Edin's embrace

by Nadine Crenshaw

  Hrut's prominent cheekbones flushed angrily. "You mock me, Copper-eye?" Magnus and Ottar renewed their hold on him.

  "What? Would I mock Hrut the Juicehead?"

  Thoryn said to Jamsgar, "A crime in words is the worst crime. The tongue injures more than a blade." To Hrut he said, "I will be watching you this winter. What I see will influence whether or not I think you are as manly as you say." It was not a promise, but not a rejection either.

  Jamsgar would have said more, but Leif shouted, "By Odin, God of the Winds, Rider of the Eight-hoofed Horse, God of Battle —this is crazy! You're getting excited about a tale told by a greasy merchant, whose knowledge of ships probably goes no farther than the price of rope and sails. What have we to do with some Muslim heathen?"

  Ottar Magnusson, forgetting Hrut, shouted back, "Mayhap you'd best stay behind then, Leif, with those afraid of loud noises."

  The big man flushed and glowered. "What he's proposing—" He swung his heavy face back to Thoryn. "You're asking us to become mere traders."

  "The man who is a trader has to challenge many perils," Thoryn answered, "sometimes at sea and sometimes in alien lands, and nearly always among heathen races."

  Rolf, scratching his rusty bearded chin thoughtfully, said, "I've always wondered why the good gods made the world so strange and diverse if it was not to be seen."

  Leif adjusted his big paunch like a sackful of apples. "Bah! You talk like boys with moonlight in your eyes."

  Thoryn's patience came to an end. "Better than to talk like a droning old man. I am not the sort to tackle an enterprise like this lightly. But to each his own earning of fame. If you choose not to go, I will hold no grudge —but if you try to undermine me in this, Leif, you will see how resolved I am . . . and may find yourself sorry."

  By the time the discussion was over, the longhouse was covered with a quilted pearl fog. The visiting Vikings went out into it like men disappearing into a magic realm. Edin turned from the heavy carven door, leaving Thoryn to shut it as she made her way quickly to their chamber. There were some things that couldn't be borne in public.

  She was not able to grieve alone for long, however, for he soon followed after her. "Edin!" he hissed like a blaze.

  She'd thrown herself on the bed and raised her head slowly.

  "You're angry! Why? You want me to stop raiding. My only alternative is to become a trader."

  She searched the urgent emotion in his eyes. And even as she did so, abruptly he took hold of himself with an almost visible clench of will. The look of self-doubt vanished, and with it vanished her hope. She said quietly, "I think we are doomed, you and I."

  He crossed to the bed and caught her in his arms. He felt her belly with his hard hands. "How can you say that, mother of my sons."

  She tried to wrench away. "I hate you," she cried. "You're going away— who knows when you'll be back, if ever? I hate you, do you hear me!"

  His head reared back. He went stiff and dropped his arms from her. Taking her chance, she slipped away, to the opposite side of the bed, where she sat with her back to him him. She felt him rise off the mattress. A moment passed, another, and another. All at once she turned to him, all her love ready to make itself plain. "Thoryn, I didn't mean—!"

  But he was gone.

  ***

  Thoryn slept poorly. He couldn't forget that his mother was alive and ranting about "something left undone." He should have killed her. The man he'd been before he'd sailed to England last spring, before he'd been captured by his own thrall, would have killed his father's murderess without hesitation. Such a crime demanded revenge. Even if it meant a son raising his sword against his mother. But what would gentle Edin think of him then? If she thought she hated him now, what kind of revulsion would he see in her eyes if she knew he'd killed his own mother? And so the days marched on, and he took no action except to keep Inga in exile.

  The autumn passed, and the world took one last deep breath before the dive, and then, as it must, winter came on. Bitter was the wind that for three days came from the south, giving no quarter, scrubbing until the mountain peaks looked near and stark. Clouds came up and were driven eastward. It rained heavily. Then the rainfall turned whitish as snowflakes mingled with it. Soon it was just snow. The wind stilled. There was silence, the intense, frigid silence of the north. The temperature fell, so that the snow couldn't quite dissolve but lay covering the valley like a threadbare, white garment.

  The next day a pale grey sky hung overhead; by noon it decayed into flakes and began to fall soundlessly, continuously, that day and the next and the next. The pines showed black on the mountainsides; the snow rounded over and built up; a reflected brightness came from it, a milky gleam.

  Edin, a southernwoman and unused to such weather, seemed apprehensive. It was Thoryn's instinct to comfort her, but the chill outside the longhouse was no fiercer than that inside. For a sennight he forbore to touch her —then he woke from a pleasant dream one night to find it was no dream, that he really was caressing her, and she, in her sleep, was responding.

  "Shieldmaiden," he murmured. She woke and rose into his arms in the dark, mutely, passionately. He saw that she'd been waiting for him to take her, that she wanted him to open her and move into her and make her cry out.

  And yet in the morning he took the precaution to reinstate the winter between them. He was not a man to take unnecessary risks. Though he'd married her to assure himself of the happiness of her, that summery shore seemed far away now, a mere line, a thin lavender bruise dividing the water and the air of his life.

  The snow became a nuisance. Trails had to be shoveled, and the shoveled snow formed frozen barriers creating snow-halls so narrow that people had to walk in single file, and if you encountered any one. . . .

  Every pillar and post wore its white cap. The heights lay suffocated. Thoryn's sworn-men grew red and lusty. They donned gay-colored winter caps to shovel the longhouse roof or to drag logs down from the forest in sleds. Their blue eyes shone in the snowlight like ice.

  The nights became intensely cold. The thralls lay quietly in their beds. In Thoryn's bedchamber, soft jerking movements began to pulse in Edin's belly. She had yet to speak one word of the child to him. Though he willfully placed his hand over her swelling abdomen, he felt as outcast as Inga did from her rightful place; he felt as forcibly removed as Edin did from her Fair Hope; he felt the exile's choking ardor for home.

  It was clear to him that though Edin persisted in her silence, the baby was overwhelmingly important to her. She often stopped as she walked, to check her body's feel of it, and only when reassured, walked on. That kept his hope alive, even if her internal absorption made him feel further excluded. He wondered what was going on within her, how it felt to have a living being in her belly. Was she frightened? He felt curiously ignorant and innocent — and shut out. But surely when the babe was born, before he had to leave her. ...

  His notice of her now was more intense than ever. He saw how she began to chide his men —men whose lives were fraught with incident and exploit, who drained each day like a cup to its dregs —how she gently scolded them to curb their voices and leave certain coarse words out of their talk, and to treat the thralls better. "After all, Rolf Kali, you are so strong, I would think you'd have no need to taunt someone as unoffending and defenseless as poor Snorri. The more superior the man, the less need he has to wound those lower than him." Her eyes, which were very green, stayed on Rolf a little longer before she gave him a smile. And amazingly that subtle flattery worked: Rolf stopped.

  When the pelts came into their prime, Thoryn encouraged every man along the fjord to harvest as many as he could for the coming journey. They went out on their long skis, taking with them sledges which they brought back bale-heaped and full of gorgeousness.

  He also reminded them in their outings to keep a lookout for an oak tree tall and straight enough to become the keel of the new ship. The keel had to be carved from one piece of wood, and the size of the knorr
would depend on the size of the oak available.

  Hrut Beornwoldsson came one day along the narrow, high-walled paths of snow to the door of the longhouse. With ice on his shoulders and frost on his eyelids and his face all chapped and blue, he claimed, "Jarl, I've found the perfect tree for your longship."

  Thoryn gave the boy a hard-boiled stare. "I'll have to have a look at it."

  Edin had looked pale lately, and it occurred to him as he went for his heaviest fur cloak that she might like a day in the open air. When he invited her, however, she said stingingly, "I won't have anything to do with the making of that ship."

  Frustrated, he said, "Woman, get yourself a warm cloak and mittens. You're coming!" In the back of his mind was the idea that if he could get her involved somehow, she would learn to resign herself, as a good Norse wife should.

  She sat unspeaking beside him as they traveled in a sleigh, an elaborately chiseled box with an undercarriage fitted with wooden runners. Beside them rode Fafnir Danrsson and Hauk Haakonsson. Hrut proudly led the way on his skis. The brothers, Jamsgar and Starkad, skied along behind.

  The tree was gigantic all right, an oak eighty feet tall. Thoryn stood peering up at it. Starkad did the same, utterly absorbed. Thoryn at last nodded to Hrut. "I think you've just earned your oar to Miklagardur."

  The boy's red face twisted into an expression of huge pride. Edin sat looking straight ahead.

  The keel tree was felled and brought home two days later. Thoryn's private army was then sent out to find other trees for the planking of the new ship. Then the men were sent out to find naturally formed oak and spruce elbows and arches for the vessel's ribs and struts. In the longhouse, they turned spruce roots into strong, naturally fibrous ropes to bind the ship's shell and frame together. Eric No-breeches was set to fashioning kegs full of metal rivets and nails, while other men handcarved wooden pegs called tree-nails, and made walrus-hide thongs.

  Mists, half snow, enclosed the longhouse as the men carved or twisted lengths of rope around the evening fire. They told tales in which axes danced and sword metal pealed and blood ran free. Names for the new ship began to be proposed: Deer of the Surf, Stallion of the Gull's Track, Lynx of the Waves, Sea Dragon's Sleigh.

  Edin's belly grew high and round, and her beauty bloomed. Thoryn occasionally chafed at her obstinacy in refusing to accept what had to be accepted.

  One morning, he stopped to observe an unusual sight: Jamsgar and the auburn-headed thrall boy, Arneld, with their heads bent so near they were all but touching. Edin was close by, watching what they were doing. The Copper-eye was smoothing down one side of a horse's haunch-bone, making a pair of isleggr, ice skates. Arneld saw Thoryn and held up a bone which had already been shaped. His excitement was bursting. "For me, master!"

  Jamsgar didn't look up. He cut the remaining bone to the size of the boy's foot and attached thongs at the heel and toe. When he was done, all he said was a bluff "There!"

  As the boy ran out to try them, Edin placed her hand on the Copper-eye's shoulder. Thoryn experienced a lance of hot jealousy. His heart hammered, and his arms went weak with rage —until he heard her words: "That was very kind, Jamsgar. Thank you."

  "Huh! Well, he's a good enough puppy."

  Thoryn stood amazed. He'd seen Jamsgar Copper-eye cuff a thrall across the head and send him flying for no reason except the man mayhap had not called him master. What manner of woman was this Saxon wife of his that she could tame men born to live briefly and die violently with words like "kind" and "thank you." And "please"?

  Most of the men went out skating that afternoon. Edin pronounced a half-holiday for all the thralls. Thoryn had never heard of such a thing being done before, but the thralls didn't question it. They eagerly followed the Norsemen out to their rink, spreading the word of their good luck to their fellows as they went.

  It occurred to Thoryn that Edin was proving an excellent housekeeper. The meals were tastier, there was a sense of quiet order in the hall, and yet the thralls seemed less weary and worn. Indeed, there was more laughter all around.

  He suddenly had an urge to take advantage of this opportunity to have an hour alone with his wife, to mayhap coax her to their bedchamber. Her ungainly shape hardly made her less appealing to him, and the thought of taking her in the middle of the day, in the light again, ignited a fire in his loins he'd nearly forgotten.

  His raid was not carefully planned; he simply crossed the hall and caught her hand.

  "What is it?" she asked.

  "Come and see."

  She was letting him lead her. "Where?"

  "To our chamber."

  She pulled back, giving him a look. He gave her a look in return, and when he tugged her hand again, she followed.

  He shut the door behind them and lifted her and swung her onto the bed. She laughed —laughed! after so many sennights of sobriety! —and fell back. "My lord, anyone could come back at anytime."

  "Aye, but if they have a pebble of sense, they'll stay away from this door." He joined her on the bed, prepared to take full advantage of this mood she was in, to kiss and toy the entire afternoon away if possible. He unpinned the brooches holding her gown and pushed it down off her breasts. They were very full now. He could bury his face between them. He suckled one and then the other while she held his head and made little sounds and arched her back to better offer herself.

  "Mistress!" The call, though muffled by the door, was unmistakable. "Mistress, I beg your help!"

  Edin started to rise. Thoryn pressed her back down. "I'll see who it is."

  It was the thrall she'd chosen to raise to a position of stewardship over the field workers in place of Blackhair. Yngvarr was his name. He told Thoryn a frantic tale of an infant daughter who was sick and hadn't eaten for two days. Edin came out before the man was finished, her gown properly fastened, her look properly cooled. The man's eyes immediately veered from Thoryn to her. "Mistress — "

  "Yes, I heard."

  Thoryn felt left out again, by his own thrall, who obviously preferred to take his troubles to his mistress!

  ". . . come and cheer her with one of your songs?" Yngvarr was saying.

  "Of course, if it will help. I'll get my cloak."

  Thoryn followed her back into their chamber. "The child may pass the sickness to you, Edin. You have another child to think of."

  She said, "What choice do I have?"

  He blocked her way out the door.

  She stood facing him, her cloak over her shoulders. "Yngvarr and his wife were kind to me once. Is it the Norse way to repay deeds with neglect?" Her green eyes met his with a shrewd fire. He knew he was being manipulated; he knew that she understood his desire to see her become more Norse in her outlook.

  In the end he insisted on accompanying her. It wasn't far to Yngvarr's cottage, and the snow was hard now and provided footing; but once in a while a man broke through the crust, and scrambling out and regaining the surface took great effort. Thoryn led the way, obdurate about at least furnishing a safe path for her.

  She greeted Yngvarr's wife, Ingunn, as if they were friends, not mistress and thrall. And she took up the fretful child without a qualm and began to sing softly. Her voice had its usual effect.

  Thoryn resisted it enough to motion Yngvarr outside to have the story of his "kindness" to Edin. He'd been told that she'd been overworked, and he'd seen the calluses on her hands. What struck him was Yngvarr's impression of her: a woman able to rise above all degradation. It was clear that the thrall saw her as a heroine, as brave as any warrior.

  When the women came out, Ingunn said, "Master, my little one smiled — and even ate a spoon of porridge for your goodwife."

  Thoryn eyed Edin and said, "Aye, she has a way with her that neither babes nor Norsemen can seem to stand against."

  By the Yule season, the days were very brief and often grey. The mornings didn't lighten until late, and it was night again by mid-afternoon. Ottar Magnusson gracefully gave up his ivory chess set in front of
all, but still no word of the coming child passed Edin's lips.

  The year was inevitably taken from its loom and folded away on the pile of other years. The new ship proceeded. Starkad, though young, was proving his worth in deploying men. The knorr's plan was in his head, and as it was built he gauged each piece by his eye. A frame had been set up in the shipyard, and the great keel fashioned. Starkad brilliantly bowed it amidships so that, if need be, it could be wheeled about virtually on its axis. Construction went on in some form daily. During bad weather there was the indoor work of making sixteen pairs of long, slim-bladed oars cut in graduated lengths so that the rowers' strokes would hit the water simultaneously whether they sat in the relatively high bow or lower amidships. The task of carving the curved, monster-jawed prow and identically curved and fiendish tail was entrusted to Fafnir Danrsson's skill. The hall smelled always of resin.

  Edin continued to side-step anything to do with the ship. Especially she avoided the corner of the hall wherein Fafnir did his carving.

  Meanwhile more names were put forth: Crane, Bison, Reindeer, Long Serpent.

  No man, drunk or steady, right-about of backward-on, could say that it was anything but a wolfs^winter. Snow filled the bowl of the valley. The hint of night never seemed to leave the sky. Great piles of precious furs grew in the outbuildings, however, beaver and sable past counting, bales of ermine so large it was impossible to tell how many furs they contained, shiny Siberian squirrel, ruby-colored fox, dark lynx skins scattered with yellow.

  Feeling helpless to make Edin happy, Thoryn's mind centered on the knorr. It was going to be the most beautiful ship ever conceived, a means of transport, a way of life, something to love —and to fear. Fascinated, he watched it take shape from the keel upward. Once the carved stempost and sternpost were in place, the body began to swell gracefully with the first overlapping strakes riveted together and caulked with tarred animal hair. Just as this planking got under way, however, Starkad and Jamsgar were called to their father's steading. Herjul was ill; his death seemed imminent. A day passed, then two. No word of the older Norseman's death came, nor any sign of the man's sons. Thoryn, impatient, ordered the planking to proceed. After all, it seemed a simple enough process, and he was eager to see the ship take on her skin.