Kin (Helga Finnsdottir)

by Kristjansson, Snorri

  Hildigunnur rose and turned to her husband. ‘No one moves,’ she said. ‘Give Einar and Jaki torches and tell them to go and search for tracks. We want to make fully sure that no one came in over the fence.’

  ‘And then?’ Unnthor rumbled.

  Hildigunnur didn’t reply but knelt down by Bjorn again, shooting Helga a glance as she did. I hope I don’t get used to this, Helga thought as she joined her mother.

  Hildigunnur grabbed her hand and placed it on the dead man’s cheek. Bjorn’s body was cold to the touch, but . . . there. A drop of warmth.

  ‘He’s not been dead long. But where—?’ Where is the blood?

  He was lying twisted, half on his back with his arm pinned underneath him. ‘Help me find the wound,’ Hildigunnur muttered, grabbing the shoulder of her giant son and pulling him towards them.

  The back of Bjorn’s shirt was sticky. ‘There,’ Helga said as the scent of earth mixed with blood and the smells of a dying man rose from Bjorn’s last resting place and choked off anything else she could have said.

  ‘Right between the shoulder blades. Must have gone through the heart,’ Hildigunnur said through gritted teeth.

  A thought gripped Helga. ‘Where’s Volund?’

  ‘How in Hel’s name should I know?’ her mother snapped at her.

  ‘He’s inside,’ Thyri said.

  ‘And no one thought to fetch him?’ Hildigunnur snarled something incomprehensible, grabbed a torch from one of Sigmar’s men as she rose and stormed in through the half-open door of the cowshed. ‘Volund?’

  And then there was quiet, for heartbeat – after heartbeat – after heartbeat. The only sound was the gentle crackle of the lit torches. The darkness in the doorway to the shed spilled silence out into the world like an open grave. Within, Hildigunnur’s flame was frozen in time.

  Helga had the same idea as Unnthor, but he was half a step quicker.

  Inside, shadows swayed on the walls. Hildigunnur was standing stock-still, standing next to Volund’s bed, staring at the boy. The blanket had been swept aside.

  They all stared at the polished bone hilt of a knife, half tucked under Volund’s head rest.

  *

  Agla had taken Thyri away to sit by the fire. Gytha and Runa hovered nearby, offering silent companionship and contact, but Bjorn’s wife just cried endlessly, silently, her face locked in a mask of suffering – hard cheeks, soft lips held together with force of will.

  She did not speak.

  ‘The boy?’ Unnthor said.

  ‘He must have seen his father slaughter animals at the farm,’ Jorunn said.

  ‘And then?’ Hildigunnur said. ‘He assaulted his father?’

  ‘Who else? You found the knife in his bed. He must have snuck out – for whatever reason, I don’t know – met his father and stabbed him when he turned his back.’

  ‘I think we can see clearly that the halfwit did it,’ Sigmar said, looking concerned. ‘He has his father’s size but none of the sense – and I can’t see him denying it. But we should still ask the gods tomorrow,’ he added. ‘It is only right that they confirm our decision.’

  Jorunn nodded. ‘You’re right. I— What is it, Ingi?’

  The runty-looking fellow with hair that was thin on top and wispy on the side had taken three steps towards the group. ‘We found tracks.’

  ‘Where?’ Hildigunnur said quickly.

  Father isn’t moving. Unease flooded through Helga’s veins. He knows something.

  ‘We found them by the northeastern corner of the fence – but they’re not coming in. They’re going away.’

  There was a moment’s pause. Then Jorunn said, slowly and quietly, ‘Where’s Aslak?’

  Chapter 15

  Trial

  Helga scanned their faces. Jorunn’s eyebrows made her look as if she were solving some complicated puzzle. Her mother looked like caged thunder. Sigmar couldn’t quite keep the suspicion off his face.

  ‘The boy had the weapon. He’s a halfwit. He did it. Not Aslak,’ Unnthor said.

  ‘But—’ Jorunn began.

  ‘But nothing. It was not Aslak.’ The old man stared at each of them in turn, daring them to challenge him. No one did.

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘Same as it was, Daughter: someone here. And everything suggests that it was the boy. He came to my house as a guest.’

  Helga could practically see how bitter that last word tasted for her father. Guests’ rights were law and you could not violate them. Hildigunnur had explained why, once. It was a matter of survival: if your host could not guarantee your safety, no one would travel and no one would trade, and without trade, survival would become that much harder. It even said so in the Havamal. Unnthor would have to live with the shame of two of his sons murdered under his own roof – the only way he could recover some of his name would be if he could find the murderer and bring him to justice.

  And now he had Volund, who had been made to sit by one of the big support beams in the middle with a man on either side to make sure he didn’t run. Volund, who had no father to defend him. Volund, whose eyes she had felt following her across the room, silently pleading. Unnthor had his killer, and if Sigmar had his way they’d get an answer from the gods soon enough that would confirm his guilt.

  Convenient.

  She blinked hard to clear her mind. No. That couldn’t be it. It couldn’t be Unnthor. She looked at him again, to try and see a man who could murder in cold blood – and shivered. Oh yes, he was there: in the angles of the jaw and the shadow of the cheekbone, in the breadth of the shoulder and the set of the elbow. He was there all right. But if she couldn’t trust her own father – adoptive father, her head reminded her – then who could she trust?

  The walls of the longhouse suddenly felt a good deal closer.

  ‘I need some air,’ she muttered under her breath as she passed her mother. She didn’t wait for a reply.

  The night embraced her as she stepped out. There was no sound now, no men stampeding around the yard, chasing after a killer. There was just dark, and mostly quiet. She could hear the odd shout from one of Sigmar’s people, and she could see the occasional flickering pinpoint of light in the distance, but she felt with odd certainty that they would not find anything that pointed to an outside killer.

  No, it had to be one of them.

  But who would stab Bjorn in the back?

  She snorted when she realised her first guess would have been Karl, but he was very certainly dead and buried. So who then? Aslak? He’d vanished – but she was certain that had something to do with her father. Could they be in on it together? Hardly. How about the ill-tempered wife? No, oddly, Runa was much less combative than she had been at the start of this miserable visit, more content to hang back with her children. Her thoughts came back around to Volund. Had he done it? He’d shown her that his father did not treat him all that well – but did that mean murder? And anyway, why would he have killed Karl?

  She looked up and for a moment thought that she was seeing one face from Riverside for each of the dots in the sky. The thought amused her. They’re all looking down on me.

  Helga drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly and turned towards the longhouse. More thinking would have to wait for tomorrow.

  *

  When she woke up, people were already moving about, doors creaking open and slamming shut and she could hear her mother bossing Agla about at the far end of the longhouse. Even through the fog of sleep she felt she could judge reasonably accurately how much trouble Karl’s widow was in – not much, but increasing.

  ‘Helga! Don’t pretend, you lazy cow. I know you’re awake.’

  Well, if I wasn’t already, I would be now. She swung her legs over the side of the bunk. A breath of morning air hit her shin and Karl’s blue skin – his hairy legs, pale and white, cold to the touch – fla
shed into her memory. She shivered, but shrugged it off. He won’t get any more dead than he is already.

  ‘Come on! We need to get this done. The sun waits for no one, and we’ve a lot of work to do.’

  Her limbs felt heavy as she rose, and her head thumped in rhythm with her heart. Reluctantly she pulled on her shirt and tied the apron around her waist. The smell of meat drifted towards her – there would have to be an offering for the gods. Damn things eat better than I do. She couldn’t help but think that deep inside, Unnthor must be cursing his family for what they were doing to his rapidly declining herd.

  Hildigunnur had put Agla to work with a spoon the length of her forearm, stirring the big trough full of blood. ‘Your father slaughtered four lambs. The gods will tell us the truth – or I am never asking them for anything again. Now, take over from Agla, girl – her arms will be aching.’

  ‘No need – I’m okay,’ Agla said, but Helga could see that she was struggling. Not that it came as a surprise: the way Karl had described their farm, it sounded like she didn’t have to use her hands at all.

  ‘I know, but I have to put the girl to work. Leave her alone and she’ll be sniffing around Sigmar’s men next.’

  Helga’s cheeks flushed, but it was almost out of habit; there was no real outrage in it. She took her place on the high stool and accepted the spoon from Agla, who only barely covered a wince and her look of relief with a wan smile. As Helga set to stirring the blood, Hildigunnur said, ‘Keep it nice and smooth. Your father will need to draw on the faces with it and it looks better if it doesn’t clump.’

  She looked down at the reddish soup. How much blood is in four lambs? More than in Unnthor’s two oldest sons? Or less? It didn’t matter now. It was out of the body and it would do no good. The gods will tell us nothing. As the thought flashed through her mind—

  —she caught her breath with the intensity of the pain.

  The skin on her chest felt like it was burning, a thousand needles stabbing into her, above and between her breasts, a red-hot line pulling on her neck.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Hildigunnur’s voice sounded far away.

  And just as suddenly, the pain was gone.

  The relief washed over her so intensely that she was thankful that she was sitting down. Her scalp tingled and she had to struggle not to let her morning water go.

  ‘N-nothing,’ she said, recovering the strength to speak properly just in time. ‘Just sleepy.’

  ‘Hm.’ Her mother glared at her for a moment, then went back to jointing the lamb carcase. Her heart thundering, Helga clutched the spoon and focused her mind on the stirring. Beneath her the blood swirled, death in a circle. The pain echoed in her skin.

  What just happened?

  ‘That’s probably enough for a while. Go outside, breathe, drink some water. You didn’t sleep well,’ Hildigunnur said.

  Helga could only nod, unable to form the words. When she got up from the stool, she felt lucky that her legs actually did what they had been told.

  What is wrong with me?

  *

  The sun stung her eyes for the first couple of blinks, but she quickly appreciated her mother’s wisdom. It was an absolutely beautiful summer’s day – warm and dry, and covered by a blanket of blue sky. Sigmar’s men were busy carrying planks of various sizes across the yard and disappearing behind the longhouse, no doubt taking them into the field. She could hear Jaki ordering them about, sounding perfectly comfortable in command. She glanced towards the tool-shed just in time to see Einar disappear out of sight. He must be busy.

  Absentmindedly, she fingered the thong around her neck and stroked her rune-stones. The moment her fingertip touched the first one everything slowed around her and Helga felt suddenly dizzy. Quick as a flash, it cleared again.

  Two.

  She looked at the two rune-stones resting on her chest. The rune for need – and the rune for answers. Something was bothering her about this, like a rat crawling around in the back of her head, under the bed, inside the walls, invisible, but not silent.

  She needed to ask some questions. Questions . . . about names and time. She needed time.

  Changing course, she marched back towards the corner of the longhouse, nonchalantly scooped up a water bucket and started towards the slope down to the riverbank. As she walked, she tried to gather her thoughts. Questions. She knew she had to ask questions . . . questions about something . . . something that had happened in the past.

  ‘But who?’

  The words tumbled out of her. Trying to stop herself swivelling round and searching for an unwitting audience, she listened hard for some sort of reaction from the world.

  Apart from a solitary raven quorking somewhere nearby, there was nothing.

  Helga dipped her hand in the cold, flowing water. The chill of it helped clear her head. She dropped the bucket in and as she watched it fill up, she was imagining her head, like the bucket, filling up with ideas.

  When she rose, she had a plan.

  *

  ‘They’re beautiful.’ Gytha stood close to her mother, gazing at the statues of the gods – Freyr, Thor and Odin – standing proud in the sun, dark wood glistening, soaking up the light.

  The men had finished erecting a stage of sorts. The god-poles rose well above the heads of even the tallest there, as they should.

  ‘They are,’ Hildigunnur said, ‘but you know what they say: the beautiful ones are rarely wise.’ Agla and Runa, gathered around her, managed a smile. Thyri stood next to them, looking more like a walking corpse.

  Such different women, Helga thought. Thyri is destroyed, but Agla . . . She has recovered rather quickly, hasn’t she? She glanced at Jorunn. The daughter of Riverside looked in her element: relaxed and competent, the very shadow of her mother.

  ‘No time to stand around, you old hens,’ Jorunn said suddenly.

  ‘My daughter is, unusually, right. Get to it!’

  At Hildigunnur’s words, the women dispersed to continue with their allotted tasks. Agla wrapped a slim arm around Thyri’s shoulder and led her away, and after a moment, Gytha trailed after them. Jorunn and Runa walked over to where Sigmar was busy pointing and issuing commands.

  Helga found herself standing alone with her mother. ‘And what do we do?’

  ‘We . . .’ Hildigunnur paused, then smiled, a heartfelt smile. ‘We wait. That’s what we do.’ She turned and unexpectedly embraced Helga. ‘And though you are not of my blood, you are no less a daughter of mine,’ she whispered in Helga’s ear.

  ‘Hildigunnur!’ Unnthor’s voice boomed across the grounds.

  ‘. . . or we don’t wait,’ the old woman said, smiling ruefully. ‘Our work is never done. Come with me – someone might have to hold his paw still while I remove the thorn.’

  With that, Hildigunnur set off at a punishing pace, Helga hurrying behind. They are one, she thought. She does for him what he can’t do, and he for her. The idea filled her with an odd, warm feeling. That must feel good: to have someone you can trust like that. She came back to the real world just in time to stop herself from crashing into her mother’s back. They’d stopped in front of Unnthor and Sigmar.

  ‘We have decided that the gods should be asked at sundown,’ Unnthor said.

  ‘Dark words for dark work. Makes sense,’ Hildigunnur agreed.

  ‘And Sigmar will be asking.’

  What? Helga blinked, waiting to hear someone say that she’d misheard. When no one spoke, she glanced at Hildigunnur, catching the sanctimonious smile on Sigmar’s face as she did so.

  Her mother’s face was very carefully composed, as were her words. ‘That makes sense too,’ she said, slowly but deliberately. ‘He knows the words, and he is family but not blood.’ She smiled back at Sigmar, who nodded graciously.

  ‘That’s right.’ Her father sounded matter-of-fact about this, as if it was
the right – no, the obvious thing to do.

  But it makes no sense whatsoever! Helga wanted to scream. It was Unnthor’s farm, Unnthor’s idols, Unnthor’s sons. He of all people surely had the right to an answer from the gods – and her mother would know all of this. So why wasn’t she protesting?

  You think Unnthor and Hildigunnur are regular people – but they’re not. Einar’s words rang in her ears, along with the sneaking feeling that a game was being played and she didn’t know the rules.

  ‘And after that,’ Unnthor continued, but Hildigunnur interrupted.

  ‘We’ll see.’

  Unnthor nodded solemnly – but there was a hint of a sparkle in his eye. Menace? Anger? Mirth? There – and now gone, as if it had never been there. His wife turned and walked towards the longhouse, gesturing for Helga to follow.

  Helga heard the strands of conversation pick up again, but she couldn’t hear the words. Still, she thought, the plan holds.

  *

  Just past midday, Aslak returned. They could feel it in the trembling of the ground, hear it in the baying of the hounds, see it in Sigmar’s men shooting glances at each other and gathering behind their leader.

  Helga glanced at her father and saw the shadow of a smile on his lips. So that’s where Aslak was – and that’s why he didn’t kill Bjorn. She looked back at the youngest brother, who sat straight in the saddle and looked for all the world like the man who owned the place. Behind him, eight sturdy farmers sat astride their horses, looking stern. All of them, she noted, had some manner of weapon – axes, spears, the odd long-knife. A match for Sigmar’s men? Maybe not, but several of them would die.

  This changes things.

  ‘Well met,’ Unnthor said.

  ‘Well met, Father.’ Was there a hint of satisfaction in his voice? Helga was reminded of a dog sent to fetch a stick, dropping his precious cargo at his master’s feet.

  ‘Well met, Brother!’ If Sigmar was worried, he did an expert job of hiding it. ‘I see you’ve brought friends?’

  ‘These are our neighbours,’ Aslak replied. He was calmer and more assured than Helga had heard him before. More chieftain-like. More like the eldest son. ‘They’ve come here for the sumbel. My brother was a big man, and his honour must be drunk accordingly.’