  I walk until I see a doe. That little kind that stands no taller than my waist, gold in the setting sun, with a gray face and a white rump patch. She should be in the forest, blending with ash and maple trunks. What made her venture out? She lifts her head and freezes at the sight of me. But she doesn’t bark. Maybe she senses I’m no danger, or maybe there are no others nearby to warn. Her belly is round. I hope she doesn’t birth out here, unprotected.

  I walk and wonder if the doe watches, but I won’t look back in case that alarms her. I walk until a giant flock of starlings blacks out the sun before settling for the night in the field around me. Hundreds of birds, thousands. All noisy. But noise feels good now, cozy. And I realize that stopping here, surrounded by the birds, is a good idea. I need to sleep somewhere or I’ll be too stupid to take proper care of myself. And the birds are a perfect warning system if a predator comes.

  It’s early. Days have lengthened a lot since winter, but sunset still comes early enough that normally I wouldn’t be tired. This isn’t a normal day, though. Exhaustion sweeps over me the instant my bottom hits ground. I finish the onion and another corner of cod and stretch out, wrapped in my cloak. I miss Alof’s sticky hands and hot breath, the new lankiness of Búri’s arms and legs. The missing is so strong I feel bruised.

  I should tell myself Irish stories. I remembered Cúchulainn when I was talking with Papi. Maybe I can remember others. But the only stories that come to me are Norse—rough and violent. And then I remember the story Ástríd loves best, about Thor’s one gentle spot, his love for his dazzling wife Sif. Her golden hair tumbled all the way down her back. One day after she had washed that wavy hair, she fell asleep letting it dry in the air. The mischievous god Loki sheared it off. Sif wept inconsolably for her lost beauty. So Thor made sure Loki paid for that insult. But now, in this moment, I don’t like the story anymore. It feels foolish, frivolous. Ástríd can think about the sadness of losing beautiful hair because she has a home with a family around her—the important things of life are solidly in place for her. But beautiful hair means nothing to me, because I have nothing.

  I close my eyes. I am alone and defenseless, with nothing but my wits. Like Mel. Where is she sleeping tonight? My chest feels so heavy, it’s a wonder I still breathe.

  * * *

  I wake with the birds, of course. Noisy, noisy. Another day of walking, eating only as much as necessary, drinking my fill, this time in a muddy wetlands—which is fine; it helps to make me appreciate the gift of clear streams. Contrasts are good.

  Sometimes my fingertips feel Alof’s and Búri’s soft skin again, and my eyes leak.

  I sleep under bushes this next night, without the comfort of birds. It’s a restless night. Every noise makes me flinch.

  Toward the middle of the third day I see people traveling across my line of sight. On horseback and with a wagon. That’s the big country road for sure. At last. I would have easily reached the road a day ago if I’d taken the path. But now I’m much more south of where I would have been if I’d done that, so that’s good. I watch: a man, another man, a third man. My heart clutches. I hear Ástríd warning me inside my head. I sink to my knees.

  But they continue past. Out of sight.

  Still, I remember now. When Mel and I rode the horse along the coast south of Downpatrick, the slave ship passed us. Then it came back, when we weren’t suspecting.

  I search for stones until I find the largest two that will fit in my fists. I run, looking around everywhere, everywhere. No one will come back and find me unsuspecting. No one will hunt me down easily.

  When I get to the road, I cross it and run beyond until no one can spot me from the road. Then I turn south. The smell of ocean is strong. Seagulls scream. Even the air feels different; there’s a closeness to it, whereas west of the ridge it felt open. It’s like the sea pulls me, would swallow me. I see water in the distance. And that dot—is that a seal head?

  I walk till night, then finish the cabbage, the last of my food. I curl under a bush and try to remember details of Mel. It’s hard. How soon will I forget those I’ve left behind in Ribe? Everyone I love, I lose. But I refuse to lose memories. I make lists of the way Mel walked tall and straight, the way Ástríd shakes her hair free at night, everything I can remember, everything I must remember. I fall asleep making lists.

  Hunger wakes me early. It’s raining gently, which means I can forage for wild roots in the soft earth, but not with these stones filling my hands. I set them down reluctantly, feeling as though I’m yielding my only defense. But there’s a stick on the ground—a sturdy one. I can dig with it, and if anyone should approach me, I can swing it like a club.

  The rain soaks me, but I don’t care. My Irish bones need this familiarity. And I’m still hungry. A patch of wood sorrel beckons. I eat it on all fours like a beast. The sour taste brightens me. I look up. In the distance I see the tall ramparts of a big city. Heiðabý. Already.

  The rain comes harder now. There’s a stand of trees nearby. I run for it. A stream rushes through alders and oaks. I take shelter under a wide oak and squat by the trunk. My pouch is empty, my stomach is empty, and apparently my head is empty: I have no plan.

  The rain goes on for hours, and the oak is no match for it. No tree would be a match for this deluge. The drops drive through the new leaves and splatter on my head and back.

  When it finally stops, I walk along the stream, a soggy, sorry mess, dragging the stick beside me. It isn’t sharp enough to spear fish with. It’s stupid. I’m stupid.

  The stick catches on something. How annoying. I yank. A rope comes with it. Muddy, sunk in the muck. And very old, by the looks of it. I pull, using the stick to dig it free. One end goes to the bottom of an alder trunk. The rope runs so deep under the ground, it must have been tied to the tree base years ago, and leaves piled up and turned to dirt, burying it deeper and deeper. I follow the rope in the other direction. It goes to the stream! My heart thumps. Please, let it be a mussel rope. Please. My mouth waters.

  I tug on the rope, but it’s heavy. Maybe it’s snagged on something. I look around. I’d have to undress to go in that water. There’s no one in sight. The way the trees and bushes are situated, I’m shielded from view except from someone directly across the stream. I couldn’t be so unlucky that there would be a spy behind those trees right there, could I? Even Ástríd would tell me it’s probably safe, and she’s as cautious as people come.

  Still, I fear being naked out in the open. But I’m soaked anyway, so why undress? I wade into the stream fully dressed. It’s deeper than I expected. I can feel mussels on the rope. Lots.

  The end of the rope still holds fast. I have to duck underwater
to free it. It’s attached to something. I feel carefully. Is that a buckle? I come up for breath; then I duck under and circle the object with both arms and carry it up and out to the bank.

  A skin satchel. Pitted and discolored. I fight with the straps and finally unbuckle it. Black metal disks. All crusty. I bite one. The black flakes off one side, exposing silver. And inscriptions in a curling script. I find two stones and place a disk on one and hit it with the other. This disk is silver too, a stamp of a ship on it, with—I count them—nine shields, and a fish under the ship. Coins. This one’s Norse. The first was Arab. I’ve seen them in Ribe.

  This is a hoard.

  In Eire, if a rich man knew an enemy was coming, he’d bury his treasures so no one could steal them. Bogs are good for that. Here streams must serve the same purpose.

  I use one mussel to open others, and I chew them greedily, touching the satchel every so often to assure myself it’s real. I eat till I’m full. Then I gobble dandelion leaves and keep watching that satchel.

  No one hides their wealth in a hoard month after month, let alone year after year. Whoever left this hoard here is dead. And he didn’t tell anyone else about it before he died.

  This money belongs to no one.

  My amber would have sold for a lot of money. But there’s a lot of money in this satchel. Far more than it takes to buy a slave girl. And far more than I can carry without drawing attention. Now all I have to do is find Mel.

  I clean off a handful of coins and put them in my pouch. I rebuckle the satchel and make sure the rope is securely attached. I toss it into the stream and shove dirt over the rope. I stand back to survey the scene. No one would know. My hoard is safe.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I slept naked, covered with mud. It kept me almost snug. But the mud dried overnight, and I have to crack my way out now. I plunge into the stream and scrub myself clean. My clothes are stretched out over a bush. I washed them last night. They’re slightly damp still, but that’ll do. I run my fingers through my wet, curling hair and sit a moment to dry off.

  Across the stream a hare nibbles in the weeds. For the first time in days, I am glad Ástríd is not near. She is expert at killing hares with a cast stone. Though a hare is delicious, this one seems slow and silly, and so I feel protective toward it.

  From nowhere a polecat races out and bites the hare in the head. He drags it back where he came from. I see the burrow opening now. He dumps the hare inside. One back leg of the hare twitches. It’s alive still! But crippled. The polecat pushes it with his snout till it’s hidden. Then he races back to the stream for a swim. I understand now: He’s storing that hare alive, for later. It’s a brutal way to make sure your meat doesn’t rot.

  Shaken, I put on my clothes and tie my pouch to one of the brooches on my shoulder straps. I was hungry when I woke up, but that polecat put my appetite off.

  I walk to the road, which curves as it approaches both the town and the sea, flanked by pastures with cattle, horses, sheep, goats. A round and small stone fort sits atop a hill outside the ditch that precedes the town ramparts. Beside the fort is a slim stone tower. I pass by the fort and tower and keep my eyes on the sea. There’s an otter out there. What I thought was a seal a couple of days ago must have really been an otter. There’s another one.

  I’m smiling as I walk the plank over the ditch and through the town gates with nothing more than a wave of greeting from the guards, though I had prepared a whole story to tell if need be. I didn’t live with a skald for years without learning how to tell tales. Still, I’m glad I wasn’t put to the test. And I’m glad my smile is genuine. I love otters.

  I keep walking steadily, so as not to give anyone the impression that I’m lost, or worse, on my own. Though Heiðabý is huge, I feel sure the inhabitants recognize one another, or at least have something in common that allows them to distinguish their own townsfolk from outsiders. People will sense I’m not one of them. But this is a trading town—the biggest trading town in the northern world, if Beorn is right—so they must be accustomed to strangers. They shouldn’t bother me if I look like I know what I’m doing.

  The ramparts I passed between circle the town, but for the edge on the sea. A stream cuts right through the center of it all. The houses have funny big supports on the outsides, as though the walls might buckle without them. The thatched gables face onto wood-paved streets that run diagonal to the stream, and most houses, no matter how small, have a fence around a plot in front or behind them. The side edges of the roofs nearly touch, so there are no side yards. If anyone keeps animals in town, I can’t see them. More’s the pity, since helping with animals would have been my most natural way of finding employment.

  There are shops, though. Plenty. All on a wide street. Shops always need help.

  There’s a shop of men working leather. I’m good at sewing shoes, and it would be fun to learn to make horse harnesses, but I hate the stench of tanneries, so I hurry past.

  Five men work at the smithy, slick with sweat, wearing nothing but trousers. Iron tongs, hammers, files, swords, spears, shears, harness buckles, ax heads—all are laid out front for inspection. Even spurs—which I’m proud to recognize. I’m a child of Eire, which has no spurs, but a child of Jutland, too. I know the Norse world.

  I’d like to tell Egill that. I’m not just where I came from—I’m how I live day by day.

  I have lost two families now. My skin goes gooseflesh at the thought. I am in trouble. But Egill’s wrong: I will never be anyone’s slave. And with any bit of luck, Mel will soon not be either. I touch my pouch—silver coins.

  I pass a woodworking shop, with planes, gauges, bores. And men. Only men.

  I turn up a road and pass a home with a porch out front and an open door. Inside women weave at two giant looms. Children play around their feet. The hearth is on the far wall. Beside the hearth is a huge soapstone pot with iron handles, and I can smell the porridge from here. It’s funny that the big room of this house is at the end instead of the center. It’s funny too that the hearth is on a wall instead of in the middle of the room. But maybe that’s how it’s done here. That’s fine. Anything’s fine with me. Anything will do.

  Except I’m terrible at weaving.

  I go back to the main road. Across from the smithy is a moneyer. I watch through the door. A man taps a die onto a strip of silver. He lifts the die and looks at me with a wink. Why, the imprint is the very ship with shields and fish on some of my coins! The man makes imprints all along the silver strip. Then he splits the coins off and uses a different die to imprint the other side. On the flip side of my Heiðabý coins is a deer flanked by a snake on the left, and a man on the right. But I don’t stay to see what this man imprints on the flip side of the coins he’s making, for it occurs to me that if this man makes the same kinds of coins I have in my pouch, someone could think I stole them from him. I hurry on.

  I pass by the shop where men make quern stones for grinding grain. We use those in Ribe, but they were made somewhere else. Now I know where.

  I hesitate by the potter’s shop. I’ve never made pottery. Ástríd’s always made our family’s, and she loves doing it. So it can’t be too boring. And even though the shops in Ribe employ only men to make ceramics, there’s no reason why a girl couldn’t work here.

  “You could use a comb, pretty one.”

  I turn and look at the man in front of the next shop. He’s Beorn’s age and size, but his hair is trimmed neatly and his beard is cut in a smooth, careful curve along the jaw. Black makeup is smeared under his eyes as though he’s dressed up for a celebration, but this is just an ordinary day. And he smells strongly—I can smell him from here—pungent but nice. He’s wearing an oil I don’t recognize. Maybe he needs a worker in his shop. I wonder what he makes.

  “What else do you sell?” I ask.

  “This is a specialty shop. Fine things. Come inside. Take a look.” He steps to the side.

  I walk past him into a tiny courtyard with an entr
ance mat, and from there into the shop. He’s arranged a bench to catch light from the door, the courtyard, and a hole in the roof. A cloth hangs over the bench, with little grooming objects and jewelry displayed on it.

  He lifts a necklace and holds it to the light. “Red glass beads. Manufactured right in town. They’d look perfect on you.”

  I hardly glance at the beads. There’s nothing in this store that I could help make. Still, maybe he needs an assistant to sell things when he takes a break. I try to look agreeable. “You said you have a comb?”

  He reaches under the cloth and brings out a bone-white object, the length of my hand, rectangular and slim, incised with reddish-brown diamond shapes. He hands it to me. It has a hole at one end with a strand of red thread attached to another object shaped like a key without any notches.

  I look at him inquisitively.

  “A nail pick. Of course.”

  At home— at Beorn’s home—we pick our nails with green sticks. But I keep my face impassive. I want to ask how this rectangle can comb hair, when I see there’s a separation down the front of it. I jiggle it. The separation grows. I stick in my thumbnail and push it apart. It’s like a puzzle: The comb slides out. How delightful.

  “Clever, don’t you think? Antler, from our own Jutland deer. The miniature kind that you can’t find anywhere else.”

  Does he know I’m gratified he’s recognized me by my speech as living in Jutland? Am I that transparent? But I don’t care what he thinks. He can’t hurt me.

  “Do you happen to need an assistant in the shop?” I ask. “Someone to mind things when you have errands?”

  “Ah! Looking for a job, are you?” He shakes his head. “We shopkeepers help one another.” He holds out his hand for the comb.

  Too bad. But I’m running my finger along the teeth of the comb and thinking of Ástríd now. The night of the storm last autumn, when we waited to see if Beorn would ever make it home again, her long hair blanketed her arm all the way to the wrist. I’d love to give Ástríd a comb—this comb. And I certainly have far more money than I need, given that hoard. But I could never find a way to get the comb delivered all the way to Ribe. Still, my insides have gone warm and fluttery now. I really want this gift for her. “How much is it?”