by Ken Hagan
At night, melancholy returns to haunt him. The sound of his sorrowing keeps us awake. We try to get some shuteye under a brightening midnight sky, but we hear him, between snores and fitful oaths, weeping for his cows. It is pitiful to hear a big, gruff man like Finn sobbing in his sleep.
Finn lost his entire herd — not one head of cattle saved from the mud-slip. Nothing survives under that weight of ice. His wife and six daughters are missing without trace, dairy sheds, where summer milkings were done, barns of hay, the whole lot crushed by moving frozen earth; every horse he owned, sire or dame, buried alive.
Only one of his stepdaughters, Svena — a half-sister of Lar’s — came out unscathed. As luck would have it, she was riding a mare of her stepfather’s, returning up-fell from Osvik, having emptied her bags of milk at the steading. She heard the rumble of ice, a rush of mud and stone, and rode for her life. Ice and flood caught up with them. It overtook the mare — her horse perished, drowned in frozen slurry — but not Svena. She would have been done for, dead and gone, had she not clutched her empty milk-bags, somehow floating with them downriver on a wave of mud. Poor Svena: what bad luck to be the only daughter who survived.
‘That’s proof, if you need it,’ said Cuin, stroking his beard sagely at the time, though what he meant it to be proof of, Sigi and I didn’t ask.
Finn has sold sow and boar, and slaughtered his weaner pigs. He has let the steading at Osvik go to rack and ruin. If it weren’t for wood-felling down by the shore — his regular timber trade with Klepjarn — he would be destitute.
It is why Father offered him work from Osvellir to Long-fiord. We needed a man to drive mares over the fell, carrying wool-weave to the easterlings’ ships. The sumpter task might as well be given to Finn as to any other.
*
Lar’s sister is not the kind of girl you can ignore. I can’t figure out why. She is nothing to look at. What is intriguing is that we don’t know her age. No one has the remotest idea when she was born. That includes Svena herself.
You might think that her mother, while she were alive, would have solved the riddle of Svena’s birth, but the woman had eleven children and Lar says of his Ma that even she had a hazy recollection of when her daughter came into the world. Svena is thought to be younger than her half-brother, who is the same age as Sigi and me.
Lar hasn’t a clue when his sister was born, they were separated as babies, but he thinks she may be fourteen or fifteen years old. She might be as young as that, she might not, hard to tell in a girl so shapeless and skinny. Her eyes seem older than her childlike face. Her darkish hair is cut very short, thin and lank, and faded like that of an old woman.
The sad business of the landslide, and the shock of what Svena has been through, has not done much to improve her looks. It is a shame the poor girl is so cheerless and heavy of heart. Finn couldn’t leave his stepdaughter alone and unprotected at the empty steading, no work for her there, sow and boar gone; no infant sisters to care for; no cheese-making or butter-churning, nothing to turn her hands to.
And above the woods at Osvik, what would have been Finn’s summer meadows, ripe for haymaking, are lost under a layer of mud. Svena had to come with her father on the ride north. There was nothing going in Osvik — no food to eat, nowhere else to go.
In daytime Svena has the task of leading one of the sumpters. She finds the mare that Finn gave her hard to handle. In the evening she skivvies; gets food ready, while Sigi, Lar and I run after hounds, hunting for white foxes above the snow line. Not that we have caught any ‘brush-tails’ among the icy rocks, but it is great sport to chase the whelping vixens and hound them into their lairs.
As for Finn-buna, from the moment we left Osvellir he has been chewing things over with Father and Cuin, debating his uncertain future. Finn can’t make up his mind: should he sell up, should he go back east and try his luck raiding overseas, or should he stay in the ice lands and make a go of the steading, maybe throw in his lot as a tenant with my father, or with Klep? They are both keen to rope him in, though to which guothie the steadman will bend is still in the wind.
If Finn doesn’t take a tenancy — and this is the latest talk from him — he might get hold of some horses and do sumpter work, moving timber over the fells. It’s worth a try, he says, until he can decide what is best for him.
Finn’s land at Osvik is worthless below the tarn. No cows will graze it for years to come. Cuin says the lower pasture might be fit for sheep by next spring. It depends how soon the grass grows back. Father has been at Finn to take ewes on rent from us — at a fair price — and breed from them to build a herd of his own. Finn is not keen on woolbacks, having only farmed with pigs and cows.
Cuin has promised him help to get started. What Uncle doesn’t know about sheep isn’t worth knowing — when ewes are to be tupped in winter, how to pick a young ram by feeling the hocks, how many days to wait from birth before gelding a wether, all that stuff. But after hearing Cuin’s advice, all Finn does is moan how bothersome it will be, going up-fell before the snows, to gather in the sheep for over-wintering.
To ease things through Finn’s first winter, Father has offered him Ulph the shepherd on loan, for the gathering-in months from winter-fall till Thor’s feast, at half the man-rate for a freed slave. All Finn will say is that he will think about it.
Sheep is not all the ‘business talk’ between them. I wish it was.
Here is the rub. I’m being ‘encouraged’ to take Finn’s stepdaughter as a wife. Svena! Can you believe it? To take her as a girl fit to marry?
Father hasn’t said in so many words — it is unlike him not to be open about things —but, since we have been on the ride north, he and Finn have contrived to push me and Svena into each other’s company, like you push a young sow with a boar.
Finn has no qualms, he wants rid of Svena, and he doesn’t care who takes her. You can see it in the way he treats the girl. He talks to her in an off-hand way — as a servant, not as family. I’ve not heard him say a word of comfort to her for losing her mother and sisters. Finn is not kind-hearted and thoughtful like Father — not the sort of man to show affection. Between Finn and Lar there’s no love lost either. From what I can make out, he and Lar have more feeling for the horses than they have for each other.
*
Almost nightfall, though bright enough to see down-dale as far as the fiord. From here we have sight of the ships within a glow of merchants’ fires on the strand; two sturdy kaupships beached on near shore, laid-up for a twelvemonth, summer now to summer next, in the manner of easterlings — hulls keeling abeam, masts canted flat to stern-ward — with boarding planks set at the gunnels to slide traded goods in and out.
With hulls and masts agley, the ships cast odd-looking shadows in the flame-light, sharp and bristly, on the pebbly shore. Between their shadows and the darkened fells on the far side, the waters of the fiord lie still and deep, undisturbed by wind, in faded daylight, in gathering moonlight, smooth as milk in a bowl.
Our pace quickens, as happens for travellers with an end in sight, but fires and ships on the near shore, dark fells and trees on the shore opposite, draw no closer to the eye. The stony bridleway no longer strikes north but turns east, to go around the fiord, going inland, skirting fields of hay, following the line of dyke and drain. There are lights — moving torch-lights — and voices in the steading compound beyond.
Farther on, just visible in the gloom, we see the track ahead dipping westward to the shore. Over the dyke in steading fields, fresh-cut hay, a smell damp, sweet and comforting, and downwind, within the steading yard, the steading’s hounds howl in reply to ours.
Svena has been lagging behind, taking time on the descent; leading her horse warily over the stones — much more cautious than is needed, because Lar had seen to it that her beast was not over-laden. The more she dawdles, making heavy work of it, the more the men pick up pace ahead in a hurried trot to reach the shore.
Father rides back, takes notice of Sven
a, as if he is aware of her for the first time and has seen that a gap opened up between her and the men.
‘You stop here,’ he says to me. ‘Wait till Svena catches up. Stay with her, Kregin, there’s a good lad. See her safely over the stones in the dark.’
Lar and Sigi are in stitches, laughing at my expense, but a fierce look from Finn-buna, and a canny wink from Cuin, put them in their place. I do as I’m bidden and wait for Svena on the hayfield dyke. Dismounted from the sorrel, I rub under the horse’s jowls — a habit of mine. Srelni is used to it, but tonight he judders with his head, objecting to the touch, shaking off my hand. He gives me a searching look, wide-eyed and clever, that only a horse can give.
‘You needn’t have waited,’ says Svena, kicking a stone in the ditch. ‘Why don’t you ride on? Catch up with Lar and Sigi?’
‘I was told to wait and I have. How’s the mare? She’s not lame, is she?’
‘I would rather you left me alone,’ says Svena, ignoring my sarcasm, throwing herself wearily on the dyke. ‘I know you don’t care for me. I don’t mind, but why pretend interest for their sake?’
‘I’m not pretending.’
‘Tell Finn you don’t want me. Tell Leif too, and have done with it!’
Now that she has brought it up, I have to give an answer. I want to be honest with her, but no need to be unkind. I jumble my words. ‘I think my father wants to be neighbourly. Don’t you see, Svena? He will do what he can to help Finn.’
‘What do you mean?’
Being soft with her didn’t work. I better try a different tack. ‘Your step-father — with his losses — he must be desperate for help. If we get hitched, you and I, it will be a way to sort things. A deal with my father will put barley back in his boots.’
‘Barley back in his boots! Sort things! Is that what you call it? Your father is doing all he can to get his hands on Finn’s land.’
‘If we marry, of course land will come into it — timber and livestock too.’
‘And are you happy to be used as part of the trade?’
‘I will do what I am asked. I owe my foster father everything.’
She thinks about this. ‘I have seen how you look me, up and down. You despise me. Not that I would blame you. I’m not much of a catch.’
‘Don’t cast that in my face! I am like any lad. When I choose someone to be with, I hope to have stronger feelings than I have for you.’
‘You have a choice who will be your wife. Leif won’t force you into marriage. As for me — I have no say — I have to take any man Finn chooses.’
‘Maybe escaping from Finn will not be bad news. Wherever you go, I am sure you will make the best of it.’
‘I will, of course. But I know this, Kregin, if you marry me it won’t work for you. It can only make you angry — angrier than you already are. Any fool can see that.’
‘Who says I’m angry?’
‘You can’t hide it. You can’t hide the pain.’
‘First you say I’m angry, now you say I’m in pain. Who are you to know what I feel inside?’
I had raised my voice but she answers quietly, ‘Lar told me about your Ma, that you believed her dead, lost at sea, drowned with the rest of your family, but now you have heard from those strangers that she is alive — she’s here in the north somewhere — and you are going to see her.’
‘My older brother Sepp is alive too. I have to face him and Ma both.’
‘Face them! What a terrible thing to say! Aren’t you glad they are alive? I wish my Ma was. It can never happen for me, I know — pointless to even think of it — but I would give anything if a stranger told me Ma was living.’
‘After a while, take my word for it, the yearning and the memory fades.’
‘I will never stop thinking of Ma, of her and the bairns. How can I?’
‘The mud-slide was two months back, it was barely two months ago that the little ones were playing at your heels. You want your sisters. You want your Ma. After the shipwreck, I wanted my family too!’
Tears are welling in her eyes, but I go on, dry-eyed and cold, ignoring her tears.
‘It is six years since my folks were lost. No one grieves for ever.’
‘But shouldn’t it be a greater joy?’ She sobs, the words breaking through her tears. ‘Is it not wonderful to learn — after all this time — that they are still alive?’
‘Not for me. I had shut them out, put them away — buried them in the sand. Maybe that’s what makes me feel bad.’
Svena nods. I am grateful that she has gone quiet.
Father and the others are down-dale, pulling farther and farther away. It’s near midnight, only their horses’ shaggy necks can be seen in the thickets of prickly furze and gorse. If it weren’t for an odd flash of red from Sigi’s serk or of white from the skewbald’s mane; if it weren’t for Father’s tall shoulders, and the grey head of Cuin bobbing above the gorse, my new family would feel distant — as though they were an ocean away. The hounds — theirs and ours — are silent. In summer twilight a night breeze blows from the fell. Between here and the shore, no sign of Finn or Lar. They will have dismounted, walking the last stretch, to lead our sumpters safely through the thorns.
Svena sits close on the dyke. I smell wood-smoke from yesterday’s kindling in her hair and the sweat of mare’s flesh on her hands. I don’t mean to touch or be touched by her, to kiss her neck and hair, and to be kissed by her in return; to discover her lips open and wet, the same salty wetness as her tears. Svena shuts her eyes. I shut mine too. Her legs — once loathsome to me —are smooth to my touch, smooth and firm as far as the knees. What does it matter if her skinny shanks are scorched, wrinkled and measled — through no fault of her own — from squatting by her ma’s cooking-hearth at Osvik, endlessly stoking the fire?
Leaving our horses to wander off, we grip hands, turn from the dyke and with one leap, throw ourselves into the hayfield, tumbling head-first over stubble into a broken stook of hay. It sets her giggling. It sets me giggling too — like a child.
*
‘Remember,’ says Father, while he sees me off at the shore, ‘no one doubts what you owe by birth to your Ma, the obligations to your older brother too, but you must always consider yourself my son, and Osvellir your home.’
‘Like it or not,’ says Cuin, with his knowing wink, ‘you are one of us.’
‘We leave Long-ford in three days’ time,’ says Father sternly. ‘I expect you to return with us over the fells.’
‘Come the night before we leave,’ adds Uncle. ‘Better to sleep in the camp on that night, if you can.’
To detain me for a moment longer, Sigi again tightens the girth-strap on Srelni, ‘Mind, Kregin, I promised Bera a foxtail. If you don’t travel back with us, and lend a hand, we have no chance of trapping a vixen in the snow.’
Father’s stern assurances, Cuin’s coughing farewell, Sigi’s last tearful burst of laughter all linger with me. As I ride away from the fiord, the timbre of their voices keeps ringing, ringing in my ears — a sound constant and comforting —like a distant toll of wether-bells across a fell. My horse is quiet. He pricks his ears as if he hears the sound too.
I have followed one of the hundred becks out of Long-fiord, riding up-fell, riding east. The place I’m looking for is Baerskard pass, only a half-day’s ride away — or so I’m told. Ma and Sepp have their croft in the highlands.
Father’s firmness was meant kindly. He spoke from the heart, a mist of manly affection in his eyes. But while I turn his words over in my head, his very kindness seems a reproof. I don’t deserve to be his son or the brother of Sigi. I have done nothing for them in return — nothing that merits their love.
*
The scars open anew. Salt tingles in the wounds. I am shipwrecked on Suthyre sands. But there on the dunes is my brother Cormac — clad in reindeer-skin — not dead, but alive. He stands grinning, waiting for us — for my sisters and me — at the far end of the beach. I turn and look into Alufa’s
eyes; they are radiant and blue — and clinging at our knees, our baby sister, little Mel. She looks up at us with her bright, trusting, infant face.
*
The comfort from Svena was short-lived. The comfort I stole from the girl is a sorrow gained, for both of us. It angers me that I used her, made a pretence of love. This morning, a smile from Svena and a cheery wave of farewell were wasted on me: I didn’t give her a second look as I pulled away from camp.
Here in the highland, no hawks in soaring flight, no killer-birds roaming for prey; no flightless birds taking cover in moss or heather; not even a familiar summer buzz of mountain flies. The last living creatures were lower down, a group of wild horses drinking in a stream. They ran off startled at the sight of Srelni and me. A miserable place for anyone to settle. What possessed Sepp to come this far from the sea?
The higher up, the colder it gets, the sharper the wind. The sky has been overcast all morning, the fells shadowy and bleak. If it is cold here in summer, it must be bitter in midwinter. Each pass takes me to a landscape more rugged than before, the straw-green of lush hay down by the fiord has given way to scrub and scree; and now, riding through ghyll and gorge, I come to open heath, desolate, bare of trees, an expanse of weathered rock and gravel. I am lost. I must have missed a turning at one of the lower passes. What I’m looking for cannot be here. I should never have ridden into these grey heights. Better to backtrack, return the way I came.
‘Ho there, Srelni!’ I lean forward, close to the sorrel’s ear, with my hand smoothing his neck. Something has spooked the horse — something up there on the pike of rock. Srelni’s senses are stirred, his eyes alert. Hairs prickle on his ears.
Out of the sky comes a stone hurled in the air like a missile. If meant for me, it was a cockeyed throw. It falls harmlessly to ground, a long way off. A second stone in the air, again falling short — this time it bounces off a rock and lands under Srelni’s hooves — a lump of shale the size of a man’s fist.
