Tindr

by Octavia Randolph

  As he looked on all this Scar came over to him. Tindr pulled a little away from the weapons; he had been careful not to touch them as he looked, but was uncertain if he had got too close. But Scar squatted down next him, an easy look on his face. He pulled his sword from the scabbard and handed it to Tindr. His hand closed about the grip and he turned it with his wrist. Despite its size it was not as heavy as he thought. He turned the blade in his hand, seeing how the waving patterns of the hammered steel danced in the light as he moved it. With a smile on his lips he passed it back to Scar. Tindr now pointed to the shield, and the gash where the wood beneath the rim lay open. He made a little uh, and tapped his temple with his finger.

  Scar nodded, and took up the shield so that Tindr could put his fingers in the gash. It had been a great blow that had shattered the iron, and as Tindr looked into Scar’s face he saw the warrior nod his head in remembrance. Then Scar turned the shield so they looked upon the inside. Tindr saw the doubled handgrip, and above it, carved into the wood, two runes, Sigel and Tyr, drawn one upon the other . Tindr knew the story of Tyr, the warrior God who had let his hand be bitten off as a forfeit. He pointed to the rune and brought his hand to his face and made a biting motion. Scar laughed, and nodded, then with serious face pointed to the rune himself, and tapped his own chest. Tindr nodded in return. Scar belonged to the God.

  The next days were busy for Tindr, and full of pleasure for him. Bright Hair was generous and smiling, and she spent much time with him, learning his signs, laughing at herself and never him when she did not understand, praising him with a touch at her heart to give him thanks for some task he had done. She went each day down to Nenna’s to get ale or just to talk. Sometimes he was there when she came, and saw how Bright Hair listened to his mother. Bright Hair and Scar spoke all the time to each other, but when Bright Hair spoke to Nenna it was hard for her, and he did not know why. Nenna would shake her head and sometimes laugh, then speak again; and he saw Bright Hair’s lips move to mimic his mother’s mouth.

  Scar was busy making tables and benches with Wood Man, his neighbour who sawed planks and gave Tindr the ends to carve deer from. Nenna sent him to his cousin’s to buy a cow for Scar, and he led her slowly through the woods to her new home. From folk on the road, his mother, with Tindr at her side, bought hens and geese, which Tindr brought to the hall so they might have eggs, and fowl in their browis, and roast goose at Blót when all killed the beasts that they could not feed over the Winter to come.

  He liked sleeping in his new alcove, which was deeper than that at home, and liked that Bright Hair always looked at him and smiled when he neared her. She did not try to rush him, and did not seem impatient if she could not understand his signs. When he laughed she laughed with him, not caring how he sounded. When he was with her he felt almost equal to other men.

  The food she made was simple, but good enough, and she made him free of it, not locking anything away, so that he could help himself if he got hungry, just like at Nenna’s. Bright Hair had beauty, and he knew all thought so. He had walked with her enough times on the trading road and seen how folk looked at her, men especially. When Scar was at her side the men looked only at Scar, not Bright Hair.

  He thought of her a great deal, even when he did not want to. Sometimes their hands touched when they worked together at something, or when he would take the bucket from her when she drew water from the well. He always looked down when this happened, not trusting his eyes to look at her. One morning when he was bringing more firewood into the hall, he saw her clad only in her shift. She was in the room in which she and Scar slept, and the door was open. She was moving within, and the shaft of light that came from the window high in the wall hit her. The thin linen of her shift was bathed in the Sun, and he could see the outline of her body as she leaned over the great bed she slept in and tucked up the coverlet. He saw the shadow of her breast, and the nipple, and the line of her round hips.

  He bit his lip and turned away, not finishing his stacking. He walked quickly out and into the stable. He was breathing fast and his leggings were tight at the crotch. He squeezed his eyes shut, wanting to hold the image of her body within him, wanting to shut it out, fighting the flooding sensations the Lady had aroused in him so long ago when she had laid him on his back and straddled him. He shook his head to try to rid himself of all this. Bright Hair was Scar’s woman, and belonged to him. Scar was a warrior, had gold, and deserved such a woman.

  And he had seen the way they looked at each other, the way Scar looked at her. He did not wish to imagine them together, but he did. At night he would lie in his alcove, knowing the door to the room in which they slept had closed, and think of Bright Hair in the bed. He had never yet stepped inside that room, and did not wish to. It was sacred to her, and what she did there with Scar.

  One morning Tindr awoke and knew he should hunt. He milked the cow in the dark, and left the warm pail where Bright Hair would find it. He went to the well and splashed his face and washed his hands in the cold water. He split his long hair and braided it into two braids, to keep it clear of the action of his bow string. At the cooking-ring he chose a charred stick, and drew the hunting runes upon both hands. He never did this without the memory of the Lady of the Forest before his eyes, of how she had taken his hands in hers and kissed them.

  It did not take him long to find his deer. He went to a place where She had often times called them, a glade ringed with aspens. When he dragged the deer back to the hall, Bright Hair was in the kitchen yard, and Scar came through the door. When they saw what he had brought, Bright Hair smiled and signed her thanks to him, her hand touching her heart and turning back to Tindr. Scar looked at the single arrow wound and nodded his head at him. Scar saw the runes on his hands, and it was then Tindr learnt that Bright Hair also belonged to the Lady; Scar told him so by his signs, and drawing the Goddess’ rune in the ashes and pointing to Bright Hair.

  The next day he went again. This time he took two stags, both large harts with great racks of antlers. He dropped them both quite close to each other; there must be ready hinds nearby to find them so. He dragged first one and then the other back to the hall; there would be plenty of meat for them, here in the hall, and for his mother.

  Scar watched him return with the second hart, and again praised him with his look. Later that day he came to Tindr as he stood feathering new arrows at the stable workbench. Scar held something in his hand, and he passed it to Tindr. It was a silver pin for his mantle, a large circle of metal, cut all about with tiny spirals on its surface so that it flashed. It closed with a long and thick silver pin to slide through the fastening hole and catch on the hook at the other side of the circle. Tindr had never owned so much silver as was in this pin, and in fact it took him a while to accept it. Scar placed it in his hand, then made the gesture of nocking an arrow to a bow, and pointed to Tindr. It was in thanks for his skill as a huntsman, but to Tindr it was more than that. He knew he was somehow made this warrior’s man, someone he valued, and wished to reward. He wore it thenceforth, every day it was cool enough to wear a cloak, and did so with pride.

  Chapter the Twentieth: Sigvor

  RANNVEIG had looked without success for a serving woman to go up to the hall and join Tindr. The Dane and his wife were busy morning till night setting up the hall to live in. Alrik the sawyer spent days there, making benches and tables and a bed with Sidroc; and his pretty wife, who called herself Ceridwen, had been sewing alcove curtains and blankets, stuffing featherbeds, making clothes, cooking and cleaning. Rannveig liked her from the start. She came every day down to the brew-house to carry away a small crock of her ale, to ask Rannveig’s advice about whom she should buy grain or other necessaries from, and to learn Norse enough so that she might do these things herself.

  Tindr had his own many tasks at the hall. He had by now fowl and geese and a cow to care for, as well as his hives to look after, and was hard at work stacking the loads of firewood that Sidroc had ordered delive
red up the hill; there was no time to cut his own and let it season and dry before Winter. And now that the stags had come down from the deeper reaches of the forest, Tindr was hunting. This meant hours in the forest, and then the hours spent dressing out the beast. Rannveig had Tindr bring the haunches back here to smoke, so that all would have meat in the coming months, and Gudfrid went up and made pies from the mincings of shoulder meat. Without a skilled cook up at the hall, the newcomers could not make the most of what Tindr brought them, and all they were forced to buy on the trading road, lacking grain and vegetables of their own.

  The best Rannveig could do was Sigvor. She was young, a maid of sixteen or seventeen Summers, and the youngest daughter of four who spun and wove from their parents’ large flock of curly-fleeced sheep. Their wool was good, and the thick wadmal fabric the girls wove and then boiled to felt down was considered some of the best on Gotland. Sigvor had got herself mixed up with one of the young sons of the richest fishing family in the area, who sold stock-fish all around the Baltic rim. He was a man who already had a child with another young woman, upland, which did not end in their hand-fast; and though Rannveig knew only a little of this and of Sigvor’s affairs, it did not seem from what she had heard in the brew-house to be a promising match for the maid. At any rate, the man in question, Eirik by name, had perished, fishing, at sea. Sigvor had begun to tell folk that he and she would hand-fast, but then he was gone.

  Tindr was surprised when Sigvor showed up at the hall. Her older sister, the one that Ragnfast liked to look at, had always come to his cousin’s Mid-Summer feast and fire, sometimes bringing the baby of the family with her. The older sister had wed the year that Ragnfast and Estrid kissed, and no longer came to celebrate Mid-Summer with them. Tindr still saw all the sisters on the trading road, in their stall where they stood at their looms or walked about, spinning their wool, but did not expect one of them to come to the hall to live.

  He did not have a name for her. Tindr did not name all who he met or came across, thinking of some only as, this one, or that one. But now that she was come to help Bright Hair he must have a way to name her. She had plump and reddish cheeks, so he chose a double touch at his cheekbones as her name.

  She chose as her alcove one on the other side of the hall from his. She swept and laundered and helped Bright Hair chop cabbages and carrots. She did not smile much, and kept her head down as she caught the ash flakes with the birch twigs of her broom. When she stood spinning with her spindle dropping from her hand, her blue eyes looked at something far away. She paid little mind to him, as if he almost were not there, and though Bright Hair showed her how to ask him to do things, she rarely did, asking Bright Hair to tell him.

  One morning when he was sitting at table Red Cheeks brought a platter of food and placed it before him. She had already brought the single platter from which Scar and Bright Hair ate, but now brought him one of his own. For other meals she had simply piled food enough for both of them in two or three bowls and laid them on the table. The plate she had made up for him was done with the same care with which she made up that for Scar and Bright Hair, the eggs fried in butter to one side, small loaves of bread next to them, and chunks of baked apples, still steaming, to the other.

  He looked up at her as she set it before him, and she smiled at him. Then she sat down on the other side of the table as she always did.

  From that day on she looked at him, smiled at him, began to ask him to help her when something was heavy or out of her reach. He saw she was pretty, and very much so when she smiled at him.

  One afternoon Red Cheeks stood at the well by the front door, drawing water. It was the larger bucket she was pulling, and when he came around from the stable yard and saw her strain at its weight, he went to help her, just as he did with Bright Hair. He startled her slightly, so intent was she at her task, but she quickly smiled and let him take the handle from him. When he had pulled the bucket all the way up, Red Cheeks laid her hand over his where it closed upon the bail. He almost flinched in his surprise, but she looked at him from under lowered lashes and smiled once more.

  She did not hold him thus for more than a moment, but paired with her smile it was enough to know that she liked him. He began thinking of her in a different way. He had carved a little rose from a ball of bees’ wax, and given it as gift to Bright Hair; she had remarked over it, and kept it with her at the table that stood by her loom. Now he made another flower, for Red Cheeks.

  He hoped to be near her when she might need his help, and now she came to him often to ask. She touched his hand again, touched his arm, smiled under her lashes as she placed his food before him. At night he lay in his alcove and thought of her, so close by, her soft and plump body snuggled under her blanket.

  One afternoon when Bright Hair was at the brew-house and Scar away on the trading road, she waved him over as he passed on his way to the stable. She was at the well, and he guessed she wanted to haul the big bucket up for the cook-fire cauldron. But when he got there she had the line for the small pail in her hand. As he neared her she dropped even that, letting the pail rest on the well cover.

  She stood there, looking at him, the smile growing on her face. He slowed, uncertain, but with her hand she motioned him closer. He stepped near her, and she lifted her arms and placed them about his neck. She raised her face to him and pulled his body against hers.

  Her lips pressed his and did so with firmness. She thrust her hips forward against his, and he felt the softness of her breasts pressing against his chest. His own arms had lifted, and now clasped her about her back. She held herself fast against his body. He was of a sudden trembling with excitement and desire, thrilling to her own desire for him.

  Her body was warm and soft in his arms. Her mouth kissed his again. She paused, her chin resting on his chest. He made a sound, a guttural gurgling; he could not help it. She looked up at him, the slightest of frowns on her face. He had reminded her that he was deaf, and could not speak. She stepped back a bit, looked at him once more. He could not read her face other than know that he had done wrong in making any sound.

  Two nights later Tindr was at the brew-house when the brother and father of Red Cheeks stopped him. He saw the anger in their faces, and felt it in her brother’s clenching hand, closed over his shoulder.

  Scar was there and stepped between them, took the brother’s hand off him. Tindr wore Scar’s big silver pin, knew he was this warrior’s man. Because of this he knew he need not fear these two; but he feared what he did not know. They all, with Nenna and Bright Hair, walked up the hill in the dark. Red Cheeks was there, awaiting them.

  What happened next was all confused. All were looking at him, him and Red Cheeks, but she herself would not look at him. Her brother was pointing at him, his face pinched in anger. Scar spoke, and Bright Hair spoke to Red Cheeks, and made the tears come into her eyes. Finally Nenna began to sign to him, told him Red Cheeks would bear a babe, asked if he were the father.

  He was so stunned he almost howled. They had kissed by the well, nothing more, and when they had done she was no longer smiling at him; her lip was twisted in disgust.

  Then the anger turned on Red Cheeks. He feared her brother would hit her then and there, and her father scowled at her.

  Scar spoke, looking at him. Scar looked at Nenna, asking her to make the signs for him. His mother stood before him, before them all, and asked him if he wanted Red Cheeks.

  His heart was racing. She was pretty, and had kissed him, and she could be kind. She had seemed to want him.

  He made the gestures to her, there in front of everyone, clasping his hands together. He would be her man, if she would be his woman.

  It took her a long time to answer, but as she did she finally looked at him once more. He did not need Nenna or anyone to tell her that the lifted lip and sneering mouth meant Nai.

  He dropped his shoulders. His heart that had been pounding felt stopped in his chest. Her father and brother began to ge
t her things from her alcove. He and Nenna left then, back to her house, and he spent that night with her.

  Alone in his old alcove he did not sleep. His heart felt like someone had held a burning coal to it. Everything had happened so fast; Red Cheeks bringing him his food, smiling at him, kissing him. Then her folk were angry at him, had almost come to blows, and she would not have him after all.

  He did not see Red Cheeks again until Winter. During the time of Winter Feasts he was on the trading road with Bright Hair and his cousin, and there she was. He could see that she would have a babe soon. She looked at him with no expression. Then a man came out of a trading stall and she turned and went to his side.

  He had looked away then, but he had seen the hurt in Bright Hair’s face, hurt she felt for his sake.

  A few weeks later he walked the woods after a fresh fall of snow. It was not deep, but enough to cover the soil asleep beneath it. The sky was silver, like the peeling bark of certain birch trees, and only a glint of Sun shone low overhead. His footsteps slowed; he stopped. There was a fallen tree nearby and he sat down upon the dark trunk, welcoming the solidness underneath him; he had felt almost faint.

  He set his elbows on his knees and hung his head. When he lifted it, there She was. The white hind stood before him. She looked at him with raised head, ears unmoving over the deep brown eyes. He had not seen her fully since he had bathed in the forest pool, now years past. Still, there were times when he was out in the trees when he thought he saw a flash of white just out of eye-range.