by Ken Hagan
I know where my duty lies, but each year nothing comes of my resolve. The fear of not finding them holds me back, and worse, the shame of discovering them alive, having to face them with lame excuses, having to explain why I didn’t come sooner. What would Ma say if I turned up now?
And something more galling than shame for fear: the Skarsons will have made it to the ice lands. Skar, Idgar and Morfin are somewhere on these shores. If I were out searching for Ma and Sepp, chance might lead me across Helga’s path. How could I greet Helga? How could I look her in the face and say, ‘I was the only one of my blood to survive.’?
When snows melt this coming spring, and muddy waters run off the dales into the estuary, when the fells are passable on foot, things will turn out no different to other years. The shame of being alive pins me here in Suthyre.
Blot’s men are in the woodland, cutting birch in the clearing. They have seen me. They won’t recognise anyone from this distance. They have sent the hounds after me — they think it’s a lad from Skogurdale come to steal their wood — but I can outrun Blot’s hounds; they won’t get a sniff of me in the snow.
*
‘What kept you?’ asks Idris. ‘I nearly gave up on you. Hurry, strip off, quick, jump in the water and get warm.’
The spring is steaming hot. Idris’s bare white shoulders are just below the water. Her round face is red from the winter air, the snowflakes falling lightly on her hair, melting on the hot water, melting on her brow.
I strip to my breeches, and roll up serk and jerkin to stuff in my boots. Idris eyes me up and down, while I slide hunting-knife and belt, hornlet and thong, under my jerkin, placing my prized harrier axe across the top.
‘What’s that you have got tied to the necklet?’ she asks. ‘It was my father’s,’ I reply. Blot’s daughter frowns. ‘I haven’t seen you wear it before.’
‘It is just a pendant. Ma gave it to me when he died.’ I wade in barefoot over the warm rocks, entering at the shallow mouth of the pool. ‘What’s the horn supposed to be?’
‘Wow, Idris, it’s hot in here.’ Laughing loudly to drown her words, I dip into the ooze and steam, and begin splashing water over her head.
‘Your Da’s name was Raff,’ says Idris after we have settled back in the mud. ‘You told me his name was Raff?’
‘You asked all my family’s names, and I told you.’
‘That makes you Kregin Raffson,’ she says lazily, laying her head back in water. I haven’t told Idris that I’m a thrall’s son, or that Da was born a slave. No need to tell her everything. ‘What made you so late?’ She asks me again, cupping her hands in the water, swishing it up, with a cheeky grin, into my eyes.
‘I took the long way round, like you said, so that no one saw me.’
‘I have been here all morning. I thought you weren’t going to show up.’
‘Your father’s men are up in the woodland, cutting birch; they set the dogs on me. I had to run the length of Hollben ghyll, to shake the hounds off the scent.’
‘Did any of Da’s men recognise you in the wood?’
‘Don’t think so, not with snow blowing off the trees, and they were too far off.’ She nods approval. ‘Why are they felling timber?’ is what I ask her. ‘Is it for yule-fires night?’
‘No,’ she replies, ‘the wood is for a barn, but not for us. It will go across on Laxvik ferry, to the guothie at Osvellir; it is to pay our debts. Da owes Leif for the hay he sent four years ago, after the ash rains, when our cows couldn’t go up-fell for pasture.’
‘Leif the tall? — Hethrun speaks highly of him; says he is a fair man, keeps to the law.’
‘Fair or not, Da has no time for “the big man over the water”. The guothie never lets us forget how much the tally is against us, our debt for this; our debt for that. Every year at the hustings he asks for favours. We owe him for rent; for hay; for a horse. He thinks because of that, he can push us around.’
‘I have no idea what the guothie is like, I have never met him. I just repeat what I heard from Hethrun. He is meant to be kind and just, a good man to know, even though he owns all the land hereabouts. What are you getting het up about?’
‘Forget it,’ says Idris sourly. ‘Who cares?’ And she looks at me quizzically. ‘The old kerling doesn’t know you are here, does she?’
‘Don’t worry! I waited till she was asleep. She took yarrow-weed after breakfast to ease her pains. When I left, she was hugging the cat by the fire, floating off in one of her dreams. I’d say she will be out of it all day.’
This news pleases Idris. ‘Look at me;’ she says, ‘I have been in so long that my toes are going wrinkly.’
Idris leans back and lifts her leg from the steaming water as far as her red knee. Her foot brushes along my arm, her toes move closer and closer to my face, rubbing at my neck, her big toe on my chin, poking it under my nose, to let me see how crinkly it is, and how white. Blot’s daughter loses balance, falls back in the ooze, fumbling, fondling me under water. She tugs and pulls at the laces, dragging my breeches from the waist. She stands up from the hot springs and shows herself to me, naked top and tail, white breasts, round belly, her thighs steaming in the cold air. With a wobble and shiver — in a fit of giggles — she dives under water.
*
The deserted bothie where Blot’s daughter has brought me is a rough-built shelter. It’s where her father’s cows are gathered for milking in summer months. The shed has flimsy walls of wattle birch, roofed over with juniper cuttings, a smell of sour milk on the earthen floor. It is a welcome shelter from the snow, which is now falling steadily. Whoever does the summer milking for Blot — or someone else who uses the bothie — has left tinder and shavings in a corner under the wall. Idris soon has a fire going. She sits between my knees, facing the fire, and lets me comb her hair while it dries in the heat. She flinches at my clumsiness with the comb; laughs and complains as I snag out tufts of ash and mud from her hair. She lets out a squeal, the same girlish squeal as before in the hot spring. We have nothing to eat or drink.
‘Kregin, I want you to walk with me to yule-fires. You must ask Da’s permission —he will say yes — I will tell him beforehand to say yes.’
‘You don’t mind him knowing about us?’
‘If you come with me to Vorgha fell, to yule-fires, everyone will know.’
‘Then what happens?’
‘Then you will work in Laugdale for my father — only a year, two at the most — until I am paid for.’
*
The quarrel with Hethrun has gone on all morning. It started with the roof, when she moaned that the leaks weren’t seen to, but now she has dragged it out of me. She has guessed what went on with Idris at the hot springs.
‘I know Blot,’ says the old kerling. ‘I know how mean and selfish the man is. He will work you to the bone. Not less than five years — that’s the going rate for a bride!’
‘I will do the five years, if that is what he asks.’
‘What will you have to show for it? If that hussy Idris takes a shine to another lad, or if Blot gets a better offer, you will be out of the reckoning. He will drop you like a stone. And believe me, the likes of you, Kregin, with no father and no land to your name — a thrall when all is said and done — you can have no shout against him.’ A thrall! The word inflames me. Until now I had never thought of it as bad. Back home in Thwartdale we were brought up proud to be Thralsons.
Hethrun fixes me with her gaze. ‘So you haven’t told her, have you?’
‘Told her what?’
‘You haven’t told Idris that you are the son of a thrall.’
‘Why should I? Raff was my da’s name. He was a freed man before I was born!’
‘Blot won’t like it, if he finds that his daughter is getting hitched to the likes of you.’
It takes the wind out of my sail. ‘I know why you are against it.’ I shout at the top of my voice. ‘You are upset that I’ll be off to work for him.’
‘Why should i
t bother me?’
‘If I go to Blot and work in Laugdale steading, I won’t be here slaving for you. You will have no one to gather the goat dung, no one to patch the roof, comb the beach, or gather eggs on Skagi ness — and no one to bully, like a thrall.’
Hethrun falls silent and nods her grey head. She settles back on her stubby stool and pokes aimlessly at the fire. I want to take back my words, to say I’m sorry; to touch her wrinkled hand in comfort, in tenderness — like a boy to his ma — but the harsh words are out, the damage done.
Angry at Hethrun, but more ashamed at what I have done, I storm out of the house, running past the startled cat and into the teeming rain. Overnight rain has washed away yesterday’s snow. Ogg the old he-goat comes for me. The dumb beast stretches his tether full from the peg at the gate, trying to nudge me with his bearded muzzle. He expects a scrap of parsnip, a stick of leek in my hand, his usual treat. I push off the buffing horns, grab the wooden spade and head for the ditch to cut more turf. I will stay out here to escape her gaze. Best to keep out of her way. I will do my shaping of the bricks behind the lodge, where I won’t be seen.
*
Two more sods of turf, another plastering of wet mud on the corner of the gable, and I will have the lodge roof watertight. I have not eaten all day or been inside the house since morning. A tang of wholesome broth, made from yesterday’s cod, is wafting through the smoke-hole, and a smell of singeing flour, of barley cakes baking on the griddle, but I am too proud and too ashamed to show my face.
I hang about, hewing aimlessly at driftwood, making logs for the fire, until wintry dusk, drawing in early, hangs over the Os. A flight of herons, the last birds feeding on the mudflats, takes to the air. Gathering, flocking to and fro in the sky, they head over water, flying north into the darkness to find a roost in the dunes at Osvellir.
‘You had better come inside and sit at table.’ These are her quiet words from the door. ‘The fish will go cold. Come on in, lad. What’s said is said — no need to dwell on it.’
*
Karghyll, the farm man from Skogurdale, keeps his gruff voice low. He is trying to be respectful. He doesn’t want to offend the kerling in front of her own fire. The men’s clothing, drenched from rain, steams off their backs as they stand close to the hearth.
‘Be reasonable, Hethrun,’ he says. ‘Come and see for yourself. The big sow has been poorly all summer, but since her last farrow her eyes are running, her ears and her backside are red. You need to come.’
‘All the way up to Skogurdale.’ Hethrun sighs. ‘And in weather like this! How am I to get back in a day?’
‘You are welcome to bed down in my wife’s bunk at the steading. Stay overnight, if you like. Stay as long as you wish, only rid me of this sow fever.’
Hethrun thinks this over. ‘The paths are bad. How is a woman of my age to make it up dale and down fell?’
‘On my horse,’ says Karghyll, ‘she is a sure-footed old mare; quiet-tempered, she will carry you safe over ditch and dyke.’
‘The mare has crampons on,’ says Karghyll’s older son, name of Viggi; he has been silent till now. ‘She won’t put a hoof wrong on the ice — she will seat you comfortable. You will be fine.’
The younger son, Grith, keeps grinning at me with an oafish face. I don’t know what the stupid grin is for. He was doing it again while his brother was speaking.
Hethrun rocks back on her stool. Ikki the cat jumps on her lap. ‘I’m sitting on no horse, Viggi lad, neither quiet nor comfortable. There is no such thing as a safe seat, if the rider is not used to it!’
‘Please, Hethrun,’ says Karghyll. ‘Come with us, I am heart scared of losing the sow. Bring your herbs and magic stuff. Purge her from the scour. Clean her dear old bowels. In the name of Thor, take pity on her! Come and see how the old girl suffers.’
Hethrun ponders as she strokes the cat and looks into the fire. ‘How long has it been since the sow last farrowed?’
‘Two weeks into slaughter-month.’ Karghyll ponders. ‘That’s six weeks back.’
‘How many shoats did she birth in the litter?’
‘She farrowed nine,’ says the farm man sadly, ‘nine living, and two dead.’
‘How did they wean?’ asks Hethrun. ‘The nine piglets, are they well?’
‘The sow had no milk to speak of. Four of them died.’
‘And she is dried off now?’
‘Dried off, yes, and weak as a kitten,’ he replies. ‘I would put the boar in with her to cheer her up, but she can barely move her hindquarters, poor girl, let alone take his weight on top on her.’
Hethrun lifts the staff at her feet and stands stock-still, tight-lipped, all the while tapping on the hearth, a tapping of staff on stone. At last the kerling breaks her silence. ‘Now listen,’ says she, still tapping ever more urgently. ‘Here is what to do.’ Karghyll nods expectantly. The tempo of Hethrun’s staff hurries faster and faster, while she gives her orders. ‘Slaughter the weaners, all five, burn them, don’t eat from their flesh. I will give you a salve to stop the scour. Keep the boar from the sow. No farrowing for a year, a full season, do you hear? Not till yule-fires next year.’
It is not what Karghyll wants to hear. ‘You are asking me to have no litters from her for a year, no sucklings for barter, and no fattening lard? How can we afford it? How am I going to pay rent for the farm? Leif won’t like it if he gets no pork from me.’
Hethrun stops tapping her staff. ‘Do as I say and things may turn out lucky, but it is up to you. Do as you wish, the choice is yours.’
Hethrun feeds the visitors and tells me to fodder Karghyll’s horse before they set off to Skogurdale. With the mare seen to, when I come in from the rain, the two lads are greedy at table. The farm man, still worried for his sow, has barely touched his plate of dumplings. Grith, the younger, is not shy to eat from his father’s share. No more is said of slaughtering the weaners. While farewells are being made at the door, Grith turns to me and sneers.
‘Idris, yes, you know her, Blot’s daughter? She and I will be walking out to the yule-fires this year. I have seen her father about it. I will be living over in Laugdale. I have found work and free board at Blot’s steading.’
*
On the clear, cold midnight of yule-fires’ night stars are out across the upturned bowl of the sky, no moon, but stars riding in the heavens. The stars flicker brighter than any beacons lit on the night of Thor’s feast.
We are sitting out on the roof of the lodge, Hethrun and I. Hethrun insisted on clambering up by way of the barn-loft eaves. The roof is ice-hard and slippery underfoot, but she scaled it like a youngster, refusing all offers of help. It is surprising how agile the old woman is. She is capable of anything she sets her mind to. We have our backs to Vorgha fell, the black peak above Skogurdale, from where the distant beacon of yule is no more than a faint red glow.
We are sitting astride the roof, our knees hugging the ridge of turfs on either side of the smoke-hole — the warmest place to sit on a cold night. We look out over the frozen estuary. At the head of the fiord, near Klepjarns-stead, where hustings are held in spring at Laxvik, a great fire burns on the marshes. We can’t see the fire burning, but catch a glimpse of its flames reflected on the ice.
Opposite, across the fiord, a Thor’s day beacon is lit at Osvellir. That’s where Leif the Tall has his steading. His fire is smaller than the one at Laxvik, only a pin-point glinting on the frosted surface of the estuary. The glint was there a moment ago but now it is lost among the reflections of the stars.
Hethrun is dead drunk. We are both dizzy from breathing smoke of yarrow dust sprinkled on the lodge fire below. I have not drunk as much bilberry as Hethrun, but if I look down, instead of staring over the estuary, or look up at the sky, the ground starts swimming under me like sea waves under a tossing hull. I am again on the sinking ship, losing a last toe-hold against the broken thwart, the Vigtyr going down, my head under water; and sinking arm in arm with Cormac. He and I slide s
oundlessly into the depths. I blink twice, force my eyes away, and gasp for air, while the sea over-flooding the roof threatens to pull me under.
At Vorgha fell by the yule-fires Grith Karghyll’s son will have his oafish hands on Idris, making free with her. Do I envy him? Yes, yes, I do! Hethrun was right to stop me making a fool of myself with Idris. I am grateful to have escaped from their clutches, escaped from Blot and a life of unending drudgery in Laugdale, but it is no easier to think of Idris, snuggling down with Grith, her body under his, bare to the skin, nothing over their nakedness but a covering of fur.
A vivid memory of Helga — her closeness at once reassuring and unsettling — comes through the haze of yarrow smoke and bilberry juice. I think of Helga lying beside me under the furs. I think of Helga — and not Idris —having fun with me in the hot spring at Hver. Stupid to let nonsense like this enter my head. Helga, wherever she is, will be hitched by now to some lad approved by her father.
‘You are better off without her,’ says Hethrun, almost guessing my thoughts.
Chapter 15
Mud month brings its wet smells of boggy marsh and melt-water from heath and strand and fell. The estuary air is rainy and breezy, laden with salt. I breathe its sweet mildness into my lungs. I want to fill my whole body with its warmth, to savour the lengthening daylight after what seems like endless dark days of winter ice and snow.
Last winter the Os froze as far as Laxvik. Till only last week ice-floes in the estuary were joined end-to-end, a solid walkway linking north and south shore. The ice melted in a matter of days. Fishermen are back on the water at Holmur. For three months the men of Kletturvik couldn’t put to sea. They cut through the ice and fished though holes with line and sinker.
On fine mornings like this I am out in a cheerful Os wind, turning over ashy soil in Hethrun’s cabbage patch, getting the ground broken up to sow greens and parsnips, heeling in our sprouted seedlings of turnip and leek. The goat droppings, left outside over winter, have gone rock-hard — no good for manure. I have banked them against the outhouse with last season’s runty greens, cabbages gone to seed.
