by Lena North
"Okay," I whispered.
He started to straighten, I felt how he staggered a little and then sank down again.
"Take it easy Torbi," I said, nervously.
"What do you think I'm doing," he growled.
Then he straightened in a fluid motion that made me realize that I'd thought I'd known how strong my brother was but, in reality, I'd had no idea. When he stood up, I could just put my arms over the edge, and I sighed with relief. Fin and I had been on the ledge, but that was years ago so I'd just guessed how high it was. Then I twisted my right leg, put my foot on Torbi's shoulder and crawled up.
I got to my feet quickly, loosened the long rope I'd wrapped around my waist and tied it securely to the nearest tree. Then I pulled it a few times to make sure it was fastened properly and tossed the other end down to Torbi. He was up on the ledge in no time at all, and I exhaled again. He put an arm around my shoulders and we turned to stand at the edge, looking down into the dark ravine. The moon was hidden behind clouds so we had only pitch-black eternity in front of us and I shuddered. Then I turned.
"Okay. Let's get to it, Torbi. We have a long way home," I said briskly.
"Right," he replied calmly, sounding like it was perfectly normal to stand there in the middle of the night.
Then we made tracks in the snow, rolled around and pushed it out of the way, all the way over the edge and to the sides. Finally, we crept in under the low branches of the firs closest to the side. The ground was dry and without snow there, so we sat for a while to catch our breath. Then we made our way out of there, crawling under the firs but taking care to not leave any tracks until we were far away.
We walked the long way back to the village in silence, focusing on keeping a high pace because it felt like it had taken us longer than we thought and we were worried that they would have gotten up in the village already. As we returned, we moved in a huge half circle to the west, coming back along the beach. I had several layers of clothes on, so I wasn't wet all the way through in many places, and I'd filled my shoes with rags and dried grass so my feet were cold but not frozen. I was tired but also somehow exhilarated, and I laughed quietly.
"Wow, Torbi. What a thing to have done," I murmured.
I remembered all the crazy things Fin and I had done and thought that he would have liked this so much. I'd forgotten how the rush from danger felt, and I enjoyed the feeling. I suspected that it would be a long time before I felt it again.
"We will send for you, Sissa. I promise," Torbi answered, and my laughter died.
"Don't worry about that, I will be fine."
"So you keep saying but I heard your laughter just now, and you will not be fine. You will wither away and slowly die if you stay here as a thrall. Josteinn is a good man, Sissa, but he will not be enough."
"Torbi -" I said, but he interrupted
"I won't stand here and argue, sister. Just know that we will send for you."
"Okay," I simply answered because my feet were getting cold from standing still and I didn't want to stand there and argue either. I'd think about what to do some other time if the day ever came when they sent for me.
Then we went back to our home. It hadn't taken so very long after all because we got a few hours of sleep before mother woke us up.
The day passed excruciatingly slowly and several times I wanted to shout out. Nothing special happened and the ordinary tasks I performed seemed even more mind-numbing than usual. I'd not seen Torbi during the day, but I worked with the girls as usual. Mags had a glitter of excitement in her eyes, and she seemed to be vibrating with energy. Nessa almost had a smile on her face.
"Take care," I warned them.
"Huh?" Nessa said.
"Nessa, you just almost smiled at the women when they asked you to go and fetch more firewood. Someone will find this odd, so take care," I said.
We were sitting in the longhouse, mending clothes. I was not a particularly good seamstress, to my mother's disappointment, but I could certainly do the basic repairs of the thralls' clothes even if I weren't ever allowed to touch the Jarls and even less, Freyja's.
"Gotcha," Nessa said, and then she almost smiled again.
"Sissa, not like that," Catriona interrupted. “You can't sew the hole together like that, the poor man will have a lump under his toes, and he'll get blisters," she scolded.
"It's funny how you can stitch the neatest and tiniest stitches to patch up a wound, but you can't even make the simplest seam when you are mending clothes," Mags said smugly. She was the one who got to work on Freyja's clothes because her stitches were small and neat, and her embroidery exquisite.
"Well, you tell me which is more useful if you find yourself with an injury," I snapped at her, but she was right, and I wasn't really angry.
"Girls," Catriona interrupted patiently. She seemed completely calm and unaffected by the fact that they would try to escape later that very day.
"You're not nervous?" I asked her.
"Of course not," she replied calmly, "I have hated it here since we stepped off the ship so leaving will be better, even if we die doing it."
I stared at her. She'd seemed to be the one adjusting the best, and she'd never complained about their situation like Mags or scowled like Nessa.
"What? Catriona, I thought you found life okay here in the village?"
"No," she said with a serene smile. "Hate it."
Mags and Nessa chuckled, but I still couldn't believe it.
"But you made plans, with..." I looked around, but there was no one close, and we spoke their language. I still lowered my voice, "Stein," I whispered.
"Yes, well, he is a nice man perhaps, and very handsome, but that was when I thought I'd have to stay. I would have had an easy life as his mistress. Now we leave so I don't care."
I couldn't believe how callous she was, or how calculating. She must have seen the look on my face because she patted my knee gently.
"Sissa, you would do much better if you didn't dream so much. You have to live in the life that is here and now. Not in the unrealistic possibilities you come up with in your head."
"She's right, Sissa," Mags said calmly. "Life is what you make of it and the opportunities you grasp as they come along. Waiting for someone else to give you a different life is a coward's way of living." She tilted her head a little to the side, and then she started to talk about the pile of clothes and soon after that we were ordered to other duties.
I thought about what she'd said as I did my chores, wondering if I'd made the wrong decision. Knowing that my life as a thrall would be a restricted and narrow one. All the dreams Fin and I'd had kept intruding, but I also knew that to live as a freeman wasn't easier in many ways. As a thrall, you worked hard, but you had the safety of someone else clothing and feeding you. If I were free, then I'd have to fend for myself, and I'd have to provide for myself. In the village, I knew that I could do that, as a healer or if I somehow had some land to work on. If I left, then how would I do that? I was not a good hunter like Fin had been, so I didn't know how I'd survive. If I would survive. No, I thought, I'd made the right decision. Staying would have to be good enough.
As the day passed, I started to get more and more tense, and I had to force myself to breathe slowly, to walk slowly. By mid-afternoon, I was a bundle of nerves, so when Joss came up to walk next to me through the village I found it hard to focus on him, and he noticed.
"What's the matter, Sissa?"
"Nothing," I said instantly. I thought that I'd sounded a bit guilty somehow so I tried to backtrack. "I'm sorry, Josteinn, many are ill, and I worry, that's all."
"Sissa -" he started, but I was beginning to get annoyed so I interrupted.
"What?" I snapped and tried to walk faster. It was almost time for us to leave and I didn't have time to talk to him.
"Something is going on, and you're worried. Why don't you trust me to help you with your problems?" he murmured.
"Why would I, Josteinn?" I snapped, stopping abrup
tly.
We stood in the middle of the village, people were moving around, and I could see how they watched us curiously.
"Come with me, and I'll explain. It's time to have that talk, I think," he said calmly and took hold of my upper arm as if to drag me along.
Oh no, I thought. Not now. I didn't have time to go anywhere and have any kind of talk with Joss. I had to get rid of him, and quickly.
"I do not want to talk to you Josteinn, and I don't have the time for it either with so many being sick. I have to go and fetch more pine resin, and then I have to help Mother," I snapped.
"I'll come with you to help," he offered. "We can talk while we work."
Crap. I hadn't thought about that possibility.
"No, you won't. I want to be alone, and I don't want you to walk with me anymore," I said sourly.
"Ever?" he asked, and he'd, finally, started to look angry too.
I'd not meant that I never, ever, wanted him to talk to me again and in the corner of my eye I suddenly saw Mags walking toward me, looking like she was ready to get into our argument. This would only make things even worse, ending with her getting some kind of punishment that would spoil our plans.
"I can not do this now. You need to go," I growled.
He reached for me, but I slapped his hand away, turned and walked toward my home. I tried to look calm and greeted some of my friends casually as I walked but on the inside, I was screaming. With that argument, I might have destroyed things with Joss, and ruined my future at the same time. As a thrall, I didn't have many options so even though my mother and father acted as if I had choices I knew well that Josteinn paying the Jarl money for me was the best I could hope for. I sighed when I entered the house. I had to get my things and move into the forest where Torbi and the girls would pick me up. Tomorrow would be soon enough to figure out what I wanted to do, and to mend what I'd just broken with Joss, I thought.
Chapter Thirteen
Escape
When I met up with the others, the sun was moving closer to the horizon, and it was getting colder. They'd taken three horses out of the pen, on the rear, straight into the forest. Torbi had already a few days earlier loosened one of the slats, making it easy enough for them to lead three of the nearest horses out. We'd have to start out on foot, moving quickly but at the same time making as little sound as possible. The wind was picking up, rushing through the trees, making them sway and creak. I hoped that this would help cover the soft thuds from the horses' hooves and the crunch each step we took made in the snow.
"Sissa," Mags whispered when we had walked a while.
"Sh..." I said, still worried that the sound would carry back into the village.
"They can't hear us, and I have things to tell you," she whispered softly. "We know that you think someone hit Heidrun, maybe in the head, and that this was why she could be locked up, why she staggered up to the altar, struggling so little."
I looked at her, not knowing what to reply, but she didn't seem to want me to say anything.
"Maybe that's what happened, but maybe it wasn't, Sissa. It's strange, and we have no proof, but Nessa got ill that day. She was drowsy and acted weirdly so I thought she'd had a jug of mead, but she said she hadn't. Then she disappeared. I didn't see her until later that evening because she'd walked off and fallen asleep in a corner. Slept through the afternoon, and even into the evening. Then she had a stomach ache for days, still has sometimes."
Our eyes met, and I started to suspect what she would say.
"She was hungry, Sissa. You know how Ness is, she's always hungry. So when Heidrun didn't finish her plate, then Nessa did. Said it tasted so good she scraped it clean, even licked it."
"Mags, no..."
"No, don't protest. I'm just telling what happened. It could have been nothing, but it happened, and you should know. The way Heidrun acted, it could have been because of a hit to her head... or it could have been from what she ate."
"Okay," I whispered. "I'll think about this, but I don't see how -"
"No time to discuss, Sissa," she interrupted. "And we could be wrong. Nessa cleaned the plates after the Jarl and his wife too, and it could have been something on them, or maybe it was just some of the food that had gone bad." She held my eyes until I nodded. "I have one more thing for you," she added, putting her hand in her pocket.
Then she pulled out a piece of cloth and pushed it into my hand. I raised it and stared at what I was holding. It was a pale yellow piece of fabric, stitched together. At the bottom, there was a large brownish stain. Heidrun's hood.
"Where did you find this?" I asked sharply, and they all shushed me.
"I found it, Sissa," Nessa murmured. "I'd met with Torbi the night after the sacrifice, and I was walking back to the longhouse when I heard footsteps. I wasn't supposed to be walking around, so hid in the shadows behind Einarr's house until the person had disappeared and it was silent again. When I got up, I leaned on some of the logs they keep there, and I felt it. I didn't think, just grabbed it, shoved it into my pocket and snuck back into the longhouse. Didn't look at it until the next day and have kept it hidden until now."
"Why didn't you tell Einarr?" I asked.
"I didn't want to become a suspect, and I knew he suspected Torbi already. I was afraid to make things worse, didn't see how the hood would make anything better," she replied.
"Except to show that a woman was somehow involved," Catriona said. When I turned to her, she shrugged. "Don't look like that, Sissa. Someone stitched that hood together, and it wasn't an expert seamstress, or it was done in a rush. In any case, it certainly wasn't done by a man."
I nodded, folded the hood and tucked it into my pocket.
"Do you know anything else?" I asked.
"No. And we have discussed, but we can't figure out who could have put poison on Heidrun's plate. It would have been a risky thing to do, and no one else acted strangely so it was not in the cauldron or the smaller kettles," Mags answered.
We stopped and looked silently at each other. Then I nodded.
"Okay. Thank you for telling me, I will think about what to do with this," I said.
"Take care, Sissa," Mags whispered. "If poison was involved then you need to be careful. Promise me that."
I nodded but then Torbi gave us a low command to get moving so we got up on the horses and set off at a neck breaking speed. We rode in a line across the fields with Torbi leading the way. I was at the back behind Nessa on her horse. Even though I knew that I wouldn't be able to spot anyone following us, I kept turning back to look at the gray area at the horizon that was our village. I hoped that they hadn't found out just yet that we were gone. The best we could hope for was that I'd make it back before they noticed, but we knew that they could be chasing us already, and we leaned low over the horses’ necks, pushing them to run faster.
When we reached the ravine, we stopped the horses abruptly, as close to the edge as we dared. Without saying anything, we unstrapped the rushes I'd carried behind me on the back of the horse, tying them around and under the horses' hooves.
"Quickly now, off you go," I said turning to my brother, suddenly realizing that this might be the last time I laid eyes on him. "Torbi..." I whispered, but I couldn't get anything else out. I knew they should leave immediately, but suddenly I wanted just a little more time with him.
Torbi quickly wrapped me up in his arms and leaned down to rub his cheek gently against mine. His beard tickled a little, and I sobbed once. Then I pulled in air and straightened.
"I love you, brother. Be well," I whispered, and backed off a step to look at him. I tried to smile, and I felt my lips twitch, but it probably looked quite pathetic.
"I love you too, Sissa. Thank you for your help, little sister. Remember what I promised," Torbi whispered and gave my cheek a soft caress. "Make no decisions for your future before the summer is over. Remember that you have time to think."
Then he turned and led his horse off to the side, and I watched his back
as it disappeared. Both Catriona and Nessa whispered quick words of thanks, but I didn't let them elaborate and made a shooing motion with my hands.
"Go. Go!"
"Goodbye, Sissa. Live well until we meet again," Mags said, and even though the moment was serious and they were in danger, I could see that she was excited.
I knew that I would have felt the same if I'd been in her position so my smile came easier then. I nodded but pushed her gently toward the others.
"We'll meet again, Sissa," she called out softly as she walked away.
I stood there until I couldn't hear them anymore, thinking that this was what Fin and I had wanted to do. Then I sighed because life was what it was, and I'd chosen to stay.
Worrying that someone was following us already, I remained still a little while longer, listening carefully. When I couldn't hear any horses approaching, I looked around at the tracks we made the night before, and my eyes widened. We'd done good, it really looked like someone had gone into the gorge. When I peered down, I could see part of Torbi's cap, just on the brink of the ledge below, almost falling over. Then I grabbed the final rushes and started to carefully make my way through the forest, the same way as the others, carefully filling in the dents from the horses and wiping out any other traces I could see.
When I noticed how their tracks started to turn north, I tossed the rushes far off to the side and crawled under a few firs until I thought it would be safe to start walking.
It had begun to snow lightly, so it felt like shards of ice hit my cheeks as I rushed forward. It still felt like it took forever to get back to the village. I ran part of the way, but mostly I walked as briskly as I could because the snow was deep and I was getting tired. Each step felt heavier than the one before, my legs burned but I kept moving, thinking about my brother, knowing that they were pushing as hard as possible too. I also knew that it would raise suspicions if I came back with a soaked cloak, so I bunched it up under my arms and held it there for most of the way. I only had my regular clothes on, and by the time I approached the village my shoes were filled with snow, I was soaking wet and shivering. I let the cloak fall down to cover my dress, but that also pushed the heavy, wet fabric onto my legs. It hurt, and I moaned quietly. Then I stepped into the forest, picked up my basket filled with pine twigs and resin that I'd hidden before we left. Forcing myself to breathe evenly, I walked through the gates, entering the village from the southern side.
