by Ken Hagan
Hvard is mounted on Srelni. The sorrel fidgets as he walks, shakes the snaffle, straining his neck side to side. His hide is covered in sand and sweat, overheated from his run in the seawater. Geir chooses to walk on the other side of the horse. His talk is of ice-skating, of knatt-ball — nothing yet of his family. I am on edge and sweating. I have a terrible thirst, and yet my senses are warm and cold. The sea-wind blows a salty draught inland, even though we are far from the shore. It is strange to have shivers like this on a summer’s day.
Geir is hot too, but he still wears seal-skins from a morning’s fishing. ‘Twaindale,’ he says proudly. ‘Our hall is the first you come to. Grandpa Skar’s is that one across the beck.’
Below tall thickets of willows, at the foot of the fell, two sets of farm buildings are separated by a beck. Grass grows snug on the roofs. There are barns for hay; outhouses, winter quarters for cows and — outside the yard walls — a home field in stubble, strewed over by recently turned hay. Welcoming smells of wet woodland and blubber-smoke, of swine-pen and swill — and the sharp in-blowing sea air is savoured by milk and sour whey, by fumes of whale-flesh ripening in a pit.
From the house-top nearest — this side of the beck — comes a haze of hearth-smoke from a low summer fire. From the second roof — far side of the beck — smoke is belching, drifting between the willows into the upper reaches of woodland. The steading doors are hidden from my view. They have been built into the gable ends, leeward from the sea.
‘My sister refused him twice,’ says Geir hurriedly, as we approach.
‘You mean Mord?’
‘Trust me. She hates the sight of him! The match was arranged while Jarl was alive. Grandpa Skar and old man Jarl had this idea that the families should come together.’
To hear that Helga hates the sight of Mord sends a thrill up my spine — I want to hear more — but now that Skar is mentioned, it is only right to enquire after Geir’s grandfather.
‘Grey Skar, still with us? He must be a rare age, is he hale and hearty?’
‘Grandpa can barely walk,’ replies Geir. ‘Still sharp as an axe, mind you, but sharp or not he’s no match for the cunning of Asgrim.’
‘From what I remember of Mord, he was sly and mean, like his father. How can your sister take a man like him?’
‘I have told Da what I think of him,’ replies Geir. ‘Mord is not the right man for Helga.’
‘So why must she forced to have him?’
‘Grandpa had given his word before Jarl died. If Da had his way he would break it off. Asgrim insists that Helga go through with it. He expects the same from his own daughters. You know what priest-men are like! He won’t hear of Jarl’s plans being overturned.’
‘Asgrim’s daughters? I remember Hungrid was to marry Olver. The other one, Thora, what about her?’
‘Thora Asgrims-daughter, no, no, not yet.’ He makes a sour face. ‘My brother and Gridi are hitched — eight head cattle settled in the bride-price. He has done well from it, filling his pouch and his pocket. And Gridi is a comfy girl to fill the bunk.’
‘And you, Geir,’ I reply laughing. ‘What about marriage? Is Thora for you?’
Geir turns up his nose in disgust.
Hvard, who has been listening attentively — and finds the whole thing hilarious — comes out with one of his silly songs. ‘Greedy Hungrid, greedy Gridi! Gridi ran off with the lardy cakes!’
Chapter 21
Hvard suddenly rides off towards the first steading, taking the sorrel briskly into the yard. He makes straight for the door, which is out of sight to leeward, displaying fair skills as a rider. My nephew has hold of the reins — but his touch on them is merely for show. From his first go on Srelni he chose to handle the horse by the mane. Hvard does two sharp turns inside the yard. Srelni responds, swishes his tail and kicks dirt over the yard-wall. The boy searches me out to earn approval, though his riding trick was not intended for me, but — as I now see — to impress the womenfolk at Idgar’s hall.
At the steading door two women in milk-aprons — a churning-beatle between their knees —are making butter in a tub. They are intent on the job, and chattering. They haven’t noticed Geir and me or, so far, to Hvard’s annoyance, his arrival on the horse. Watching from the door is an old woman, shrivel-browed, bleary, and a cap over her ears. Her dull face brightens at the sight of Geir. She is seated on a shook of straw, lolling back like a person who is ailing — one dreary hodden rests on her shoulders, another tucked at her waist. She is covered in winter wool on this warm summer day.
Hvard shouts back at me over the wall. ‘Look, my Aunt Vrekla! Hola, Helga!’
Hearing the boy shriek, Helga, and then my sister, let go of the beatle, turning startled to look. Vrekla smoothes her apron, dries her hands from the whey. Her face glows, she is as plump as the butter in her tub, barely weeks from giving birth. My eyes shift to Helga.
‘Uncle, come and greet them,’ shouts my nephew, ‘what is keeping you?’ I am rooted to the path. I feel Geir pulling my arm.
‘Brother!’ says Vrekla with a cheerful grin. ‘But aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? Gods above! It’s like seeing Da back from the dead. Stop gaping like a half-wit. Come, give your sister a hug.’
‘Look at you, Kregin Thralson,’ says Helga blushing, ‘a man now, beard and all.’ In a slow, deliberate movement she wipes her hair from ears and brow, a gesture to spare her blushes.
‘I can’t get over the size of him,’ says Geir, laughing.
Hvard surveys it all, looking down from the horse.
Vrekla throws her arms around me. Helga, standing behind Vrekla, looks searchingly into my eyes. She reaches forward and, while I clasp at my sister’s waist, makes a light touch — as if to test that I am really here — her cool fingers, wet with milk, closing gently round my wrist.
‘Who is it,’ snaps the old woman, her voice dry as a stick. ‘Who is that stranger?’
‘No stranger, Ma,’ answers Helga. ‘Vrekla’s brother, you remember, Kregin.’ So this old woman wrapped in hoddens is Helga’s mother!
Back in Thwartdale Ma Gerta was a sturdy steadman’s wife, fresh-faced like her daughters, but now her once handsome looks are hidden under a haggard shell. Helga crouches to feel her mother’s hand under the blanket.
‘You are cold, Ma. Will Geir carry you inside to sit by the fire?’ Grateful — in a submissive way — Gerta nods her reply.
Geir takes his mother up in his arms. Although she is light as a feather, he moves awkwardly, with his sealskins on, and stumbles at the threshold. The hodden of wool falls from Gerta’s legs, revealing her ankles blackened and twisted like briar. Helga’s face darkens. A shadow passes over her flushed cheeks. She replaces the hodden over her ma’s feet, but when she turns to young Hvard, she is once more sunny and welcoming.
‘Well, now, young fella. Will you sit all day on that fine horse, or will you come for some lardy cakes?’
‘This is Srelni,’ answers Hvard proudly. ‘You mustn’t call him a horse. He is a red sorrel — a stallion — the kind jarls use when they ride for battle.’
‘Course he is,’ says Helga laughing at the boy’s cheek, ‘but even jarls have to eat, and they like their cakes hot from the pan.’
Before you can say Thor’s toe, or Vali’s nose, or greedy Gridi, Hvard is down from the horse, taking Helga by the hand, and being led into the steading.
‘Kregin, you will find our water-trough behind the whale-pit.’ The voice is Helga’s from inside the hall, and now her face shows at the door. ‘Vrekla — will you show him? That horse could do with water, and Kregin will want some, too.’
Without a word of reply Vrekla tucks up her apron and shuffles back-of-steading. I follow her to the whale-pit. It is marked by a ring of stones, covered by twigs and straw. Vapours of fermenting whale-meat escape from the pit. There are traces of darkened flesh and whale-ribs on the ground, where Idgar’s hounds have been feeding off the meat.
I lead Srelni to the water; ru
b traces of sea-sand from his neck, untie the snaffle. I sling bit, leather and rope over my shoulder, leaving him to drink unhampered. When he is finished at the trough, he will wander off somewhere to graze. I dunk my face at the side of the sorrel’s head, wetting my lips, my throat too tight to swallow.
My sister puffs from effort in the heat, hands on haunches to support her belly. Her swollen hands, her bulging shape heavy with child, remind me of Ma. I recall Ma walking like that before little Mel was born.
‘Why do you keep staring?’ asks Vrekla.
‘You know why.’
‘You disapprove? What’s so bad?’
‘Who’s the father? Is it Olver or Geir?’
Vrekla laughs at the thought of it. ‘Neither would dare,’ she replies, again heaving a heavy sigh from the heat.
‘Tell me, Vrekla, who was it?’
‘I share Idgar’s bed,’ she answers simply. ‘He is the child’s father.’
‘Have you no thought for Gerta? You and Idgar are at it under her nose?’
‘You’ve seen Gerta, haven’t you? Wasting sickness has made her old and haggard. Helga and I do everything we can for her.’ Vrekla shakes he head sadly, ‘Gerta won’t see out another winter.’
‘That makes matters worse. What does Helga say about this?’
‘She understands.’ My sister’s contented look — betraying no discomfort at my questions — takes the wind out of my sails.
‘And poor Gerta, does she understand?’
‘The good woman is dying. She knows Idgar will need a wife after she goes.’
‘Will you marry him — after she is dead?’
‘How can I? I have nothing to give a husband. Sepp can’t put up a bean for me. No family worth its salt takes a woman empty-handed. Why do you think I came here? I jumped at the chance when Idgar asked for me.’
‘He asked for you?’
‘He was honest from the start. He told me what he wanted.’
‘And you took him at his word?’
‘How could I stay on at Baerskard? Ma couldn’t feed me.’
‘I can’t believe Ma let you come — and Sepp, did he know what Idgar was after?’
‘He did, of course. It was all above board. You have no right to be angry. You weren’t here. You have no say in it.’
‘Idgar has preyed on our family, preyed on your being poor. He has forced you into it.’
‘I did what I did with my eyes wide open. Idgar is a good man. I don’t regret a thing.’
‘Regrets don’t come into it. Can’t you see you are being used?’
‘What do you expect? Gerta can no longer be his wife.’
‘My foster father is sixteen years a widower. He hasn’t needed a wife.’
‘You are sure he is so virtuous?’
‘I have never found him wanting.’
‘You say it because he opened the door to you, fed you, put clothes on your back, aye, and gave you that fine horse.’
‘I don’t deny it. I owe him everything.’
‘Why should my feelings for Idgar be different?’
You two have long faces,’ says Helga, coming from the hall. ‘With looks like that, you will sour the milk.’
‘Take no notice,’ answers Vrekla lightly. ‘It’s something and nothing.’
Helga shrugs cheerfully. ‘I have sent Geir to fetch Da from the high meadows. He will want to see you, Kregin, and give you a proper man’s welcome.’
‘You have sent for your father? I wasn’t planning to stay.’
‘He will be down in no time, once the milkings are done.’
‘Hvard and I will have to be off. I am leaving the boy back at Baerskard. I return to Longfiord tonight. My family, my foster father expects me.’
Helga looks crestfallen. ‘I have let Hvard go up-fell with Geir,’ she replies. ‘I’m sorry, but I thought you might want to share the day-meal with us. Olver will be here, and you will meet his wife Gridi — Grandpa Skar and Freyda too.’
Before I can say yes or no, Vrekla intervenes to enquire about the old woman. ‘How is Ma Gerta? We shouldn’t leave her inside on her own. Won’t she need me?’
‘Thanks,’ replies Helga. ‘You are so good to her, but Ma is resting by the hearth. She will doze for a while.’
‘What has got you so wound-up?’ Helga asks, as she and Vrekla roll the beatle. Their overlapped hands swish and swill in perfect motion, to finish butter-cream left in the tub before it melts.
‘What’s up, Kregin?’ Helga won’t take silence for an answer. ‘Cat got your tongue?’
‘My brother is sulking,’ says Vrekla. ‘He would rather see me starve than live with you.’
Her barb hits the mark. ‘That’s unfair, Vrekla, it’s not what I said.’
‘And he doesn’t like me having your father’s child.’
Helga stops churning and looks at me. ‘With the bad things we have had to endure, Ynvild dying — and now Ma — the arrival of Vrekla’s baby is just what was needed. Believe me, Kregin; no one is better loved than your sister.’
‘But having this child now, under your mother’s nose, is that right?’ I would have ventured more of the same, but Helga stops me.
‘If you saw us as a family, you wouldn’t need to ask.’
‘How could your Ma be content to see Vrekla step into her clogs, while she is alive?’
Vrekla, in annoyance, kicks the tub, drops the beatle, spilling whey on her apron, splashing on Helga’s too.
Helga ignores the tantrum. Her eyes weigh heavily on me — as if I ought to be aware of what she will say. ‘For Ma and Da their time together is precious — no less now than it was when they were young.’
‘Yes,’ says Vrekla, ‘why should things be different because I’m around? How could I come between them?’
Helga takes a rag-cloth and wipes spillage from her apron. ‘Kregin,’ she says, ‘Nothing has changed between Ma and Da. Till late in the evening, after Da’s work is done, they talk of Thwartdale and the old days, of the summers he was at sea, when Ma was left to run the farm. It was tough for her — tough for all of us — not knowing if the ships would return, but great times too — Da’s luck was good — when he made home and haven.’
Vrekla, taking Helga’s lead, tries to speak of those days with fondness, but the memory is too painful for my sister — she can’t hide a strain in her voice. ‘You remember, Kregin? It was the same for us, waiting for Da to come home.’
A frail cry comes from inside the steading. At once Helga drops the rag-cloth and runs inside. As soon as she is out of hearing, I turn on my sister.
‘If that is the way of it for Gerta and Idgar, then it is you who are the outsider.’
*
Vrekla has gone into the hall to drain off the tub. While she’s away, Helga tries twice to catch my eye. All I can do is gaze away, stupidly. Vrekla comes out, still angry with me, and dumps the empty tub on the step before disappearing back through the door.
We hear my sister yelling. ‘I will stay with Ma Gerta. She needs me. She wants to sit on the cess-pail.’
‘Grandpa has been asking for you,’ says Helga, while she rinses the tub. ‘He is anxious to see you. Since he was told that you had turned up alive — and were coming here — he has talked of nothing else.’
‘Grey Skar, asking for me — has he not gone to the milkings with your father?’
‘No, grandpa is too unwell. These days he keeps to his hearth.’ She points to the steading over the beck, where the roof-hole still belches smoke, ‘Grandma has to be always with him. He is frail. She daren’t let him out of her sight.’
‘Old Ma Freyda, we called her “battle-axe”. They used to say she got scars on her face serving as shield-maiden on the ships. In the skald-man’s verses there was no mention, so I don’t know if the stories were true.’
‘All true, as far as we know. She did sail with Grandpa in her young days. Now she is old as the fells and going a bit funny. Sprightly as ever, mind, but what a sour-
puss, she will give you a skight with her spoon as soon as look at you.’
*
The old folks’ hall is smoke-filled and dark as pitch despite a great fire piled high in the hearth. An iron cauldron, unattended and bubbling over, smothers the flame. From boiling stew in the pot blubber-fat spits and fizzles on the logs.
Helga’s grandpa — no one could mistake him — is on a bench beside the fire, and sat on his lap, what might be taken for a young woman, blond hair to her shoulders, like a lively maid in a skald-man’s tale. Her face is hidden in the old man’s beard.
Once we push open the door, the girlish figure turns towards the arrow of daylight that pierces the darkness. The face confronting us is no young beauty, but old Freyda herself. She squints into the sunlight, eyes sunken between scarred and twisted cheeks. From Freyda, a dim look of recognition.
‘Is it you, Ynvild?’ The old woman clicks her tongue. ‘Hurry, dear, and lift my pot off the fire.’
I whisper into Helga’s ear. ‘She doesn’t know you. She mistakes you for Ynvild.’
Helga answers with a nod and goes to slide the hook off the flame. ‘I have done it, Grandma,’ she says in a cheerful greeting, pushing the cauldron off the fire. Flame-light, blood-red in colour, fills the smoky hall.
‘Who is that with you?’ asks Grey Skar.
‘Raff’s son, Grandpa,’ answers Helga. ‘I said I would bring him to you.’
‘Come closer, young harrier; let me see your face.’ While I move past the hearth, I catch a whiff of stale grog from the old man’s beard. ‘Hell’s teeth,’ says Skar, ‘truly, you are Raff’s son, his living likeness.’
‘Much taller, I’d say,’ snaps Freyda, ‘and too broad in the chest for a thrall.’
‘Make him come, lass,’ mumbles the old man. ‘I want to put my hand in his.’
Freyda, supple and slim as a girl, slides off her husband’s knee, and kneels dutifully at his sword-hand. He seems unable to move without her help. She takes Skar’s huge hairy fingers, blood-red in the light, and encloses them around mine.
The hand that grips me is wet with blood. It smears on my fingers, slicks and slides. How can I mistake the feel of it? The old man’s arm is a mass of old scars, and fresh wounds too, running anew, from elbow to wrist.
