Burd put the bait on the hooks and carefully rolled up the line. Then they walked down to the boat.
* * *
That night Burd delivered a large bunch of fish to Foula. He took a few small cod for himself and went over to his room with them.
5
Burd kept to himself. He only came over to the house when he brought fish for Foula. But she often sent Tink over with a little pot of soup, some stew, or a piece of meat for him.
“Why do you do that?” asked Eidi irritably.
Foula shrugged.
“Why not? He brings us fish.”
“It’s only right that he should give something for living here,” hissed Eidi.
Foula cut a piece off the steaming roast.
“When you’ve once cared for a person, that person will always have a place in your heart, no matter how small it is,” she said quietly.
Tink took the hot goat meat in a bowl and carried it over to Burd in the potato house. He was sitting on his rope chair and nodded at the new one he had made.
“Join me!” he invited Tink. “It can be sad to eat alone.”
“Then why don’t you come over to us?”
“Both Ravnar and Eidi would prefer to see me gone,” he answered.
They sat, each with a knife and board, and cut the meat into bite-size pieces that they speared on the tips of their knives and pulled off again with their teeth.
Tink liked to eat this way. It made him feel as if he were a hunter in the wild, breaking for the day at a deserted house and eating the day’s kill.
“You know how it is when you don’t really belong in a place…”
Tink nodded.
“Because you’re not from here, are you?”
“No,” said Tink, and finished chewing. “I grew up in Eastern Harbor with a man called Bandon.”
“Oh, him,” Burd said quietly.
“Do you know him?”
“Everyone who gets around knows him. But if he’s not your father, who is?”
Tink shrugged.
“No one knows. My mother arrived on a ship while she was expecting me.”
“I think I’ve heard the story. She was the one who sold everything she owned to Bandon and then moved in with him.”
“They were supposed to get married, but she died while giving birth to me.”
“That was rotten,” said Burd.
They cut the last meat and continued to eat in silence. When they were finished, Tink took the empty bowl back to Foula.
* * *
Burd looked up when Tink stepped back into the room. He placed the little bag that Eidi had woven for him on the table. Then he loosened the string at the top and emptied it onto the wide board.
“What do you have there?” asked Burd.
“The things my mother sold,” Tink answered. “Bandon gave them to me.”
Burd lifted a small ring with a green stone up into the light.
“Gold and emerald.”
Then he put it down again and picked up a worn hair clasp.
“Silver—like the thimble there.”
He pointed at it with his little finger and then put down the hair clasp and picked up the carved wooden needle case.
“Pretty work.”
Tink took the last item, a yellowish comb of bone, and handed it to him.
“That’s for you because you taught me how to fish. It’s nothing special, but…”
“Don’t say that.” Burd looked at it carefully. “This is ivory. Are you sure you want to part with it?”
Tink nodded.
“Then I’ll say thank you,” said Burd, and pulled the comb through his brown curls before he stuck it in his pocket.
* * *
The next morning a fresh wind was blowing from the sea. A bit of rain spray pricked against Tink’s skin. The drifting white clouds were lamb white and pearl gray, grimy yellow like dried grass and dark like wet cliffs. Far out against the horizon a silver mirror shone where a column of light rose up from the surface of the sea.
Tink’s hands were ice-cold and slick with saltwater, and he had a hard time holding on to the line. The basket at the bottom of the boat was full of fish, and once in a while one of them flapped its tail, not that it brought the fish any closer to the blue-black water.
Burd and Tink hauled lines from either side of the boat.
“The next one is a giant,” said Tink without taking his eyes off the huge flounder that approached the side of the boat while he pulled as hard as he could.
A dark back and a porcelain-white underside were all he could glimpse through the water’s ripples.
“Do you need help?” asked Burd from the other side, and at the same moment the line slipped away from Tink, and he threw himself after it and fell headfirst into the water.
The dark and cold gripped him and dragged him down and wouldn’t let go, pressing into his nose and mouth and threatening to swallow him. He fought it with flailing arms and kicking legs, but it held him so tight that he couldn’t move toward the surface. He was trying to get himself loose when something hit his head and the silence was suddenly replaced by the splashing of water. And someone whacked him so hard between his shoulder blades that acrid saltwater shot out of his mouth.
“You little devil, do you want to be rescued or what?” cursed Burd. “If you hadn’t hit the boat, I think you would have pulled me down with you.”
Tink breathed deeply, spit, and managed to sit up. He felt his head where a bump was growing.
Burd grabbed the oars and rowed as fast as he could toward land. At first Tink didn’t feel the cold. He sat as if paralyzed, but when his body finally woke up after the fright, he realized that he was frozen to the bone.
By the cove Burd jumped in the water and pulled the boat onto land. Then he lifted Tink up and smacked him on the bottom.
“Run!” he yelled.
And Tink tumbled up toward the house with Burd at his heels.
* * *
Foula understood at once what had happened and immediately began undressing Tink. Burd didn’t want to stay. After he had brought Tink home, he continued over to his own place.
Eidi and Foula rubbed Tink until he was red all over. Then they sat him down, enveloped in a blanket, in a chair in front of the hearth. Foula ladled out a bowl of soup, and Eidi added more logs to the fire.
The flames rose around the dried wood and made Tink’s skin glow even more. He moved his numb toes closer to the fire, but it was as if the heat stayed on the outside and couldn’t penetrate his cold inside.
Foula fed him the soup because he couldn’t hold the spoon himself. His teeth chattered and made the spoon rattle against them. She wiped his chin with a rag and offered him another spoonful.
“He … s-s-saved … my life,” he stammered. “Even though I fought against him, he saved me.”
And as he said it, he felt a sudden, fierce heat move through him.
6
And then finally a day arrived when the sun shone and there was not a cloud in the sky. The only bit of white above was a flock of screaming gulls that followed a school of fish. They took turns crash-diving and resurfacing with a blink of silver in their beaks.
The gray grass had taken on a greenish tint, and the cow had been led down to the flat bank along the brook to graze. The hens hopped about with necks outstretched for the first dancing mosquitoes.
The lean sheep walked around with fat bellies and chewed greedily to get enough for themselves and the lambs that would soon arrive.
Everyone was outside, Tink thought, until he went into the house to put down his cap and met Burd in the hall.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, surprised.
“I think I’ve dropped a hook someplace or other,” said Burd, and began looking around on the floor.
He had his jacket folded together like a bundle under his arm and gripped it tightly. Tink helped him search but they didn’t find any hooks.
“Are we going fi
shing today?”
“I think it’s best if I stay home; I’m not feeling very well. I’m going to go lie down.”
He seemed pained.
“Do you want me to help you?”
Burd shook his head and limped out the door with the jacket pressed against his middle.
* * *
Tink sat by the window and whittled a spoon in the last red rays of sun. A faint aroma emanated from the wood as he cut shaving after shaving off it—a light smell of life, which had survived the long soak in saltwater. Tink lifted the wood close to his nose—it smelled of resin and pepper, thyme and seaweed.
Eidi was knitting and Doup was playing with Cam. The table between them was filled with empty mussel shells. The small boy explained to the even smaller boy that the blue shells were horses, the white were sheep, and the gray were cows.
“And the little ones here—all the little white ones—those are all the newborn lambs.”
“Look, Mommy,” called Cam. “Look at all the lambies!”
Foula nodded, her back to him. She was making dinner. She had given up on waiting for Ravnar, who had gone hunting.
Then the door opened and Burd came lurching in. He steadied himself on the doorjamb before continuing into the room. With unsure steps he steered toward the hearth and then stopped in the middle of the floor.
“So, Foula,” he said, spitting a little without noticing. “There’s something I have to ask you. How come you left a man who could support you to settle down in this forsaken place with a useless wretch who can’t provide food for the table?”
“It’s not Frid’s fault that we have been starving,” objected Tink, but Burd ignored him.
“Just tell me that!”
He was stumbling over his words, although he seemed to have rehearsed them.
“Burd, you’re drunk. Frid has never let anyone starve. If nothing else we’d have butchered the sheep,” Foula said quietly, looking at him and drying her hands on her apron.
“Bah,” Burd sneered. “What would you have lived off next year? That’s like keeping warm by pissing in your pants. The man lives by a sea so full of fish that you can practically walk on it, and then he lets you and all your damned bastards sit and eat rotten potatoes, as if you were swine!”
“Stop, Burd. Please.” Foula sighed and turned her back to him and continued her work.
The sun had gone down, and only the reflection from the sky lit the room. Foula’s bent back in her worn, gray sweater looked tired. Burd reeled toward her, heavy and threatening. Doup and Cam sat stock-still at the table, and Eidi had let her knitting sink into her lap. Burd stopped directly behind Foula.
“Answer me!” he bellowed.
She spun around and put her hands at her sides.
“I’ll tell you why,” she hissed into his face. “I left you because you’re a drunken wretch who hits women and chil—”
The blow from Burd’s hand landed. Foula fell back against the wall and lifted her arms in defense. But though she swayed, he didn’t let her go. He grabbed her with one hand and hit her again and again with the other.
“You tramp!” he yelled.
Eidi threw her knitting down and ran over and tried to pull him away. Doup jumped up and helped her. He tugged hard at Burd’s pant leg and got a kick that shot him across the floor.
Cam began to cry, and Tink dropped his knife and his spoon. Inside him everything was a noisy chaos that held him glued to the chair.
As if in a daze, he saw Eidi grab the big kitchen knife and lift it above her head with both hands, and he knew something terrible was about to happen, something that mustn’t happen, and he knew he could do nothing to prevent it.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!”
Ravnar’s voice cut through the air. He stood in the door with his shotgun raised, and you could hear that he meant what he said.
Eidi lowered the knife and stepped away so Burd’s back was exposed. Doup pulled himself over to the wall, and Burd lowered his hand, let go of Foula, and turned around. Foula sank down and hid her face in her hands. Cam ran over to her.
“Doup, get the rope in the hall!” said Ravnar. “Eidi, put the knife down and tie his hands!”
Doup went out and came back in with the rope.
Without resisting, Burd let himself be tied up and led away, with Ravnar’s shotgun at his back. He turned and sent Tink a bottomless, despairing look, before the door closed behind him.
* * *
Eidi and Ravnar had laid Burd on the bed in his room. Within seconds he fell into a deep sleep, but they left his hands tied anyway.
Now they sat eating a bit of fish and mussels Foula had warmed in a pan. She didn’t want anything herself. She sat at the head of the table with cheeks that glowed from the many blows Burd had dealt her.
“Don’t say anything to Frid. If he finds out what happened, he’ll kill Burd.”
“Or send him away,” suggested Ravnar.
“It’s the same thing,” she said. “If he goes out on the road again, he’s a dead man.”
“I wish he was,” mumbled Eidi.
Foula ignored her and cooled her cheeks with the wet cloth she was holding.
“It’s my own fault this happened,” she said. “I should never have let him know there was brandy in the house.”
“He knew that then?” asked Eidi, surprised.
“Unfortunately,” said Foula. “I gave him a little bit when he was first coming to. He saw rats everywhere. And then I guess I didn’t hide the jug well enough.”
“You fool,” said Eidi.
Foula straightened her back and put the rag down on the table.
“Maybe I’m a fool,” she said. “But that man took care of me when I was expecting you and didn’t have a place in the world to go. He saved Tink from drowning and all the rest of us from starving. There’s something good in everyone, just like there’s something rotten in us all.”
“You’re so unfair,” said Eidi, pushing her chair out from the table. “You always have to protect him.”
She ran out and they heard her slam the door to her little room under the stairs. Foula stayed seated with her chin in her hands and shook her head. No one said or did anything—except Cam.
He crawled down from his chair and stood in front of her and tried to move her hands so he could blow on her cheeks.
7
The next day Ravnar and Tink checked on Burd. He was still sleeping. Ravnar untied the rope from his wrists, and Tink put an extra blanket over him. They stood and looked at him for a little while. Then they left again.
It was a cold day, and it was not nice to be either out or in. Tink glanced toward the hillcrest and wished that Frid and Myna would appear, but no one came. No one moved in the landscape except Ravnar, who, with Myna’s dog, Glennie, was on his way up to the sheep.
Inside the house Foula and Eidi walked around silently. Doup and Cam argued about the mussel shells, and finally they didn’t want to play together anymore. Cam started hanging onto Foula’s skirt. Doup begged Eidi to sing for him, but she didn’t feel like it.
The wind snuck around the house, and a draft came down the chimney and made Foula snap at Cam, which made him cry.
Tink put on his sweater and went over to the potato house.
* * *
Burd was sitting up in bed coughing when Tink stepped in. The fire had died long ago, and the cold came creeping from the whitewashed walls. Burd pulled on his boots and started to light a fire. Soon a few flames crackled in the large hearth.
Tink went over to warm himself and caught sight of the little woven bag up on the mantel.
“What’s my bag doing there?” he asked, surprised.
He hadn’t even noticed that it was gone. Burd took it down and opened it and got out the ivory comb.
“I just wanted to look at your beautiful things,” he said. “But, of course, I should have asked you first.”
He handed Tink the bag, hacked, and sent a glob of spit into the fla
mes where it seethed away.
“Oh hell,” he burst out while he limped back and forth across the room. “I wanted to get away from here, whatever the cost—even if I had to steal from a child to get a bit of pocket money. But look at me! I had to turn around when I got halfway up the hill, that’s how exhausted I was.”
He spit again.
“My legs don’t work like they’re supposed to.”
He stopped and stared stiffly straight ahead. Tink followed his gaze and noticed an old sock that had been thrown into the corner.
“Can you see that?” Burd said quietly to Tink. “The rat in the corner there?”
Tink walked over, picked up the sock, and showed it to Burd.
“Are you crazy?” yelled Burd. “Get that out of here.”
And he shoved Tink so hard that Tink flew out the door, which Burd slammed shut after him.
* * *
For dinner Foula had made a soup with the goat’s neck. That was the last of the meat. Tink brought a serving over to Burd.
“Oh, there’s the little rat, my faithful subject.”
Burd sat at the end of the table in his driftwood chair. He lifted his hand in greeting and let it fall heavily on the broad plank.
“Soon you’ll be the only one who dares to venture into the rat king’s hole.”
Tink found his bowl, ladled soup for him, and placed the spoon in front of him. Burd lifted the bowl and emptied it in one gulp.
“But make no mistake,” he continued. “Soon we’ll swarm out. Armies of us! And who will lead? That’ll be the rat king here.”
He pounded his breast.
“Fat and brown, we’ll take over the world, even the tiniest hamlet, even Crow Cove.”
He laughed hoarsely. Tink hurried to pour the last of the soup into the bowl and turned to go.
“Little rat.”
He turned around. Burd looked at him with warm brown eyes.
“You will not be forgotten when it happens,” he said kindly. “You have my permission to leave.”
Tink bowed and left him.
* * *
The following days Burd continued to rule in his rat hole. Tink brought him food. No fishing took place. Tink wasn’t even allowed to borrow a fishing pole.
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