Tindr

by Octavia Randolph

  His daughter straightened up in the row and stretched her back, and looked over to where her father stood visiting with his friend before bending once more over her work.

  “Já,” Toste lied, looking back at Krok. “I forgot she was going. Where did you see her walking?”

  “Heading up the hill behind the brew-house. The hall of the Dane.”

  Toste went back to his work, pondering over this. Sigvor had acted strangely the night he returned from visiting his mother. She was oddly happy; he thought then the day alone had in fact done her good. She had been sweet to him, and snuggled up to him in bed. Even though he was tired he acted on it, and she had responded with welcome eagerness. In the morning he thought he should try to give her more time to herself, if this was the result.

  He had heard from his mother that his cousin Eirik was returned, as if from the dead. A trader had put him ashore, and he had been at his parent’s house for several days now. His mother had clucked and shook her head as she repeated this to Toste. She disliked the boy’s wild and spendthrift ways, pinning it all on the unfortunate marriage of her sister to a man whose own family had luck in fishing but little else commendable about them.

  When Toste had arrived home, he had already decided he would not tell Sigvor that Eirik was back. If he was here to stay she must find out sometime, but he would not be the one to tell her. Few in the family believed Sigvor when she came to Eirik’s mother and father and told them she was carrying his babe. His boat had then been gone for more than two months, and here she was, claiming that Eirik had made hand-fast with her, had promised her that as soon as he had returned he would take her to his home and tell his parents about his choice. They had stared at her. Eirik already had a son with another woman, one he had refused to wed, and it had cost them some silver to end her complaint, giving her enough to dower her to another man. Sigvor would not get a single coin from them. They had no knowledge that Eirik was seeing her, and her babe might be anyone’s. Standing before them she seemed almost to consider herself their son’s widow, as if they should take her in. Yet Eirik had never mentioned her.

  Toste knew all this, because Eirik’s father had come to him a few days later. Toste’s wife had been dead over a year. He was lonely, and his two daughters needed a woman in the house. Sigvor was pretty and handy and her people well-regarded. Eirik’s father felt badly for the girl, suspected that she was telling the truth about the babe, if not the fact that Eirik had made hand-fast with her. Would not Toste wed her? It would be an end to all their trouble.

  It was a mistake, from the start. Sigvor disdained his daughters, was indifferent to his sons, and showed little warmth to her own child. She regretted being far from her family, and was left angry that they had urged her to accept Toste. He had tried to be kind to her, but oftentimes lost his temper. She was joyless in the marriage-bed, and made him feel she submitted to him, nothing more.

  What had she been doing at the hall of the Dane, he wondered, as he sliced the hoe blade into the dry soil. He had found out, after their hand-fast, that Sigvor had tried to ensnare that simpleton, Tindr. He lived at the hall. Would she have gone to see him?

  He thought over the past few days. She had seemed distracted. On two of the days he had been gone long hours, busy tending to their sheep, and going to the iron-smith. His daughter had mentioned that her step-mother had walked down the road and was gone a good while, but had returned with an apron full of strawberries from the meadow. Had she gone to meet Eirik there?

  He had come to the end of the cabbage row. He looked over to where his daughter knelt, carefully separating bindweed from the throat of a young cabbage. She was not a pretty girl, he knew, but she was good. He rested his hoe against a fence post, and slapping his hands free of dirt, went into the house.

  His young wife was there, kneeling in front of their alcove. Under the box bed were two shallow chests, and she had pulled one out and was looking through it. It was the chest in which she stored her better clothing, those things reserved for feasts and visiting. She turned when he walked in, and he saw the startle on her face. Their little boy was playing in the alcove he shared with his older brother. Her older son out with his own boys, walking the sheep to another pasture.

  He did not ask what she was doing. There was no reason for her to be looking at her fine gown and fancy shawls; there were no near feasts. He walked out again, without a word.

  Later when she was out of the house he went to the places where he kept his silver. There was a jar behind a loose board in the wall by their alcove, in which small amounts of coins and hack metal were kept, and a crock laid in the soil under a tight-fitting floorboard. The crock was set with a wooden stopper sealed with wax. It had not been disturbed. But the jar, which he had not cause to look into for a while, held far less than what he had recalled.

  That night Sigvor told Toste she would go to the trading road in the morning. She had completed a bolt of wadmal, and would take it to her sister Sigrid to sell in the stall. Toste knew she had finished the cloth; it had been hanging to dry out beyond the medlar trees.

  “Wait a day, and we will go together,” he told her.

  Sigvor’s answer was swift, and given with a small recoil of her head. “Nai, nai, it must be tomorrow; Sigrid is waiting for it.”

  Toste did not even ask how Sigvor might know that. He simply nodded his head.

  It was still dark when he felt her leave the bed. He feigned a yawn, and turned where he lay, eyes lowered but not shut, towards her where she stood, pulling on her shift and gown in the dark.

  Sigvor put her shoes on as quietly as she could. Her thumping heart sounded in her ears so loudly she feared that Toste would hear it, wake, and speak to her. She had made up many lies in the past days, but did not think herself up to another, not as shaky as she felt.

  The alcove next theirs was where her two boys slept. Her packs were in there with them, where she had hidden them last night. She parted the woollen curtains. She could just make out the dark forms of her boys where they huddled together in sleep. She felt a pang looking at them. Could she not take them with her? The elder was Eirik’s own boy; surely he would come to love him. And the younger – she had real affection for him; he was even-tempered and always smiling. But how would she get them to the cove? She would have to wake them silently. The elder could walk, but the little one she would have to carry, and she had her packs. And she must hurry; she could never carry him and them too. Then she imagined Eirik’s scowl if she turned up at the cove with them. If he refused to take them she could not leave them alone on the beach, and he would leave her behind too. She bit her lip as all this swirled in her mind. Finally she bent to kiss each small brow. The older boy’s hand lifted as if to brush away her touch. She took her packs from the foot of their bed and pulled their curtains shut.

  She crept to the door, slid the bar. The grey light of coming day fell on the floor of the house as she opened the door. Then she slipped out.

  Toste had watched her go from the slit in the alcove curtains. He sat up. The moment she stepped out of that door with her bundles she had left him, and abandoned her children, too. He was stunned that she could do so. Sigvor could pout and be petulant, but he thought her at core a decent woman, and she was a hard worker as well. Now she had deceived him, and likely with the same man who had first gotten her with child, a child he himself was now raising. He felt, with rising certainty, it must be his cousin Eirik, the ne’er-do-well so lately returned. Sitting there he felt his blood rising in his body, thrumming in his neck veins. His shock grew to rage.

  He pulled on his leggings and shoes and yanked a tunic over his head. In the corner of the house, nearest the front door, his spear stood waiting. He had it in his hand and was out the door after her.

  Sigvor was making, with as much speed as she could muster, her way down the road heading to the sea. He wanted to trail her silently until he caught them together, and kept to the shadows of the trees l
ining the road. She did not look back, not even once.

  Sigvor left the dusty road and took a path skirting meadowland. It led to the sea, just past where Eirik’s family hung their catch to dry. Toste felt his grip tightening on his spear shaft as he realised this. There was little doubt now she ran off to meet his cousin. He forced himself to take a deep breath, to loosen his clenched hand. There was no way they could remain on Gotland; he would hunt them down and kill Eirik and drag his wife back home, and have the right of the law on his side in doing so. They knew this and had chosen the sea to escape.

  He had to slow, as the path held few hiding places. Yet it was just like Sigvor, in her stubbornness, to refuse to turn and even look to find if she were being pursued. When she made up her mind she could see nothing else.

  The Baltic was before him now, lying grey and flat. The wind was light, as it almost ever is so early, but the birds were chirping and darting in the growing sunlight. The meadow ended in a line of trees and clumping shrubs. He let Sigvor make her way through them. Beyond that was the white limestone pebbles of the beach.

  Tindr had made his way along the empty trading road. He passed the great wooden statue of Freyr, and gave him a nod. He went down to the shoreline and walked on the beach, skirting the place of burial. The long fish drying racks, half full of salty slabs of white herring and cod, lay beyond this. The ground rose a bit as he entered the next cove. He saw a small fishing boat, not beached, but in shallow water. A man waited on the beach, alone. Tindr went up to the shelter of some hazel shrubs. When he regained sight of the man he was no longer alone.

  Sigvor’s heart leapt when she reached the sea. She had been walking as quickly as she could, and her arms ached from holding her packs. She was breathless and frightened, and no small part of her fear was that when she got to the cove Eirik would not be there after all. But no, there he was, a boat behind him, pacing as he awaited her. Despite her breathlessness she forced herself to run to him these last few steps, feeling the sharp stones of the beach through the soles of her shoes. She dropped her bundles at his feet and threw herself into his arms.

  “Where is the gold?” was the first thing he said.

  She clung about his neck. “It is coming,” she answered. Tears were smarting her eyes at his greeting. She remembered afresh that all depended on Tindr. “It will be here soon.”

  She turned a moment to scan the beach.

  “Who is bringing it to you?” Eirik demanded. “And what did you do to deserve gold?”

  He might as well have slapped her. “Eirik,” she cried, “I love you, only you. Do not doubt me!”

  She had tightened her grip upon him. Her back was to the sea, his to the line of shrubs and trees. As she looked over his shoulder her husband stepped forward, his spear held aloft and ready. He took a lunging step as he let it fly at Eirik’s back.

  At the first sight of Toste Sigvor’s mouth opened. No scream came forth. Her eyes went from Toste’s contorted face, then to the raised spear. She held Eirik tightly in her arms, and twisting her body, tried to spin him out of its path.

  She caught the brunt of the thrust. It struck her sideways through her ribs, into her lungs and heart. As she toppled over with the man she loved she felt a crushing blow, nothing more.

  Toste’s empty hand hung in the air, as if he could recall the thrown spear. He had killed his wife. Eirik lay beneath her, struggling. Toste’s spear had penetrated her body and entered the chest of his cousin. It was not a fatal wound, but he had pinned them together. Sigvor’s head was cast back, her wide blue eyes open. The blood from her wound spread over her bosom, drenching the top of her gown and Eirik’s chest. Eirik was making a gasping sound as he flailed, trying to push Sigvor’s body off him. He heaved himself away from her, eyes starting in his head.

  Fueled by his rage, Toste was at his side in an instant, his drawn knife in his hand. His teeth were gritted in fury. It was his mind, not his throat, that was screaming: You are the cause of her death. You die too. A single plunge of his fist buried the blade in Eirik’s chest.

  Toste dropped on his knees by the carnage. Eirik’s chest had jolted with the blow, and his blood now pooled over his tunic.

  Toste had said nothing all this time, but now became aware of someone screaming. It was a howl, not dog-like, but almost not human. Someone had run up to his side. He turned his head.

  Rannveig’s son was there, Tindr. Why had he been there, had he been walking on the beach? Yet Sigvor had likely been to see him, the day she lied and went to the trading road. Was this simpleton part of it?

  Tindr stood there, looking down at the bodies, and howling. No, thought Toste, as his thoughts raced ahead; if he were guilty of anything he would not have shown himself to me.

  Toste rose. He knew his hands were shaking. Tindr stepped back away from him, but Toste opened his palms; he had no other weapon than the two now lodging in the bodies of the dead.

  For one wild instant he asked himself if he could name Tindr as the murderer. It would be his word against Tindr’s. He knew Sigvor had tried to get Tindr as her husband, before rejecting him. Now Tindr was back to kill her as she ran away with yet another man. But no, Tindr did not use a spear. If he were to kill folk, it would be the same way he took game. And his mother was one of the most respected women on the coast; to accuse Tindr would almost be like accusing her.

  Toste could not rein in his thoughts, and knew he must. He had killed his wife, and his cousin. A man could kill another without punishment if it was clear his wife was being stolen. Eirik was his own kin and not well liked; he need not fear reprisal from his own people. But Sigvor – her people loved her, and they had standing amongst folk. He could be outlawed.

  He trembled the more, considering this. The breeze had picked up and he felt as cold as if snow lay on the ground. A decree of outlaw was a living death. He would be forced to forfeit his farm, and his children, and to leave Gotland. He would lose everything. Any aiding or abetting him were subject to being outlawed themselves. He had always been an upright man. Now he had killed a wastrel who had seduced his wife. He had meant to do so; Eirik deserved it. But he had wanted only to frighten Sigvor. He would give her a birching like the spoiled child she was, and that would be the end of it. But he had killed her too, and first.

  If Tindr had watched, he would have seen this, and seen too that he had been aiming for Eirik’s back. It was Sigvor who spun him out of the path of his spear.

  He saw now that Tindr was his only hope. Rannveig could speak to her son, learn the true tale. If Tindr’s accounting agreed with his, he might be free to go on with his life.

  The Sun had fully risen from the water. The baldness of what his weapons had done grew more ghastly in the harsh light. Tindr stood there, panting almost, unable to take his eyes from what lay before them. Then Tindr pointed at Toste, arm outstretched, a hard, direct accusation. He grunted, and turned his pointing finger along the beach, past the drying racks and towards the trading road.

  Toste nodded. If he ran now from Tindr, he would only prove his guilt, and look the worse for him. Keeping his hands open before him, he took his place alongside Tindr as they turned to go.

  A few folk were stirring on the trading road, rolling up their awnings, settling down to work. Toste knew they would make straight for Rannveig’s brew-house, and they did. The awnings were rolled down closed as they entered, and the space was dim. Tindr had pulled his whistle from his tunic, not wanting to leave Toste alone while he found his mother, but by chance Rannveig was there, carrying in cups and stacking them on the back table.

  One look at her son’s white face told her something terrible had happened, and that Tindr had seen it.

  She went to his side, touched his hand.

  “What?” she said, tapping her temple, her voice already quivering.

  Toste was once again trembling as he watched.

  Tindr lifted his fingers to his face, touched his cheeks.

&n
bsp; Rannveig drew breath. “Sigvor,” she said.

  Tindr made a stabbing or hurling motion. Then he pointed at Toste by his side.

  Rannveig stifled her gasp with her hands.

  “Sigvor is dead,” she repeated. She looked to Toste. Her words were very low. “You killed her.”

  Toste buried his face in his hands.

  Rannveig turned her head from him. She looked her son in the eyes, nodded slowly, telling him she believed him.

  Watching this, Toste’s shoulders began to shake, but he raised his head and looked to her. “I meant to kill Eirik, only Eirik, never Sigvor,” he cried.

  Rannveig took breath, tried to gather herself. She made a small gesture with her hands, that Toste should stop in what he was telling her. She drew a second breath. She went to the awnings and rolled them quickly up, one after the next. Daylight was needed in such cases, and plenty of it. She gestured to both men that they sit. Toste slumped down at a table, and lowered his head, his hands coming up around the back of his neck as if to ward off blows. Tindr sat at another table, staring at him.

  She vanished out the door, returning with two cups of hot broth, and set them before them. Gudfrid followed her in from the kitchen yard, and Tindr watched as she gave her orders, gesturing up the hill, and down the trading road.

  The first to arrive were Sidroc and Ceridwen, their concern clear on their brows. They had been at table when Gudfrid had hustled around through the kitchen yard door to summon them. They did not know why Tindr had not been about the hall that morning; it was Summer and he was not hunting. But Tindr sometimes vanished without telling them, and they felt no concern. Now Rannveig’s eyes darted to them as they entered. Tindr stood up, facing them.

  Scar was the person Tindr most wanted to see. His mother was here to speak for him, and now with Scar here he took hope. Bright Hair gave him a little smile, worried as her face was, and her hands rose gently in Tindr’s direction, as if to send comfort. He swallowed and nodded his thanks to her. His eyes fastened on Scar, as the warrior looked from his mother to him. Scar held his eyes, nodded at him. Tindr was his man, and by that nod he acknowledged their bond.