Hildigunnur stared at Runa’s back, then at Helga. For a moment, there was a twinkle of something in her eye. ‘Fine. But stay behind me. If there’s a fight, circle round, try to get at their backs.’ Her mother was already moving towards the door. They could hear raised voices from the outside.
The doorframe felt rough on her hands. What if this is the last time I leave the longhouse? Her fingertips lingered on the wood. There was a definite emptiness inside her, something missing . . . Fear. She had no visions of swinging axes, no thudding in her chest, nothing. As the sunlight made her blink, Helga realised that she really wasn’t afraid. Maybe she wasn’t as far from Hildigunnur as she’d thought.
She stepped outside.
Her eyes adjusted to the light – and she blinked, twice, not quite believing what she was seeing: nine horses, all big, strong animals. On them sat five silent men, with Sigmar in front. Maybe it was just the angle, but looking up at him Helga couldn’t help but think that a man looked very different on horseback. Sigmar seemed comfortable and relaxed. There was definitely something different about him.
He was carrying a sword.
The scabbard hung off his side so naturally that she hadn’t noticed it at first. Behind him, the men all carried axes or other blades of some sort. Two of them had bows slung over their shoulders as well.
In comparison, the defenders of Riverside suddenly seemed . . . human. Bjorn was a big man, granted, but one kick from a horse’s hoof would see the end of him. Standing side by side, Unnthor with his axe and Jaki with his club, her father and his sworn brother suddenly looked very old – and next to them, Einar and Aslak a lot younger.
‘Unnthor Reginsson. I come to you with an apology.’ Sigmar’s voice was calm and measured.
‘For what?’ Unnthor growled.
Helga’s breath caught in her throat as Sigmar moved swiftly – and dismounted. ‘I left your home in haste, and I did not treat my wife as I should have.’
She could feel her mother tense up beside her as voices drifted towards them.
High-pitched voices.
Children’s voices.
Agla and the women emerged from around the corner of the longhouse, walking slowly, in a tight group. Herded. Behind them, three armed men moved like sheepdogs, silent but dangerous.
‘They were waiting,’ Runa said, seething.
Good to see she’s recovering, Helga thought.
‘Sigmar.’ Jorunn’s voice was quiet, but somehow audible by everyone.
The effect was immediate; Sigmar looked deeply pained. ‘My dearest wife,’ he said. ‘Please.’
‘Please what?’ Jorunn said.
‘Please forgive me.’
Jorunn stared at him and her mouth moved as if she was trying to form words that weren’t quite coming out.
Helga looked around. Not a single person in the farmyard appeared to know what to think. Unnthor was still clutching his axe; Einar looked confused. Sigmar’s men looked bored but ready, like they’d done this – or something like this – countless times before.
‘I do not know what’s going on here,’ Hildigunnur said firmly, ‘but here’s what’s going to happen. Sigmar, you and your men are invited to break bread with us, and possibly drink something cold too. While you are under my roof, you will have guests’ rights. Jorunn – you are going to talk to your husband. If I see another blade out in the time it takes me to count to five, the wielder of same will be in serious trouble. Does everyone understand?’
The effect of her speech was immediate. She turns men into boys, Helga thought as she watched knives, swords and other implements of murder hastily disappear.
‘Welcome to Riverside,’ Unnthor boomed.
Sigmar’s men dismounted, leaving Einar and Jaki holding nine pairs of reins. Bjorn stepped in to help, as did Gytha, and within moments the horses were being led to pasture as the newly declared guests headed to the longhouse. Volund sloped off after his mother, while Bragi and Sigrun immediately assaulted the newcomers with a barrage of questions.
‘Come on,’ Hildigunnur hissed, snapping Helga out of her dreaming. ‘I told you. We’ve got visitors.’
*
The longhouse had filled up; the hastily assembled table was suddenly a lot more crammed. Hildigunnur conjured oatcakes from somewhere, along with loaves and butter. She rolled out a keg of ale, but insisted on pouring herself, so she could make sure it was reasonably watered down. Helga trailed around behind her, trying to find things to do; her mother was suddenly moving even faster and more efficiently than she’d ever seen.
The first thing Sigmar did was step aside with Unnthor.
‘Tell me, daughter of mine,’ her mother muttered under her breath as she buzzed about, improvising food for nine new guests, ‘what are they talking about?’
Helga looked harder at Unnthor and Sigmar. ‘It’s impossible to hear’ – Hildigunnur’s contemptuous snort suggested that more detailed information might be needed – ‘but the way Sigmar’s standing suggests that he has something urgent to say.’
‘And—?’
‘Father is leaning back and tilting his head to the side.’
‘Which side?’
‘The right.’
‘Good,’ Hildigunnur said.
‘Why?’ Helga said.
‘His left ear is better. That means he’s listening. Keep watching. Watch everyone.’
Helga did as she was told, and all the while, her thoughts were racing: Runa got beaten to a pulp, then took the blame. Aslak fought for her. Jorunn lied. Sigmar left, then came back. Are they still married? Nothing made sense. She’d scratched the rune of need onto Runa’s bed. Does this mean it worked? Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sigmar move towards the table.
‘He’s sitting down,’ she muttered to her mother, who acknowledged her with the smallest of nods before swooping in with tankards of weak ale for the guests, then sitting down quietly next to her husband. Yet again Helga marvelled at her mother’s ability to shape-shift as the occasion required. The front keeps changing – but what’s behind it?
The question didn’t stay alive in her head for long. She didn’t allow it to.
Unnthor dipped his chin in thought, then looked around at his family and Sigmar’s new additions. ‘We can all agree,’ he began, ‘that whoever killed Karl cannot have come from the outside. The dogs would not have recognised them.’
Mute nods around the table.
‘Sigmar’s men, who were camped five miles down the road, have seen no one pass. And so it must be that the killer is in this room. Sigmar has graciously offered his trusted men as guards to make sure no one leaves before we find the knife and the murderer.’
Her stomach sinking, Helga glanced towards her mother, but Hildigunnur said nothing; she just sat and watched.
She’s waiting for a reaction.
‘And why should we trust him, Father?’
And there it was. Jorunn was sitting bolt-upright, staring daggers at the chieftain from Riverside. ‘These men are also under my command. If I command them to leave and they don’t do what I tell them to, are we not right to assume that they’re sent here to finish his job and murder us all in our sleep?’
‘Come now, Sister,’ Aslak said. ‘You shouldn’t need to worry unless you have something to fear.’
‘Am I wrong?’
‘I’ve had about as much as I want out of you,’ Hildigunnur said, a tone to her voice that made Helga involuntarily shift backwards. ‘You’ – she turned to Sigmar – ‘and you, outside. Talk.’ When neither of them shifted, she added, ‘Now.’
Sigmar was the first to rise. ‘Come, Jorunn. Please.’
With a show of great reluctance, Jorunn got to her feet and walked towards the door, not acknowledging Sigmar in the slightest. Her husband followed, looking a little less like the leader of men he had
been just a short while ago.
When she was almost by the door, Jorunn whirled and snapped, ‘Why am I doing this? I don’t need to go anywhere with you. I owe you nothing—’
Sigmar recoiled. ‘What do you mean?’
Around the table, the guards were looking decidedly awkward.
‘For a year you’ve kept me as some kind of decoration. You’ve kept me out of every market there was, you’ve created reasons for me to stay home, you’ve done nothing but evade and hide. I know some women live like that, and some women are fine with it, but that is not what we had. That is not what I want. And if that is how you’re going to be, then I don’t want you.’
Sigmar froze in his tracks. ‘What—?’ he breathed.
‘Don’t lie to me!’ Jorunn shouted, tears in her voice. ‘Don’t lie to me! You should tell me things! You shouldn’t – you shouldn’t hide things!’
Then laughter bubbled up out of Sigmar, just a short burst, and he walked up to her and took her in his arms. ‘Oh! No, my love, no, no, no . . .’ He started whispering in her ear as she struggled against him.
Unnthor and Bjorn were half out of their seats when Hildigunnur spoke. ‘Sit down, you oafs. They’re fine.’ And indeed they were, for what had started out as a struggle was now a tight embrace, and Jorunn’s shoulders were shaking with either laughter or tears.
Around the table there were mixed reactions. Agla and Gytha wore identical, open-mouthed expressions. Runa was whispering to Aslak, who was eyeing the couple suspiciously. Bjorn sat back in his chair, his face somewhere between boredom and annoyance.
Helga studied Sigmar and Jorunn, trying to read in their bodies what was being whispered. She could not see much of Jorunn’s body, nor her eyes, and for some reason, this bothered her. I don’t trust that woman. I don’t trust her at all.
Finally, husband and wife broke their clinch.
‘Well?’ Hildigunnur said.
‘I . . . um . . .’ Jorunn looked sheepish. ‘I got it all wrong. Sigmar explained.’
‘And?’
‘Mother . . .’ Her voice was barely a whisper. ‘I am with child.’
This was noise of a different kind. Agla leaped up, ran to Jorunn and hugged her, but Bragi and Sigrun were fast behind her, shouting joyously, ‘Where is it? Can we play with it?’ Jorunn reached down and stroked Sigrun’s hair.
‘And you needed your husband to tell you this?’ Hildigunnur said, to smirks around the table.
‘No,’ Jorunn said. ‘No . . . We’ve only known for a few months and I’m not thick in the waist yet – but he’s been travelling all around, finding me the finest of decorations for the child.’
‘If it is a boy we will name him Unnthor,’ Sigmar announced.
The hairs rose on Helga’s arms. Sigmar is in on it too. This is a performance. They’re both—
She noted movement out of the corner of her eye and the door closed behind Einar. As people were standing up around her, rushing to congratulate the beaming couple, she used the chance to duck out after him.
*
Even though it was near twilight, the sun was still up, with only a hint of the coolness of night. She saw Einar walking towards the tool-shed, shoulders slumped. Her feet decided for her, and she followed. The thought of staying in the longhouse, watching Jorunn spinning her tales, set her teeth on edge. Why were they doing this? Did they murder Karl together, maybe? She turned it over in her head. She’d heard that carrying a child did funny things to a woman’s head, but murder? Apparently they screamed bloody murder when it came out, or so Hildigunnur had told her, but to take a man’s life? A sleeping man who could not defend himself?
On the other hand, Sigmar had looked like he knew how to handle a knife. Maybe he had sliced Karl open on his wife’s behalf. That sounded more likely. She cleared a shelf in her stockroom for Sigmar. It’s getting crowded in here. Maybe— The first metallic clink sent the walls of her imagination crashing down and brought her back to reality. Shed. Einar. Right.
The door swung open at a light touch and the noise of rhythmic but controlled hammering grew clearer.
Einar was bent over his workbench, right arm rising and falling steadily.
Helga cleared her throat, but nothing changed.
She tried again. This time, the hammer rested briefly on the workbench, but then the arm rose just like nothing had happened.
‘Stop,’ she said softly. ‘It’s just me.’
The hammer landed on whatever he was beating and stopped there. ‘I know,’ he said, back still turned to her.
‘Do you need any help?’
‘No.’
She watched as his back hunched, like he could retreat into himself and shut her out. What could she say? What would Hildigunnur have said? ‘I don’t think you’re missing out on a big catch there.’ For a moment she thought she could see the words leaving her mouth, like someone coughing up their insides. What was that, you stupid girl? The love of your life is a lying whore? That’s not going to bloody help!
‘What do you mean?’ Einar had not relaxed a single muscle. Nor had he let go of the hammer.
‘She – I—’ Anything. ‘The way she went for Runa,’ Helga stammered. ‘She doesn’t . . . I don’t think she is very nice.’
Einar’s shoulders rocked back and forth once as he snorted. ‘You’ve hardly been off this farm since you got here, and that was a lifetime ago. How would you know?’
His words stung: there was a sharpness to him, a willingness to hurt. ‘What do you mean?’ Helga said. The door is just there, she thought. If I need to, I can—
‘How would you know? Your world is Hildigunnur and Unnthor. You think they’re how all people are – but they are not. They’re hard, both of them: hard as nails. They’d do anything to keep their place in the world. Jorunn is better than they are, and you will not say otherwise.’
Einar turned and Helga almost gasped. His face was twisted, somehow – there was only a hint of the friendly, open-faced boy she thought she’d known, and what had replaced him was something else, something angry – something holding a hammer like a weapon.
Someone who could do anything to anyone.
The realisation hit her like ice water. And who would do anything for her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered, not taking her eyes off Einar. ‘I just wanted to say something nice. I’ll go.’
Einar’s mouth twisted and the hard set of his face softened a little and she finally caught a glimpse of her brother behind the fury. ‘You can stay if you want to, but I’ll have to work. And I . . . um . . . I know. I know what you’re trying to do. But sometimes talking doesn’t work. You have to . . . do things.’
He paused and looked at her.
He is searching for words, she thought, but they’re not coming.
Instead Einar turned, raised his hammer and brought it down on the worktop with force.
Helga retreated out of the hut, not quite daring to look away. There had been a set to his jaw that she hadn’t seen before, a determination. You have to do things. Had he . . . ?
As she closed the door, the evening breeze played with the hairs on the back of her neck. She shivered.
*
Unnthor leaned back in his chair, Hildigunnur to his right and Sigmar to his left. ‘I can’t keep them here for ever. There’s not enough space, and in a while there won’t be enough food.’
‘So the first one to leave is the murderer, then?’ Sigmar said.
‘That’s weak,’ Hildigunnur said. ‘All they’d need to do is wait until your men killed the first poor soul to mount a horse.’
Unnthor snorted. ‘My wife is wise. She is also able to think like a murderer, it appears.’
Hildigunnur smiled sweetly. ‘That’s what it takes to stay married to you, my love.’ A brief titter spread around the table where they sat. ‘
But if no one confesses and we don’t find the knife . . .’
‘There is one thing we could do,’ Sigmar said, and Unnthor and Hildigunnur both turned towards him. ‘Bjorn’s son had the pendant. We could ask the gods.’
Unnthor snorted. ‘They won’t listen,’ he said. ‘And if they did, they might not tell us what we want to hear.’
But there was a gleam in Hildigunnur’s eye. ‘That is an excellent idea,’ she said, smiling at Sigmar.
‘Why?’
‘Shut up, Husband. Your next thought is that we could just beat it out of them, and if that happens you’ll have a house full of murderers. No, Sigmar is right. The gods will know.’
‘So it is decided, then,’ Sigmar said.
Unnthor nodded, his lip curling in distaste. ‘It is decided.’
*
Had Sigmar murdered the man who’d insulted him? Had Gytha lost her temper? Had Einar’s lost love driven him crazy? Helga’s mind raced; any one of them was as likely a murderer as the rest. Runa? She’d been strange and jumpy. Jorunn? She had lied – but for what reason?
The faces of the family filled her head, all of them snarling and spitting, with darkness in their hearts and death in their eyes. She didn’t notice the shape in the shadow by the corner of the hut until she nearly stepped on an outstretched foot. ‘Oh!’
‘Sorry,’ Volund mumbled, tucking his gangly legs back in under his knees. ‘Didn’t mean to . . .’
‘No, no,’ Helga said hurriedly, ‘you’ve done nothing wrong, Volund, really truly. But why are you out here?’
‘Don’t know.’
What should I say? What do—? Helga made a concerted effort and reined in the part of her brain that was racing ahead and allowed herself to just do the first thing that came to mind.
She sat down next to the boy and looked up. There was a delicious quality to it, just sitting down and looking up at the sky. They could hear muted chatter from the longhouse. Far away in the field a cow lowed plaintively.
‘The light is changing,’ she said.
Kin (Helga Finnsdottir) Page 18
