Unn had taken a liking to them both, though the boy had little patience for these visits, and less for the tedious work of women, girls and slaves. He enjoyed Hrudiger’s tales of wars, and would, he’d told Unn in the sincerest of boasting, be a great warrior like his father, a master of ships, a leader of men, a war-chieftain with rings of gold upon his arms.
“Father always grieved so for Mother,” said Brynja, sighing. “His homecomings were never the same after she died, and he would hear no talk of taking another wife.”
“She must have been a good lady, your mother,” Unn said.
The girl nodded, her red-gold braids swinging. “I remember how beautiful she was, how gentle, and kind. How she would sing as she worked at her loom, and how she smiled, and her kiss on my forehead. She would go up to the heights, to that headland—”
“The one they call Brynja’s Beacon?”
“She would go there each dusk, and make a great bonfire, so that Father might see it even far out to sea, and know he was missed, know that we waited for him, know that it would guide him home. When I was old enough to walk so far, she would take me with her, even let me light the kindling.”
Nearby, Hrudiger sat dozing in the weak and watery sunshine, his palsied hand laced with its partner over his narrow middle, full and content. Brynja liked to bring food to the old man, which she saved from her own meals or was given by the women who cooked for the hall. That day, she’d shared with them portions of a roasted goose, and bread, and cheese made from goat’s milk, and they had all eaten well.
“Sometimes,” Brynja added, her voice in a secret-giver’s hush and her greenish gaze downcast, “I go up there myself, to the headland at dusk. The stones are still where she piled them in a ring, and the ground blackened. I watch, as she did. You can see so very far, the sea stretching away into the mists forever. I’ve even made fires. But he never comes home.”
Hrothgar Firehair still did not come home as brief summer waned toward harvest time. The crops were brought in, stores of wood chopped and laid by. Most of Skuthorpe’s pigs, sheep and goats were butchered, the meat salted for winter. Hides being tanned for leather and hooves being boiled for glue filled the air with a thick stench. It was hard work but vital, and each did their part.
A sickness swept the village with the first hard chill, and though it was mild for most, the very young and very old fell sorely ill from it. Hrudiger was one of these. Unn tended him worriedly as he seethed with feverish sweats, as deep coughs wracked his bony frame. He raved of treasure-hoards and trees with the faces of trolls, spoke to people who were not there, and cried out senseless warnings about yellow serpents and rats and scavenger-birds.
She feared he would die of it, feared what would become of herself if he did, and both raged and despaired that he should die in this sod hut with a stranger slavewoman by his side.
“When it is time, give me a sword to hold,” he told her during one of the spans when his mind was clear but his body fearfully frail, gripping her wrist with his quaking, palsied hand. His good eye shone bright as a blue jewel. “Give me a sword that I may take my place in the corpse-hall!”
“I will,” Unn said. Not knowing where or how she would come by a sword, unless she could beg the borrowing of the short war-blade Sjolfr wore.
The steward, who’d given her the warm wool cloak she valued more and more as winter set in, continued showing small kindnesses. He often came himself or sent his wife or eldest son with gifts of firewood, broth, eggs, ale or fresh game, saying they had enough to spare and it should not go wasted. His wife was Thera, who had also come from far away, taken as a captive in battle but not kept as a slave, and Sjolfr had made her his wife, and she was sharp-tongued, fond of wit and riddles, and she laughed, and was friendly.
Unn did not think their kindness was meant entirely for her, or even for Hrudiger out of the warm loyalty Sjolfr still held for his grandson. She had not missed the way Orfric Sjolfrsson made lovestruck eyes at Brynja, though the youth went flushed, flustered and fumble-tongued whenever the girl spoke to him. Nor had she missed the way Brynja ducked her head and smiled.
But she was spared having to ask such a favor of Sjolfr, for Hrudiger recovered and grew strong again, though slowly as winter’s freezing bonds locked tight upon the land. This did not, Unn suspected, delight the Lady Gethril, who must have hoped for the old man’s death at last.
Snow blanketed the hills and cloaked the trees in white. The sea churned grey and dark, foamed with froth. Nights stretched black and long, some heavy with clouds and others so clear that a breath of air burned like fire, and some when god-lights rippled in shifting colors across the skies.
The feasting of Yule came, and with it a slaughter of what livestock had been kept, so that there would be meat to roast upon the spits. There were ale and mead, and oat-cakes sweetened with honey, and there were songs and games and celebrations.
Several of the youths and young men tied polished rib-bones to their feet to slide skating across the thick-rimed ice of the pond. Hrothi joined them, but ignored his cousin’s warnings and went too near the edge where the creek overspilled, and the ice cracked beneath him and plunged him into the cold water where he might have drowned or frozen had the others not hauled him out in time. Later, he laughed about it to Brynja and Unn, saying he had not been afraid, not even a little, and Hrudiger thumped him on the head and told him that only fools knew no fear. Then he ruffled the boy’s hair and gave him a Thor’s-hammer amulet carved from the knucklebone of a boar, which Hrothi strung on a leather thong and wore proudly around his neck.
Spring was slow, plodding and reluctant. It brought thaws and rains, floods and mud. It brought green shoots and blossoms. It brought travelers and tradesmen. It brought no word of Hrothgar Firehair, his crew, or his ship the Hawk’s Wing.
One day as Unn worked in the small garden-patch behind the hovel, Brynja appeared without her spindle or sewing, and just stood, looking troubled, until Unn asked her what was the matter.
“Aunt wants me to marry Arnuld!” The words burst from her, followed instantly by tears. And she threw herself sobbing into Unn’s arms, heedless of the dark mud and soil on Unn’s hands.
Unn hesitated a moment, startled, then did her best to soothe the weeping girl. “Arnuld your cousin? Arnuld her son?”
She did not ask if Brynja wanted to become Arnuld’s wife; that much was plain enough in these sobs and wails.
They sat together in the dug earth, not caring that the wetness of it soaked through their dresses.
“Aunt says that Father will never come home,” Brynja went on, once the worst of her tear-squall had passed. “She says he is dead, must be dead, or has abandoned us to live in some other country where he might already have a new wife and family, and does not think of us at all.”
This last did not, to Unn, sound like the man she had heard of from Hrudiger and Sjolfr and Brynja herself. Much as it might pain them all to learn of Hrothgar’s death, it was far easier to believe than that he would forget or forsake his home.
“She says we cannot wait for his return any longer but must look to secure Skuthorpe’s fate,” said Brynja. “She says that Hrothi is only a child, too young, too reckless, too likely to get himself killed before he is grown.”
Given that in the short time Unn had known him, the boy had not only fallen through the pond-ice but fallen three times from trees and twice from high rocks—landing lucky and unhurt each time—and swatted a wasp’s nest from a bough so that the wasps stung him a dozen times, and sneaked away to follow the men boar-hunting only to get lost in the woods, and tried of his own boldness to spear a winter-starved wolf that got into the goat-byre and was only saved by the timely arrival of a thrall armed with a stout cudgel…
“And she says that I need a strong husband to be the next lord, or someone else will come and seize it,” Brynja finished.
“That may be true,” Unn said, cautiously, not glad to be in agreement with Lady Gethril but forc
ed to acknowledge the sense of these words. “Are you old enough to be married?”
The girl sniffled and wiped her nose, streaking her cheek with mud. “I will be thirteen in the summer.”
“And there is no one else you could marry?” Unn paused. “Orfric?”
“Unn!” She blushed red, then giggled, then heaved a sigh. “Aunt would never allow it. Orfric is too poor to offer a bride-price that would satisfy her.”
Unn frowned, for as she understood it the bride-price might be paid to Brynja’s kin but ultimately became hers after the wedding, so it would hardly richen Gethril’s own purse… and how would she expect to profit by asking a bride-price from her own son? When she herself would be the one to pay it?
There seemed no good comfort she could give, so Unn patted Brynja’s hand and just told her that summer was not yet. For all they knew, her father might return at any time. Perhaps even tomorrow. She doubted either of them believed it, but Brynja let herself be persuaded to hope.
“I thought I might go again to the headland,” Brynja said. “Build a fire there, a beacon, as my mother used to do.”
She had gone there five times before since summer’s end, Unn knew, and Unn had gone with her twice. Sometimes Hrothi, too, went following along, though once the wood was gathered and the fire built, he’d soon become bored with sitting, waiting, and staring at the dark sea for signs of a ship that never came.
Unn worked too hard at her labors to feel bored at the reprieve of sitting and staring, but she did feel the cold, for the wind from the north was a bitter thing even swathed as they were in warm cloaks.
“Will you go with me?” asked Brynja, lifting her hopeful gaze to Unn.
“Tonight? At dusk?”
She nodded.
“Yes,” said Unn. “I will.”
Later, as she fed Hrudiger a meal of fish stew with leeks and herbs, the old man inquired if Unn remembered how he had spoken during his sickness.
“You called me Ingi,” Unn said.
He looked surprised at that. “Did I? Ingi was my sister. But, no, little mouse, did I speak to you of my dreams? A yellow serpent, venomous and sly? A plump rat and a scavenger bird who would feast from the dead?”
“I do remember,” she said, remembering also that he’d raved about treasure-hoards and trees with the faces of trolls.
“Odin sent me those dreams as an omen,” said Hrudiger, lifting the stew bowl to slurp down the dregs. His palsied hand shook, sending dribbles of it soaking into his beard. “The serpent is Gethril. The rat her husband, and the scavenger bird that son of theirs. Be careful when you go with Brynja tonight.”
“You heard us?”
“Half-blind, girl, not half-deaf.”
“So you know that Gethril wants Brynja to marry Arnuld.”
Hrudiger spat a bit of fishbone into the fire. “And Brynja would be lady of Skuthorpe… in name only. Ah, but if I had wealth in my possession, I’d give a lord’s portion of it to Sjolfr’s boy so he could offer a bride-price that would win over even Gethril’s greed.”
Unn smiled, imagining Lady Gethril’s expression if the steward’s son poured out a glittering mound of silver at her feet.
“A portion of it, too,” Hrudiger went on, “I’d give to you, good Unn, to reward you for your faithful service. You could be rich as a queen, crowned in gold.”
She shook her head, still smiling. “What would I need with a crown of gold? Now, would you have more stew? There’s some yet in the pot.”
“No,” he said, wiping his chin. “No, I will lie down for a while and rest these old bones. Heed my words, though, Unn. Be careful. I’d want no harm to come to you or to Brynja.”
“We will be,” she said.
He settled himself to nap, and as Unn made ready to leave the hovel, gave her a crafty look. “And while you are up there by the woods,” he said, “watch for trolls in the trees.”
“What?” She turned, puzzled, but he had already closed his eyes and begun to snore.
Brynja did not return until the sun had gone very low in the west, and when she did arrive it was breathless and harried, with her little brother in tow and a bundle of sticks slung on her back.
“Aunt did not want to let me go,” she explained. “She wanted me to stay, and eat with her and Uncle and Arnuld, and discuss wedding plans!”
“I helped her get away!” Hrothi said, chest puffing with pride.
“He helped by being a noisy pest worse than a stinging gnat, until Aunt all but begged me to take him out of the hall,” Brynja said, rolling her eyes, but with more relief than rancor in her tone.
Hrothi grinned. He carried a lidded basket within which something fluttered and rustled.
“Did you bring a hen?” Unn asked.
“A… a gosling.” Brynja glanced at the basket. “The little brown one with the white spot.”
“She’s going to slit its throat and spill out its blood for Odin, Thor, and Njord!” Hrothi said, all but dancing with excitement. “A sacrifice to the gods for Father to come home!”
“Do you think the gods will accept sacrifice from a girl, Unn? It isn’t an ox or a horse, just a gosling, but…”
“They are the gods,” Unn said, shrugging. She took the bundle of sticks. “Come on. It is almost dusk already.”
Indeed it was, for the eastern sky had taken on that particular woad-blue color above a bank of dark clouds. The three of them, boy and girl and slavewoman, hurried out of the village along a path that led up into the wooded hills that climbed toward the steeper and densely-forested peaks where some snow yet clung in shadowed patches.
They came to the headland, where bare rock jutted from the earth. The bluff dropped away below, not sheer as a cliff but rugged, all clefts and boulders and wind-stunted trees clinging defiantly to the thin soil. The fire-pit was a wide ring of stones, blackened at the center from ash and soot.
“Do we kill the gosling now?” asked Hrothi, one hand atop the basket and the other holding a small iron knife that one of the village men must have given him.
“The fire first,” Brynja said.
So they built the fire, fetching more wood from the surrounding clusters of trees. And as she was straightening up with a fallen branch in her arms, Unn suddenly found herself staring straight into the face of a troll.
Gnarled, lumpy, leering, hideous. Squinting of eye and snarling of teeth.
Her breath caught and her heart skipped. Her fists curled around the branch as if to make it into a weapon.
But then she saw that it was only the tree. Only a strange occurrence of knots and deep furrows in the bark, forming this nightmare visage.
Watch for trolls in the trees, Hrudiger had said. And earlier, in his fever, he’d raved about trees with the faces of trolls.
Now, here, was just such a thing.
He had also, in his fever, raved about treasure. When he’d first met her, he had asked if she was some spy of Gethril’s, sent to gain his trust and learn the location of his buried hoard. At the time, she had dismissed it as meaningless talk, but…
“… if I had wealth in my possession…” whispered Unn, repeating what he’d said to her.
Turning these pieces over in her mind, the way she might have tried to fit fragments of a broken eggshell back together, Unn returned to the fire. Full dusk was upon them, the sun sunk below the western edge of the world, the white sparks of stars beginning to be visible. The flames flickered and grew into a proper blaze, sap snapping, more sparks—these ones bright embers as red-gold as Brynja’s hair—leaping.
The girl brought out the gosling, which cowered a brown ball of downy fluff in her hand. She petted it, for a moment seeming to waver, for she was fond of small creatures. Hrothi gave her his little knife and she took it, tears glistening on her cheeks but resolve firm in her posture.
Then she raised her head and her clear young voice rang out in a plea to the gods to bring her father safely home, and she flicked the knife-blade across the gosling�
��s throat. Its body kicked and its head was severed, and blood streamed out like red thread unspooling. Brynja spilled the blood over the stones, over the fire, scattered some toward the sea.
When the sacrifice was done, Unn gutted and plucked the gosling, and they cooked it on a stick over the fire, what meat of it there was, and shared it among themselves. Brynja took a seat upon a rock to watch the sea, while Hrothi found some pebbles and twigs and set them up to be armies going shield-wall to shield-wall, and Unn took a burning brand from the fire and told them she would be back soon.
She went to the tree, wondering now if she had only imagined the troll’s face, wondering if it had been a trick of her mind, but she saw it again as readily by torchlight as she had by the light of the dying day. A troll in a tree, a tree with the face of a troll, and what she was thinking had to be a kind of madness, but what harm was there in looking?
Wedging the end of the brand in a split stone, she knelt by the spreading roots, knelt and dug around at the dirt and moss, until her fingers found something that was not earth or stone, not root or moss, something that felt like cold, coarse metal. She dug more, dug deeper, and finally birthed from the ground an iron pot, old and rusted, its lid held on by a cinched leather belt that had gone soggy almost to decay, the buckle caked with grime.
It was heavy, but she braced it against her hip and retrieved her torch and carried both back to the place where Brynja and Hrothi sat by the fire.
“What is that?” the boy asked.
“It belongs to Hrudiger,” Unn said, lowering it and lowering herself beside it. “He… he told me where to look.”
“But what is it?”
Unn unwound the belt and pried up the lid. Inside the pot was a sack, and inside the sack, when she dumped it on the ground, was…
The Raven's Table Page 27
