The Book of Bera

by Suzie Wilde

  They took an oar each and rowed strongly with the same rhythm. There was some wind out in the fjord but they were in the lee of the mountains and short cold gusts, which would flatten the boat if they raised the sail too soon, dropped down from them.

  A gust fizzed past. It whipped Bera’s hair out of its braiding and she tasted saltiness in her mouth: the taste of her element, the sea. She was a creature with brine for blood. For a moment she was part of the surge and suck of waves and their constant rattle against rock but then she was a sea bird. She swept up and soared, gliding over the creamy tops of ocean rollers, sleeping with wings outstretched and weathering the storms with lonely grace.

  The sea lust was on her, reflected in Egill’s glassy eyes.

  It was time to raise the sail. Bera studied the neat coils of rope. Everything on board was tidy: Ottar would smack any boatboy who made a mungle of the lines. There were five of them, each coming from a point of the square sail.

  ‘Is this one the haul-yard?’ she asked.

  Egill looked blank. She only knew rowing.

  Bera hauled and, sure enough, the heavy yard twitched on the thwart. She waited till Egill got the bow into the wind and began to raise it. Years of weather proofing fat made the sail stiff and brown. As the rope passed through her hands, Bera noticed part of it was chafed.

  ‘Look. Two strands are frayed right through. I hope the wind doesn’t get up too much.’

  ‘Will it break?’

  ‘It might. And then the sail would drop and there’s nothing to haul it up with again, unless I climb up the mast to reeve another line.’

  Egill slapped an oar. ‘Still got these.’

  The wind was pushing the boat astern. Bera steered it round to fill the sail, which squared off, and she took the yard-lines to the best rail pins. It was a good breeze, brisk and steady. She was a sailor again, a woman in charge, with able crew.

  They grinned at each other and Bera forgave Egill everything in the instant.

  They headed out beyond the Skerries. Waves patted the hull like an old friend, some dolphins raced them and they were free. A small bird landed on the deck, looking startled. Perhaps it had only just fledged. Egill nursed it on the palm of her hand until it set off for the far shore. It fluttered, dipped and drowned. Bera glanced at Egill but she was looking ahead, so she kept the small death to herself. Was it an omen?

  Bera meant to steer away from Bjorn’s island but somehow Fate blew the boat ever closer to where her friend met his death. Even at the last, she thought she would skim past and go off and fish. She had fooled herself about her reason for coming out but now she gave in to it and dropped the sail, letting the boat drift in to nudge the shingle.

  Egill made off a line at the bow, jumped over the side and knotted it round a large rock. She was standing on the killing beach, except she didn’t know it. Bera was reluctant to join her, as if the island itself held the threat of sudden violence, and the bird’s death was a warning. But Egill smiled and beckoned and she went ashore.

  It was instantly warmer. Bera threw off her coarse smock and left her underskirt tucked up, liking the air on her bare legs. Egill took off her boy clothes and sat with her back to the rock.

  ‘Can be anything we like here.’ She yawned. ‘So sleepy. Safe here with you.’ She lay back and shut her eyes.

  It was impossible for Bera to be anything she liked here. A memory from the narwhale day came, vivid:

  ... something coiling like smoke around its tusk.

  ‘What have you seen?’ Bjorn’s face so white, blue veins at his temple.

  ‘Staring at me like a boggelman! Let’s take this tusk and...’

  There was no hiding from it. She left Egill dozing to let what followed unreel, trying to breathe, as she came to the place.

  She expected to see her young, stupid self waiting for her. There was only her skern.

  There’s no blood left.

  She kept her eyes fixed on the sea-rim.

  No need to brace. All the blood washed away many tides ago.

  ‘I want to be alone here.’

  No, you don’t. You want to be alone with Bjorn.

  Bera clutched her necklace, shut her eyes and willed her skern to leave. When she opened them he was still there, sitting on the sand and inspecting the underside of his foot.

  I’ve come to tell you something important and this time I’m not going until I have.

  ‘I want to ask you something first.’

  He sighed but left his foot alone.

  ‘Is Bjorn trapped here until I make Thorvald pay the blood debt?’

  You’ve trapped him, sweetheart, in your own mind.

  ‘Why did Sigrid say that I couldn’t marry Bjorn?’

  Too far in the past. Now – the important bit. My news.

  He covered her eyes:

  ... the darkness was a sky split yellow with lightning. Thunderclouds stacked above the mountaintops and the sea was hammered lead. Seabost was sullenly remote and no folk could be seen but their boats lunged and surged at the jetties. A swollen river flowed through the fields and rolled on, flooding houses.

  ‘We shall starve.’

  Watch.

  A form loomed out of a frigid mist that made the fjord as milky as the dawn air. It was the shape of a fat teardrop, as dark and ribbed as the throat of a humpback whale. It was one of Ottar’s boats, heading out to the sea path. A seabird cried and there was a crushing sense of grief.

  She was kneeling on the sand, with the stab of loss in her ribs that was heartbreak.

  Egill rushed to her. ‘What is it? Bera? You’ve been crying out.’

  ‘I saw terrible storms. Fog. We’ll pay for this, come the change of season. All the rain will come at once and the river will flood.’

  ‘Pay for what?’

  ‘Everything I got wrong.’

  ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘Take to the longboats, Egill. It’s all we can do. When it comes.’

  There was no need to say Fall End was the wrong time of year to be setting out across the Ice-Rimmed Sea, with fewer boats, thanks to Egill. Bera would have to use all her Valla power to save them. First, she would have to persuade them she was right but feared they would never believe her with midsummer approaching. When the disaster struck, unprepared, there would be panic. She had to face the fact that she would need Thorvald’s strength. She would deal with him when they were safe.

  What Egill was thinking as they dressed she didn’t know – and they got back aboard and rowed without speaking.

  The wind was heading them, so they could not lay a course straight to Seabost under sail. Bera thought about the rope chafe in the haul-yard and listened out for warnings but all was well. The regular, rhythmic creaks of wood and rope; the tap-tap of the blocks and pins; the small snaps of the sail with every wind shift and the hiss of water past the hull were the song of her own life, like the surge and swell of blood.

  She lifted her face to the hot sun in a clear sky and laughed.

  ‘What’s to laugh at?’

  ‘Being alive!’

  It was on a long tack away from Seabost when the line finally broke. There was no warning, just a bang as the yard came crashing down and the sail with it.

  Bera cursed. ‘Ottar will beat the lad for leaving a frayed rope rigged.’

  They heaved the oars into place and took up the stroke. Bera’s stomach muscles ached and her buttocks cramped. She was no longer fit. Egill was humming, damn her. The joy of sailing was gone and it was all Hefnir’s fault for stopping her. He was trying to stop her being who she really was. Bera worked harder.

  When they were nearing the boatyard, she was on her last reserves of energy and turned to check how much further they had to row.

  A woman was on the slipway. Sigrid.

  Bera wanted nothing to do with her. ‘Did you tell Sigrid how to handfast?’ she asked Egill, all her anger back.

  ‘All the folk wanted to know.’

  It was what D
ellingr had said. This was all Sigrid’s betrayal. The searing pain between Bera’s shoulder blades made her more furious.

  Sigrid did not wade to meet them with the winch hook. Her face was bloodless and drawn.

  Bera spat. ‘She’s too scared to paddle.’

  Sigrid shouted. ‘Heggi’s been poisoned.’

  Terror coursed through Bera. Surely the mash for Thorvald was well enough hidden? She jumped out and left the boat to Egill.

  The boatyard was acrid with wet smoke and no sign of her father.

  ‘Ottar ran there, soon as I told him.’ Sigrid puffed to keep up.

  The lads were standing about, dazed from the fire.

  ‘Help with the workboat,’ Bera yelled as she passed, ‘and get its ropes replaced!’

  ‘What with? Most of them burned.’

  That wasn’t her problem. Heggi was. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  Sigrid panted. ‘Hefnir angry – Heggi out all night – so apple boxes – and Thorvald...’ She bent double. ‘Got a stitch!’

  Bera left her behind.

  Had Thorvald found it and fed it to Heggi? No. He protected the child. Bera punched the side of her head. This was her fault alone.

  The ancestors swooped with malevolent spite but there was deathly quiet inside the hall. Some thralls passed like shadows at the far end with buckets and bowls. There was a very bad smell that Bera feared was death.

  Then the sound of terrible retching, like Heggi’s ribcage coming up.

  ‘Save him, Mama,’ she prayed with her whole being, and ran.

  Hefnir and Thorvald blocked the way to his billet. She panicked, thinking they would kill her, but she pushed her way through to see Heggi. Ottar was holding him over a bucket to be sick. Blood-flecked drool hung from his chin.

  Ottar looked at her grimly. ‘Where were you?’

  Hefnir shook her. ‘Some Valla you are! Do something!’

  Bera pushed down her terror. Perhaps she could save Heggi and live.

  ‘I need to know what he ate,’ she said, ‘and when.’

  Heggi fell back, his eyes fluttering in a yellow face. Hefnir went to him and put a wet cloth on his brow. Thorvald gestured her out of the billet. He led her to the pantry, where Sigrid was sitting, rocking herself. Bera had never felt so bad in her whole life. Thorvald must know she was a murderer but surely he wouldn’t kill her yet? She couldn’t think straight.

  ‘Heggi can’t lie,’ he began. ‘Unlike you. Hefnir asked what he’d been doing at Brightening, so he told him straight about Dellingr’s girl. Hefnir ordered him to fetch apple boxes and take them to be scrubbed as punishment.’

  Sigrid interrupted. ‘I told her. Heggi’s scared stiff and refused to go.’

  Thorvald nodded. ‘So Hefnir told me to put him in the cell.’

  ‘Cold store kind of a thing,’ Sigrid said. ‘It’s what I’m saying. Terrifies Heggi.’

  Bera knew. ‘Where you’ve taken him before.’

  ‘I never lock him in there. The old store’s bad enough.’

  The place of the Drorgher. Poor Heggi.

  ‘The boy found one of your brews.’ Thorvald’s voice was stone.

  Sigrid showed her the dish. ‘I kept it. Look.’

  She didn’t have to look. Bera’s guts twisted in torment. She would make any deal with Fate, with the ancestors, she would even let Thorvald live if Heggi would only survive. The ice-kiss of terror froze her lips.

  Thorvald glared at her. ‘What do we need? Come on. What plants?’

  ‘I d-don’t know! Sigrid, did my m-mother...’

  Sigrid’s eyes slid away. ‘Her medicine wasn’t like yours.’

  ‘N-n-need...’ She tried again. ‘N-need to get it out of him.’

  ‘Poor mite’s throwing up all he can,’ Sigrid said.

  ‘S-Salt.’ Bera staggered, like an old woman. ‘I’ll go and—’

  ‘I saw you,’ said Thorvald, anguished. ‘I watched over you while you picked those plants.’

  Sigrid bustled over to him. ‘And I asked you to keep her safe. I told you, she’ll have been dealing with the rats, won’t you, Bera? Where it was hid and all. I moaned about the rats, didn’t I? So it’s all my fault. She was clearing the rats, ready for the summer stores coming.’

  Sigrid was trying to save her by lying to her own husband. Thorvald’s cold stare showed he suspected it. Bera was wracked with guilt for every cruel word and deed she had visited on her. Bera vowed to be as good and kind and forgiving as her mother had been – even to Thorvald. Then she might save Heggi. Perhaps a Valla had to be worthy of her power.

  Her skern was doing nothing but complain.

  This isn’t at all my thing. I’m more the big picture, feast and famine, epics. I leave you with the domestic detail.

  ‘Shut up and show me what I need.’

  When are you going to warn folk about the flood?

  ‘I’m trying to save Heggi’s life.’

  They’re still planting crops up there.

  Bera gave a low growl and he whistled across to a patch of bog plants she had never seen before.

  Ooh, look! Cure-All. A rarity.

  Bera gathered the brightest, wettest leaves. He pointed with a languid finger at another unknown plant.

  That one, too. There are rules, you know.

  ‘For healing?’

  For getting the result you want. Something to do with intent.

  Like some of his other statements, she already knew it, deep down. And ALU made intent stronger.

  ‘Will he live?’ She had to ask.

  Her skern waggled his flat hands in a ‘touch and go’ gesture and vanished.

  She had to want it for the best of reasons, not to save her own skin.

  Hefnir came in and watched her pound the few plants with some honey.

  ‘Heggi said it tasted sweet,’ he said. ‘At first. That’s what attracted him.’

  ‘To attract the rats,’ Bera said quickly. ‘I didn’t think anyone would go in there.’

  ‘If only I had sent a thrall instead.’

  Bera hoped Hefnir meant a grown woman wouldn’t eat it, not that she should die. But, then, she had meant it for Thorvald. Did that make her as bad as him?

  His eyes were red and swollen and even his beard looked dismal. Bera touched his hand in pity and they took the potion through to the billet together. The bitter stench of bile made Bera gag. Sigrid and Thorvald stood near Rakki, who was lying in a tight ball. Ottar was on the bed, beside the still, small figure. Bera felt no jealousy. In fact, she was grateful, if Ottar’s strength could only keep the boy alive.

  He didn’t take his eyes off Heggi. ‘He’s stopped being sick. It’s too late.’

  Bera crouched by them. ‘Raise Heggi up a bit for me.’

  She pushed a small spoonful of the mixture between the child’s slack lips. He did not seem aware of anything, couldn’t chew or swallow, so Bera held his nose and mouth until he did. He coughed but kept it down.

  ‘More,’ Hefnir urged.

  Bera did the same thing three or four times. Then Heggi suddenly arched out of Ottar’s arms, his eyes rolling back in his head. He thrashed in wild spasms, in what were surely his death throes. Rakki stood growling, hackles raised, as if a Drorgher had hold of his boy.

  All they could do was watch in horror.

  The seizure passed. Heggi fell back, a dead weight. Bera put her cheek near his mouth and could feel nothing.

  ‘Come on, Heggi, breathe. Please, Boykin, come on now, be strong and breathe for me.’ She pushed the tousled hair off his forehead and kissed it. Cold as stone.

  Ottar cursed softly and Rakki came to stand guard.

  ‘Boykin.’ Tears were drowning Bera, salt in her mouth, drips off her chin.

  There was a rasping, shuddering breath and then Heggi coughed and was sick again. This time his eyes stayed open. He dug his fingers into Rakki’s fur and burst into noisy tears. Bera hugged them both and then stood aside so that the others could get at him.
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  Afterwards, Hefnir and Thorvald left without a word to her.

  Ottar cleaned up without complaint and took the bowl away while Bera made Heggi comfortable. Her care was real now, but was it too late? There remained a sense of some sorrow yet to come.

  What would be the end of her attempts to poison Thorvald? And in the longhouse, too, so was she being punished for breaking the rules? A life for a life. She would give up killing Thorvald if it meant Heggi lived. For, against all reason, one truth was hammering her brain:

  She loved this little stepson of hers.

  11

  That night Hefnir and Thorvald sat apart from everyone, drinking silently and determinedly. Bera wondered if Hefnir was working up the courage to kill her. Sigrid and Ottar stayed with Heggi. Whenever she checked on him no one looked up.

  On one of her trips her skern settled on the big chest that stood on its own platform. Hadn’t Hefnir said it was for important household chattels? As mistress she had all the keys. She found the right key, turned the lock and lifted the heavy lid. Inside was part of a whorled tusk.

  I knew you’d be pleased. Gives some purpose to Seabost having it.

  ‘I’ll use it properly, too.’

  Bera was confident that she could cure Heggi with it and give Bjorn’s death some meaning.

  Surely Hefnir would not kill her if she saved his son. She went through to the pantry and sent the thralls away. One of them was the slant-eyed woman from the bath hut. Bera realised she had been missing for a few days and wondered if Hefnir sent her off on other duties.

  Alone in the shimmer of a short night, Bera stood at the threshold and held the tusk against her cheek. There was the faintest shiver, which she would have missed if she had not felt the living power of the whole tusk before.

  She went back inside, fetched the sharpest skewer and carved: ALU.

  A bold sun rose. Hefnir and Thorvald had drunk themselves into a stupor, slumped together near the fire, their limbs entwined like snakes. The sight made Bera sick. She was dog-tired when she slipped the special medicine stick under Heggi’s pillow and nearly got in beside him. But she said a few words and then fell into her own bed. She would tell Hefnir about the coming flood when he was sober.