Daughters of Northern Shores

by Joanne Bischof

  “Gladly.” Aven set the squirming toddler down and followed his wobbly steps into the next room. Bjørn made his way to Thor’s chess table. Once there, he gave a valiant effort to climb onto his uncle’s chair. Upon succeeding, he set his sights on the small table as his next conquest.

  Aven hurried to his side. “No, love. Not there.” She tucked him back onto the seat.

  Squirming onto his knees, Bjørn made another attempt, so Aven returned him to the floor. He peered up at her with blue eyes as striking as his uncle Haakon’s and a determination near as robust. Still looking at her, he flaunted a dimpled smile.

  “Oh, so now you’re to try that method?” She righted his rumpled nightshirt. “I assure you it won’t get you what you wish.” Best Bjørn learn that quicker than his uncle Haakon had. She kissed Bjørn’s downy head, and when he tried to nab a chess piece, she stopped him with a slight squeeze to his wrist. “No.” When the lad didn’t heed, she tried in Norwegian. “Nei.”

  Bjørn squealed and rose onto the toes of his booties as he reached for the playing piece again. With an exasperated chuckle, Aven went to tote him elsewhere when the floorboards shuddered. She looked back to see Thor trudging across the room. He hefted up his nephew by the back of the shirt and held him aloft as a bear would a cub. Bjørn’s eyes went round.

  “Now see what you’ve done,” Aven said in jest to the babe.

  Thor settled his nephew on the crook of his arm and made the hand sign for no. Next he pointed to Aven and shaped the word for obey by touching a finger to the side of his forehead, then bringing that hand down in a fist alongside his other. Brow stern, Thor’s expression ordered the same.

  Bjørn stuck two fingers in his mouth as if in vow to busy them some other way.

  “That’s a good lad,” Aven said, then to Thor, “’Twould seem you’ve found the language he hearkens to.”

  Thor slid a large, gentle hand behind Bjørn’s head, and Bjørn wriggled his tiny fingers into Thor’s thick beard, babbling as he did. Thor watched the little one’s mouth and, upon realizing that it was gibberish, pulled out one of the chairs and plopped the boy onto the wooden seat. Thor sat in the other, and Bjørn flapped a hand toward the pieces. With a nod of consent, Thor nudged the board closer. Bjørn retrieved the knighted horse he’d been after and rammed the bottom into his mouth. Thor’s brown eyes were merry. Within moments, the little warrior had leveled the entire board, but his uncle didn’t so much as flinch. Thor would begin again as he always did when the eleven-month-old visited this spot of the room.

  Aven touched Thor’s shoulder and spoke when he watched her. “You’ve a wee prodigy to teach.”

  Thor smoothed a hand over her rounded belly and then held up two fingers as he kissed the top of her apron.

  “Aye, and another on the way.”

  He lifted his gaze, and while his regard of people was always steady and silent, he was keener with her. In her first days of knowing him, his frequent study of her had been startling, but she’d come to learn that it was his way of listening. Be they large or small, his noble acts confessed a love he couldn’t voice. Though she’d scarcely needed rescuing from the mischief of their nephew, there had been a time when she had needed much rescuing indeed. A time that had caused a rift between two brothers that seemed unmendable. Did the memories haunt Thor as they did her?

  Though she didn’t think on it often, she would never forget the day of Haakon’s brash advance—of the way she’d tried to get free of his hold even as his resolve had countered all her pleas. Her screams for aid had brought nothing but birdsong since Thor couldn’t hear her from where he’d been in the farmyard. In those bleak moments Haakon’s choice to claim her seemed a certain one, but he’d suddenly halted as though knowing his callousness was a breaking that would run through both of their souls. Moments later, Haakon’s cabin had tremored with Thor’s ramming of the door. His determination to break through had shattered hinges and lock—the battered door faring no better than Haakon by the time Thor was pried off him.

  At the press of a tiny foot against her side, memories fell away, and Aven was grateful for the nudge from the child inside her to think no longer on the past. To look to the future instead and the newness to come.

  Thor slid his broad hand over her rounded belly and looked up to Aven with a trace of worry. Since he’d lost his own mother in childbirth, and since he was the largest of the sons born, there was no wonder why his touch lingered warm and protective. He had wrangled Bjørn toward obedience, protected her from Haakon’s selfishness, and set snares in a strategic location for their safety, but he knew, as Aven did, that this coming birth was the one challenge he wouldn’t be able to shelter her through.

  FOUR

  MARCH 25, 1895

  NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN

  THE FIRST MATE TRUDGED UP THE CANON deck, spewing a slew of curses so forceful they should have lifted the limp sails. But not a breeze stirred against the few canvas sheets that hung unfurled, casting angled shadows across deck and water alike. Below, the ocean was smooth as an oyster pearl, and even the porpoises that had trailed them since the coast of Africa had vanished as if they, too, dreaded the stupor of a motionless tide.

  Le Grelotter drifted, moving what felt like inches every hour. Most of the crew were upon her decks. Some lounged in slumber, faded hats resting over their eyes, while others kept busy repairing sails. Their tireless hands worked thick thread in a herringbone pattern along tears that would spread if left unattended. As for Haakon and a cabin boy, they ran pieces of glass paper along the side rails nearest the bow, sloughing away splinters and dried-out varnish, all of them earning more days at sea than dollars.

  Was it now three of those days that they’d floated on lifeless waters? After depositing half of the ice they’d harvested to London, the ship had sailed south to drop anchor in the Canary Islands, just off the coast of Morocco. There they’d taken on cotton and coffee from Africa. They’d disembarked, enjoying a fair wind into the deeps of the Atlantic before the gust had dwindled like a dying breath. Now they drifted somewhere around 32˚ north and 25˚ west according to the captain’s precise chart keeping. Nothing around but blue horizon and the risk of madness and mutiny. As it was, a wiry greenhorn paced the deck, wringing his cap in his hands, muttering to himself in French. He eyed the water as if it were cursed. More than once, Haakon thought the youth was going to throw himself into it. Someone was going to have to knock him out if he was to make it another day.

  With the glass paper in hand worn to pulp, Haakon folded it over and thrust the rougher side along the railing with forceful strokes. Dust speckled the air. Sweat slid down his temple—a reminder of the fragile ice in the hull and the fact that over three thousand nautical miles stood between them and the Caribbean. A wad of coca leaves sat wedged inside his cheek, reminding him further of the distance, since this ration was among the last he had. Haakon spit the juices over the side, grateful for the medicine that calmed his nerves and spurred his work.

  “Gonna leave some of that rail intact?”

  At his friend’s voice, Haakon moved the course paper to a new spot. He slanted Tate the smile he’d always used with Thor and Jorgan whenever they were right. Bedeviling was the longing to flash that smirk just once more in Ida’s kitchen and see their amused grins right back, but with his family thousands of miles away and as many leagues apart from him in spirit, Haakon forced the yearning aside.

  The plank Tate was seated on thunked against the side of the hull. Suspended by two ropes, it hung just level with the figurehead—a merman with a thick, curling beard all carved from dense oak. Just visible through the spindles of the bow railings, Tate used a matted brush to streak gold paint along the merman’s trident, repairing what Northern storms had ravaged away. As boatswain, Tate had many duties that included overseeing the tasks of the deckhands, but never did a day go by that Tate Kennedy didn’t climb up into the rigging to set sails, haul in lines, or carry out any of the other work to be d
one. As it was now, his shirt lay cast aside, skin browned by the sun, build as sinewy and strong as the rest of the crew who carved out their survival from water and wood, sun and ice.

  Upon Haakon’s first joining the crew at a cocky twenty-one years of age, he’d walked around this place insolent and sulky, irritating everyone in his wake, including Tate. Never would Haakon have imagined they’d end up friends, let alone the best of pals. And in fact, it hadn’t been until the night Tate had saved his life that Haakon understood sincere friendship. He’d spent the last few years trying to be worthy of such kindness. He even irritated the crew a whole lot less.

  While Haakon had his share of brothers, as did Tate, never had brotherhood been by choice. Now Haakon was something other than the runt of the litter. He was chosen as a brother. More potent was the way Tate often spoke of the God who could bring even the lost and the broken into His family and of how it was a calling-in more powerful than any other. Tate lived and breathed the awe of it, whiling away the hours below deck with dog-eared Scriptures in hand while Haakon lived a different kind of life, one that preferred the company of women to the Lord Almighty. Through it all, Tate was there as a steady friend and a rudder should Haakon ever decide to steer himself to holier waters.

  But God wouldn’t want the likes of him. No point in hoping for a wind that didn’t exist.

  The wiry greenhorn was still muttering to himself in French, worn shoes shuffling back and forth without aim. Someone passed him a flask of whiskey, and the youth gulped it down with a grimace.

  The freckle-faced cabin boy regarded the poor soul, then leaned over the railing and scrutinized the water that didn’t so much as lap against the hull. “Do you think this is a bad omen?” Perhaps ten, the boy was too small to be asking such a question. Too small to be from his parents, surrounded by a sea, but that was the life for many lads, some that Haakon had helped grow to manhood on this very vessel as they toiled side by side.

  “No.” Haakon crouched to scrub the underside of the railing. “It is Jörmungandr. The great beast.”

  The boy’s eyes widened, and though he continued scraping, his rhythm slowed.

  “A serpent so huge, it wraps the entire sea within its scaly body, biting his own tail to hold the waters at bay. The waters lurch against his side, every breath putting waves in motion.”

  The captain strode near and set down two pails of varnish.

  Haakon angled a nod to his superior, then continued the tale for the boy. “Perhaps the great snake is sleeping too deeply. So deeply that his sighs don’t even stir the air.” He reached up to scrape loose a splinter the boy had missed. “What we need to do is wake him. But who would be brave enough? Especially since the serpent is so cunning that he outsmarted his archenemy, the mighty Thor, who tried to fish him from the sea with an ox head for bait.”

  The gritty paper in the boy’s hand stilled. Haakon didn’t need to glance around to know he held the attention of others. Stories at sea were more than a novelty; they were a way to pass time and maintain sanity. And they just happened to be his specialty. Even the captain leaned against the foremast and folded his arms, waiting for what would come next. The buckles on the sides of his boots glistened in the hot sun, and the shirt he wore was open at the chest, void of the neck cloth he often wore as if he, too, were fed up with the stagnant air.

  “Perhaps we should lower bait into the water to see if we can rouse him,” Haakon continued. “Get him to swish his tail and send a new current our way. What say you?”

  The boy gulped as if he had been volunteered to be lowered. Reaching over, Haakon tousled his hair, feeling the grime of sea air and life aboard ship.

  “You and your tales, Norgaard.” The captain’s voice sparked with amusement and challenge. “Would not a real Viking pull out an oar and start rowing?”

  Haakon chuckled as he stood. “With all due respect, sir, I believe a real Viking would get one of his slaves to do it.”

  Grinning, the captain dipped his head in deference.

  Knowing his place, Haakon did the same.

  One of the crewmembers came along distributing water that was rationed more with each passing day. Haakon accepted a serving, filling his water skin partway to leave enough for all. He drank a swig, corked it, then stepped to a fresh length of railing and continued sloughing the rough wood.

  The boy followed with the same hushed reverence that softened his voice. “Are you really a Viking, Mr. Haakon?”

  Haakon scratched at his beard before looking over with an answer. “No. They are long gone, you see. But I admire them.” Their bloodline was what gave him life. It was the raiders whom he called ancestors—the great fathers of his lineage, as Da had taught them. With pleasures of the flesh and a hunger for victory haunting his every waking hour, Haakon couldn’t discount the stock he’d come from even if he wanted to.

  At another thunk, he looked over to see Tate scale back over the side. The fellow American placed his bucket of gold paint on the deck and dropped the brush in. His hands and forearms were streaked with paint, and he tugged a rag from the waistband of his pants to scrub at them. Having saved him most of the water in the skin, Haakon tossed it over.

  Tate caught it and uncorked the top. “So what happened in the end?”

  “What do you mean?”

  The cabin boy chimed in. “When Thor tried to fish the serpent from the water. How did he outsmart him?”

  With the paper in the boy’s grip void of all coarseness, Haakon took out his knife and spliced his own good portion in half. He handed a piece over. “A great giant came along and, fearing for the serpent’s life, cut the line.” Haakon couldn’t help but think of his brother Jorgan and the way Jorgan had always walked between his rivaling brothers with wisdom and caution. Protecting them as much from themselves as from one another. Though Jorgan was no giant, he had a heart to match one.

  A small voice pulled Haakon’s attention back. “So in the end the serpent won?”

  “Not entirely.” Haakon tugged a bucket of varnish near and dipped a brush. “You see, he battled with Thor not once but three times. It was in the final battle that the serpent met his demise.”

  He knew that all too well.

  Haakon pressed the gloss to the parched rail, saturating it to a chestnut sheen. Just as he had done to the porch of the mountain cabin he’d fled from. The cabin that was all he had in this world to call his own.

  “Why?” The boy nabbed the second brush.

  Haakon drew out a steady stroke. Varnish dripped down the side, oozing like drops of blood and bringing to mind a time—a fight—he longed to forget. “Because Thor was a god.” He caught the droplets with the edge of his brush, smearing the sight away if not the memory of what his brother could do with those fists of his. “And the snake was only the son of one.”

  He’d long ago learned there was little he could do to best Thor. The inkling still walked alongside him though. A shadow of what was and what might be that remained more of an unease than a comfort. Did he want to challenge Thor again?

  Part of him did. But Thor would always win. Always.

  Haakon had been defeated long ago when as a baby he’d looked up at two boys who had lost their mother more abruptly than he had because they’d lost the privilege of knowing her. And there he’d lain in a wooden cradle, the very reason she was gone.

  Haakon lowered his gaze and rubbed a thumb over his forehead.

  How he longed to stand in that house again. To see Ida. Jorgan. Everyone. Even though he was terrified. Compounding his uncertainty about Thor was a greater one regarding Aven.

  Haakon lifted his head, chiding himself that it had taken so long to finally glance in that direction. Though he saw nothing other than a glittering, vast sea, he squinted toward the sun, and be it a yearning for home or an exhaustion from doing everything the hard way, a longing for guidance sprung from the very depths of his spirit. One as battered and thirsty as the deck he stepped across.

  Fresh
to mind were the young widow’s words—the ones that challenged him to do more. To be more. An insinuation that though he’d spent weeks cutting and hauling ice, he had more inside him yet. A duty not to be rendered through ax or ice pick, but of a harvesting much more pure. One of heart and of life. He might have disregarded the challenge but had witnessed a fortitude in Mrs. Jönsson that sprang straight from the depths of hope and brokenness. To ignore her appeal to him would be to undermine her every effort of keeping her children fed and cared for in the wake of torment, and of a faith she’d placed in a God who, by all appearances, had forsaken her.

  In Haakon’s foolishness he’d assumed her eliciting the makings of a husband. Now . . . he feared he’d been terribly wrong. Perhaps her insinuation for him to rise to a greater challenge had been a beseeching for him to thread wholeness and restitution into whatever wrong had sent him to the far side of the world. As selfless as the rest of her encounters with him had been. If she needed rescuing, Haakon doubted it would have been by his own strength. He’d have sunk her as soon as save her, and she’d probably known that more than he.

  Perhaps it hadn’t been saving she sought from him but honesty. Even nobility. All encompassed in a heart that might have fit against her own had he not left it in pieces on Blackbird Mountain.

  Was he brave enough to go home and try and make things right? Did he have that kind of courage?

  At a sudden shout, Haakon lifted his head to see two crewmembers jogging down from the quarterdeck. More men stood at attention, some pointing up to the mainsail. The steep sheet of canvas rippled then drew still. Haakon set the brush aside and stepped nearer to the mast. He shielded his eyes from the sun and for some strange reason whispered the only prayer to fall from his lips in over four years.

  The canvas rippled again . . . then bowed out . . . snapping as wind filled it. The ship heeled with the force, and for the first time in days Haakon had to right his stance along with everyone else. Cheers bellowed from all around, and he let out a sharp whistle. A deckhand raced for the helm, grabbing the spoked wheel as it spun to port.