Tindr

by Octavia Randolph

  “Tindr!” Estrid pulled off her linen head-wrap and went to his side with it.

  “Why did you do that?” demanded Ragnfast.

  “What?” asked Assur, looking not at him, but at Estrid.

  “Pushed him. You wanted to run. I beat you. He was beating you. You pushed him.”

  Tindr looked back and forth between the boys. Estrid began to tie her head-wrap around his arm. The scrape stung, but he did not look at it.

  “Nai. He ran into me,” Assur answered.

  Ragnfast caught his breath, looked to Tindr, then to Assur.

  “So ask him,” Assur challenged. “See what he says.”

  Ragnfast lifted his hand. He first tapped his temple. He pointed to Assur, made a shoving motion, then pointed at Tindr.

  Assur snickered. “Is that how you talk to him?” He gave a laugh, and waved his hands meaninglessly in front of Tindr.

  Tindr looked at him, at the sneer on his lips, and the plump hands flailing in air. His look lasted a moment longer, then Tindr turned on his heel and walked away. Estrid trailed after him, and it was she Assur was staring at as they went.

  Dagr had need to stop up a few slow leaks in his boat, and now he and Tindr knelt within the hull, smearing tar and a mass of brushed-out cow-hair and dried moss between a few strakes which had lately shrunk. They had gone together to the tar-sellers on the trading road, Dagr carrying back the small but heavy pot of thick pitch, Tindr already holding the basket of cow-hair and the moss he had collected from the forest floor over the past few days. A day earlier two men had helped Dagr haul the heavy boat high up upon the shingle, and Dagr and his son climbed aboard the tilted hull and began their work.

  Tindr liked the smoked aroma of the tar; it was to him the smell of every soggy marsh and every rotting tree stump and every cold fire he had ever sniffed, but darker, richer, and warmer than all of these. Dagr used a tapered wooden spoon and a scrap of oiled hide to pack the mixture in, but Tindr still found himself with tar-splotched hands by the time his father gestured he could go clean them in the sand.

  Tindr squatted on the stony beach near the second set of upright supports for the pier. He scrubbed his hands with wet sand and tiny pebbles until his palms were pink and only a finger and thumb nail showed the black line of tar lodged there. As he stood he saw a knot of children moving along the beach towards him. He squinted to make them out. He did not know them. Perhaps they had come from some far upland farm; now was the time that many would make their final trip to the trading road before the shorter days of Fall made it a two day journey and not one.

  The children slowed, and the youngest of them began picking up stones and flinging them into the water. He would not go to them. He could not make himself known to them; they would not understand his signs, know he was deaf, nor even his name and people. And the more folk there were the harder it was for him, trying to watch their faces, guess what they meant. As he watched them one of the older, a girl, turned and looked at him. Her arm shot into the air, and Tindr saw the smile on her face. It was Estrid. She took a few steps nearer him, touched her ear, pointed to her eye, then waved him to come closer. She was happy to see him and wanted him.

  Tindr took a step, then recalled his Da working back in the hull. He lifted his bone whistle to his lips and let out a long shrill call. Dagr’s head appeared from over the ship rail. Tindr pointed to the children, and grunted his uh, uh uh. Dagr glanced down the beach, nodded Já, and held his hands out flat and straight in front of him, the sign for assent. Tindr grinned at his Da and went to the children.

  Estrid was the only one he knew. There were a couple of boys about her age, and one younger, and a small girl. The taller of the boys was in a tunic too big for him, so that it reached well past his knees. The other boy’s leggings had been patched front and back, and one of the patches was half ripped off, showing his pale kneecap when he walked. Estrid was now sitting on a rock next to the little girl, and was combing her fingers through the child’s hair. Tindr was close enough now to see they all had round eyes and light yellow hair. He nodded to each as they looked to him, and saw that the bigger boy’s lips moved. Tindr looked down and watched Estrid.

  She had taken off the little girl’s head wrap, and it lay, a limp and yellowed rag of linen, on the far whiter limestone of the sea edge. The little girl was fussy and squirming, and Estrid was picking at something in the child’s hair, above her ear. Tindr got close and saw it was a burr. It had gotten caught in the child’s hair and had worked itself up, as burrs will do, close to the skin.

  The little girl tried to turn her head to look at Tindr, and as she did began to cry against the pulling of her hair. Tindr saw the pink mouth round and the face scrunch, and saw as well that the small face was dirty. Estrid was trying to calm the girl, and pulled her on her lap so she could pick out the burr.

  Another boy, a bigger one, appeared at the edge of the beach, having come from the trading road. Tindr recognized him at once: Purple Neck. That was why these yellow-haired, round-eyed children were here; they must be his brothers and sister. Purple Neck stepped up upon a flat topped rock, and looked down at them. Tindr did not know whether to stay or go. He sat down on the rocks near to his friend and the squirming little one and waited.

  Assur jumped from rock to rock to reach them, as he had when Tindr had first met him. The last leap was a long one, and he almost lost his balance as he landed before Estrid. She looked up at him and said something, then turned her attention back to the burr trapped in the little girl’s yellow hair. Tindr saw Assur glance his way, then turn his eyes back to watch Estrid. He saw Assur say something to Estrid, and Estrid say something back, without stopping in her work.

  Then Assur was pulling his knife from his belt. He leaned over Estrid to the little girl, and put one hand on his sister’s head, and with his knife in the other sliced through the tangle in her hair. The other boys were looking open-mouthed at their brother. The child shrieked. Estrid jumped up, the child wailing at her knees. Assur stood with his knife in one hand and the yellow clump of hair in the other. Tindr looked at the frightened girl and saw the patch of nearly bare pink scalp where her brother had sawn through the fine hair. The girl was too big for Estrid to pick up, but she knelt down at the child’s side to try and soothe her. As she did she turned her head back at Assur and said something in anger to him; Tindr saw her twisted lip. Assur dropped the hank of hair. He was re-sheathing his knife when Tindr saw Assur’s head turn towards the road.

  A man stood there. Tindr and Estrid saw Assur stiffen as he looked up at the figure gesturing to him. One of the boys picked up the sobbing little girl and went to the waiting man. Assur made his way to him, and when he reached him the man extended his arm and struck Assur backhand against the side of his head. The little girl was red-faced, screaming all the more, and the man looked again at the bare patch on her head and cuffed Assur a second time.

  Tindr sat watching from his rock. His Da had never struck him thus. He knew other boys got birched, and some girls too, but he had not seen a grown man hit a boy in the head like that.

  He could only recall his Da hitting him once, a long time ago, when he had the idea to try to lower himself down the well while sitting on the edge of the big wooden bucket. His Da had caught him before he could swing himself over the hole, and had swatted his backside. He remembered how white his Da’s face had been.

  “I almost had it picked out,” Estrid was saying, aloud, but to herself. She mimed to Tindr the action of her small fingers, working their way through the silky hair. She looked up at the retreating group, sharp against the skyline. She could still hear the wailing girl. “He would not wait!” she went on, angry for the child’s sake. “Said he would help me. Oaf! Troll!”

  Chapter the Ninth: Of the Hunt

  AFTER his morning chores were done Tindr would walk into the woods. He did so nearly every day, rain or Sun, and only if the snow was beyond his knees was he forbidden to go. But
first there were the beasts to care for. Before the sky was fully light he would make his way to the small barn, to find the cow waiting outside the barred door for him. He would let the flock of gabbling grey geese out, and as they streamed, wings flapping into the day, she would follow him into the dim stall where the deep copper basin awaited. Bending into the cow’s warmth, Tindr would sometimes turn his head and press his ear against the short stiff hair of her flank. He could feel, rather than hear, the rumble of the workings of her gut, and the bellows-like action of her soft inhalation. If she lifted her head to low he felt the tremor in her bulk, and he would low back to her, feeling in his own chest the vibration which he hoped sounded like hers. She did not mind his singing, just as the skogkatts did not, and as he poured out their dish of warm milk he might place his hand on their furry chests and feel the thrill of their heavy purring in his palm.

  A woman had now come to live with them, Gudfrid by name, for Rannveig was grown so busy with her brewing she needed help. Gudfrid had taken over the kitchen yard, and Tindr would carry the milk basin to her, and return to the barn to gather whatever eggs the speckled hens had left him.

  If Dagr was fishing that day he might already be gone, but if he were not the family would sit together with Gudfrid and break their fast, out by the cooking-ring if it were Summer and dry, and in at the small wood table when it was cold or wet. Gudfrid was a fine cook, better, Tindr realized, than his own Nenna, and there were crisply toasted loaves of bread which dripped with butter, tangy bowls of thickened milk skyr, eggs boiled or fried, and steaming crockery dishes of boiled oats which Tindr drizzled with big spoonfuls of his golden honey.

  Then Tindr would leave. When he was small it was not easy for Rannveig to watch him slip into the trees and out of sight. He knew to be home by midday; when the Sun was over his head he must return. He would be needed to weed the gardens, carry and stack kindling, and help his father with the nets and catch when he came home. Until then he was in the marshes and forest, alone. Except he was not alone.

  Over his head birds flew, and perched in branches. Tindr could not hear their song nor chirps, but from the tail of his eye would catch a small movement and he would stop and watch. By seeing if they startled or not he learnt to slip his booted feet gently under the fallen leaves, or to tread upon the green and arching ferns which made no noise. His sharp blue-white eyes would trace the paths of small moths and butterflies as they lit upon the wildflowers which ringed the open glades, and with those eyes he would follow the movements of clouds of gnats as they rose and fell above still-wet grasses. Tiny creatures such as mice and shrews scurried before him, and the spiny hedgehogs which made him smile would waddle off when he discovered them in the act of digging up grubs. Red foxes would flash into view, turn their pointed muzzles his way, then trot on. The big blue-grey hares would sit up on fallen logs at the edges of clearings and look at him before bounding away, dark thumpers hindmost.

  The first time he saw a boar he stood, stock-still, as the beast turned in his direction. He had seen a clump of bushes shuddering, and waited to see why. The four yellowed tusks, up-flaring and down-hanging, with one broken off short, he saw first, followed by the moist and dark leather of its snout. Then came the bristled sloping head, arching from the thick neck. He saw the boar snort, could make out the movement of the thrusting lower lip, and the beady eye met his for one long moment. Then it turned and ambled off.

  But the red deer that ran the woods of Gotland were his favourites, those young stags and does, and larger harts and hinds that filled him with pleasure. He marvelled at their speed and grace as they darted and leapt through the grasslands and through the stands of birches and hazels. The delicate slenderness of their strong legs, the chiselled planes of their faces, the lustre of their dark eyes beneath tufted and ever-moving ears – they had to Tindr a wild beauty that the finest horse could not match. And they could appear and disappear in a moment. A deer would emerge before him, firm and solid and with chest expanding with its breath. In one beat of his heart it would be gone, his mind recalling a ruddy flash of colour where it had stood.

  Several times in late Spring he came upon their fawns, finding them curled up in tall grasses. He would wonder at their red and spotted coats, their tiny cloven hooves at the ends of folded legs. One day he did nothing but await the return of the hind, hiding himself behind the cover of trees until she arrived to nuzzle her young. The fawn stretched its neck to meet its mother's nose, then sprang up on its spindle legs to stand at her side. The small angled face ducked under the slender flank of the hind, and grasped onto the teat waiting there. After the briefest space the two were off, bounding into the forest undergrowth.

  He had beheld the source of those fawns, seen in Fall the antlered stags come sniffing, lips curled, after young does that trotted coyly just out of reach. Then the doe would stop, and sometimes look behind her. Tindr would watch with breath held as the stag extended his neck, tongue reaching and nostrils flaring, as it sucked in the scent of the ready doe. He saw the long and red male member of the stag swell, as the stag reared up behind her and embraced her as he stood. Their bodies met, and after a few thrusts the stag would drop, head lowered, away from her. After a short while the stag would again return to the doe.

  At rut the stags were at their most majestic, muscled bodies thick from Summer's good feed, antlers at their greatest span, and coats almost shimmering. This act of creation called forth their best selves, made them even more impressive than they were at any other season.

  Tindr had ever witnessed the mating of animals, from the roosters of the kitchen yard who fluttered and danced on the backs of the hens, to the skogkatts, crouched low with swishing tails, to mighty bulls who seemed to call open-mouthed to their cows. He saw the urgent need of male animals to join their bodies with that of their female kind, and guessed too that many females shared this desire, for he saw how mares swished their tails and stretched their necks to the stallion. He knew his own prick was the same tool that ram or bull or stallion bore, and knew too that after some while, long or short, young would come forth from ewe or cow or mare after she had been touched and held that way. All of these things were good. Increase in fowl and beasts meant life-giving food, and wool and hides for protection. Without beasts no folk could survive, and Tindr had been taught to give thanks to the Gods who created and protected them.

  But in the greenwood this act took on a new significance. Part of it was the wild setting, one far from other folk, which he had become a part of, almost akin to the forest animals themselves. Part was the glory of the stags themselves. No other male beast was transformed by their rut as were they, and the lustre of their coats as they pursued the does made them magnificent to behold. And part was the knowledge that the Lady of the Forest, Freyja, the Goddess of all woodland beasts, appeared here on Midgard as a hind. So great was her love for her deer that she herself came in their guise. She came, he was told, as a white hind. None had ever seen her; but if she permitted man but a glance, that is what they would see.

  It was with this feeling of reverence, even awe, that Tindr began to hunt deer. It was his Uncle Rapp who first took him, with his cousin Ragnfast, out at dawn and into the forest beyond Rapp's farm lands. Ragnfast had come to fetch him on his big roan horse, and Tindr spent several days at their farm. Tindr had already proved his sharp eye and steady hands at home by shooting hares and squirrels, and had so filled the target boards his Da had made him with arrow pecks that he and Dagr had dug them up and reversed them to give him a new surface on which to draw his deer. Now Rapp took his son and nephew into the dawn woods. He had wanted to wait another year with Tindr, thinking the boy young enough to tire easily, but when Tindr learnt Ragnfast would go he begged that he might join them, cupping his two hands together in a bowl shape, and bouncing on the tips of his toes in his eagerness.

  Tindr, already at home in the forest, well knew how to walk without snapping twigs or unduly moving brush. He knew too th
at if he were upwind of a deer his scent would betray him. He could spot and follow scat, and judge the age of cloven hoof prints in soft soil. These things he had learnt himself; or rather, the deer themselves had taught him. It was left to Rapp to show him how to select a spot neither too near nor far from a deer track, choose a tree to hide his presence, and wait. It was Rapp who taught him to draw a deep but quiet breath as he lifted his nocked bow; and Rapp who showed a clean kill, the deer dropping after a little start in a heap after the arrow shattered the ribs and lodged in the heart, and a failed kill, in which they trailed the bleeding hart a long way before Rapp could end its torment.

  “The Lady will be angry, and the meat not as good,” he told his son, as he shook his head at himself. Tindr could not know what words he spoke, but his meaning was clear. Together, and at Rapp's hands, Ragnfast and Tindr learnt how to gut the animal, how to make the drag sling to make it easier to pull the carcass through the woods and to the kitchen yard where it must hang and grow tender. And it was Rapp who showed Tindr the rituals which must be attended to; the washing of the hands and face before entering the woods, the small Offering of a pour of milk, a hen’s or goose egg, a silver trinket which the generous Goddess would be glad to accept in return for releasing a deer marked for them to take.

  Ragnfast had been out with his father before, but had taken no deer himself. Each time he took too long to ready and lift his bow, let fly an errant arrow, or stepped on a noisy twig and alerted the deer before he could do either. But this time out with Tindr, both boys made their kill. Ragnfast shot a young stag on the first day. He hit the shoulder, but his father Rapp was there to take the second shot and drop the beast. Gladdened by this take, the three headed back to Ragnfast’s, where his mother and sisters welcomed them. The second day, one of steady drizzle, yielded naught. Now it was their third morning out, sharply chill and with a damp and grey mist rising from the leaf-littered ground. The mist did not give Rapp heart; it would only deepen in the glades in which they would be most likely to come upon deer, and shooting at shadows was the best way to lose the arrows they had spent much time forming.