Beautiful Wreck (18 page)

“Ginn,” Heirik called from up ahead. “Ride with me.”

His voice drove Betta’s spine up straight. Her eyes flicked up to him and Hár, then she looked at me where I sat stricken with embarrassment and lust.

“Hurry,” she told me, an intense whisper. “The chief doesn’t wait.”

She was a mystery. So strong and secure in herself, so logical and even, and yet scared—or not—of Heirik. I couldn’t tell.

He looked patient, actually, like he could wait for me forever. So relaxed and free, at one with the fluid motion of his animal and the peace of his sky. He didn’t look back to see if I was coming. He knew.

When I came up behind him, he gave me room on his right.

It was infused in every small interaction—the way he turned the left side of his face and body away. He listened with one ear turned, folded his arms to avoid the awkwardness of unwanted handshakes. He must feel the lack of a friendly jab or gentle brush of fingers on a wrist. A casual tap on the shoulder. Surely he saw everyone else doing those things a hundred times a day. I wanted to give him those moments, to simply touch my hand to his.

My fingers tightened in Drifa’s mane, and she writhed a small complaint.

The world was saturated with every kind of green, from the emerald glaze of tall grass to the chartreuse of lichens and gauzy mint of moss. The impression of green seemed ready, though, to turn at any moment to an allover gold. The land was on the cusp of something. The promise of fall coming right on schedule made time itself seem so steady and reliable and slow, passing season by season, not in a crushing blow of 1200 years in a flash. My horse drifted closer to Heirik’s. He didn’t draw away.

We turned to follow the long curve of the forest. It was deep with knee high greenery and shadows, filigreed with angelica tops and light. A thousand wisps of papery bark curled to reveal blush and orange and copper under the trees’ white skins. The wood here was threaded with a crystal stream. I closed my eyes and could imagine Saga and Odin drinking at its tiny banks, somewhere back in the tangle of trees and wildflowers. Tasting the water of time in their cups.

Slow and comfortable moments passed. I looked at Heirik, and I thought maybe I felt a kind of gravity between us. Not only my attraction to him, but a pulling together. He lowered his dark lashes, then, as though with reverence, perhaps for the stream or trees. Did he think Saga was here, too? Or was it just for the stillness of this moment? Even amidst the buzz of the world and the people behind us, I thought maybe he felt we were alone. He smiled in his one-sided way and it was not quite as fleeting as usual. It broke me open with its charm.

He turned into the sun, and his eyes lit up gold and cinnamon before he raised his hand to shade them. He returned, then, to being chief. “We keep the homefield. The walls below will be in disrepair.”

It was a simple fact of weather and men and material, and I could see that he’d forgotten snowblooms and stream and was already assessing the solutions in his mind. Which walls, when. His eyes were on the horizon, and I might no longer exist. One moment I felt he was open to me, the next he was a closed gate.

The perimeter wall was built in the same style as those around the homefield, but weather had eroded the top and sides, and in some places the wall was worn to a hump-like shape, a huge snake slithering toward the horizon. I dismounted Drifa to walk beside it, running an easy finger along its surface. Assuming Heirik fixed this section of wall every year or two, the effects of lashing rain and whipping North wind were frightening, a pointed reminder of the harsh winter I was bound to live through without snowsuits or heated buildings. I struggled to picture myself enduring the slogging, frigid dark. Without hot chocolate, I thought, and laughed at myself. Was that what I would miss?

Right now, the sun was the hottest since I’d come here. It touched the bareness of my neck and wore away at thoughts of winter. It warmed the spot where my tattoo would have gone. My raven. Now that I knew Heirik, I wanted it again, fiercely. I gave up the relief I’d felt at the bath and wished instead for a blue swan that everyone could see. I wondered if Betta could do it with a needle and dye.

I stood on tiptoe to peer over the wall. Half a foot taller than me, Heirik could easily see beyond. He crossed his hands on top of the sod and rested his chin. Then he looked down at me and noticed I was too short. He drew Drifa close. “Get up,” he commanded me gently.

I was being shown the farm, its shape and features, where I was on earth, where the best foraging was for the things we collected, herbs, roots, leaves, lichens. On the surface, this was a simple necessity. I needed to see the places I might be called on to go. But I wondered why the chief himself was spending the afternoon checking out the simple facts of walls. Why he had drawn me close to his side to see what he saw. I felt like somehow he’d come along for me. Some part of him wanted to make me know he was good. The abundant sweep of land proved he was important. The sturdy walls gave me security. This was a prosperous family, and he was head of it. Or perhaps I was wrong, and he simply wanted me to know my place.

He took Drifa’s lead and brought me near to his side, closer than we’d ever been before, and now I was sure I felt it. Something lit up between us. His hand closed on the reins, and I felt a luxurious pleasure at being so close, a longing to be even closer. My leg almost brushed his shoulder. I took a deep breath and looked out.

Mountains stood purple and white against a rich blue sky. Planes and curves of heartbreaking colors—slate and ice and green and black—carried to the horizon. Otherwise, the tough grass outside the wall looked similar to that immediately within. And though it was as gorgeous as all the island, this patch in particular was plain and still. Nothing moved, not even a puff of clouds to give the light any shape or direction.

But Heirik watched. He didn’t just take in the view. He looked with a wary attention, like one of the dogs who’d lifted its head from sleep. It was eerie. And even more chilling a moment later, when three dark shapes rose small but distinct on the horizon, as though his wolfish attention had conjured them.

He waited calmly and without a word. Soon they were close enough to talk. “Yfirmaðr,” one man called, using Heirik’s most formal title. My liege. He raised his hand in greeting. Heirik dropped Drifa’s reins and stepped away from my side.

“Same thought,” the man said. “A good day for checking walls, I guess.” His voice was cracked as though his windpipe had been damaged. The air moved laboriously in his throat. A voice like none I’d heard before, a rare treat. He slid from his animal and walked closer until he and Heirik stood with just the wall between them.

When he got near, my curiosity about the man’s voice chilled. His shoulders hunched forward as if he carried pain in his chest, so that he was an inch or more shorter than he ought to be. His close-trimmed beard revealed a subtle sneer, an eloquent twist of the lips. I wanted to smooth his cheekbones and eyebrows, iron the creases of anger out them with my thumbs.

“Ageirr,” Heirik greeted him with acceptable warmth, but not much.

So this was Esa’s brother, the goat in the night. The man whose gloomy and declining house had joined our farm.

He was grieving. His whole aspect showed he had been for a long time, and I could actually imagine him as a lowly animal, aching, leaning his horns heavily into a sod wall in defeat.

Heirik told him, “This is Ginn. A guest of our house.” Ageirr turned his pinched face to me and seemed to waken just a little, taking an interest in me. He raised one eyebrow and smiled, devoid of feeling.

Bowing his head slightly, he was through with me, and he turned to Heirik and began talking of the coming hrettir. Roundup. His blasted-out voice, and Heirik’s rich one, receded as they walked down the length of the wall. But I still felt Ageirr’s attention on me, as though some part of him remained behind. I couldn’t shake off how he’d smiled at me with no soul.

Setting out for home, Heirik picked up Drifa’s reins and matched her step. He walked outrageously close to me. So near, I thought I felt it again from him, an answering. A desire that called to mine.

It was as though we’d always done this, walked side by side, me on my horse and Heirik on foot. The top of his head was just below my shoulder, and I wanted to turn and touch my nose to his shining hair, breathe in iron and fire. I almost brushed him with my leg. I could right now, yes.

He let go of Drifa. He mounted Vakr without looking back, and he and Hár took off fast, leaving the rest of us to amble home.

The ride back to the house was luxurious. The sun was almost always bright in summer, and I had no reference for how long we’d been gone. I saw the men far ahead, their bodies and the way they held themselves so similar in silhouette. Behind me I heard Betta, Magnus, and Haukur, the foster boy. Their murmurs were just out of reach, and I listened not for the words but for the rhythm and feel. The melting tones of shy flirtation, the surprised laughter like scattered birds. Such sweet young men.

Everything green was rimmed with gold now, and I let my eyes lose focus. I was floating, listening to voices like bells and butter, when Drifa stumbled. Jolted awake, I shrieked and grabbed her mane. She shrieked too and shook her head and I was canting forward, falling face first into the ground. Magnus was by my side, vaguely helping me somehow, lifting me up, Haukur was helping Drifa. All in a space of a few seconds we were put back together.

She’d gone down on a rock. It wasn’t just a little twist of the ankle. She’d gone all the way down onto one knee. I shook with the thought that she could have broken her leg. My lovely girl.

Magnus said she was a strong and steady little thing, he wouldn’t have thought she’d ever stumble. He searched her face warily, as if she might be an impostor, and it made me giggle. Magnus smiled broadly then, and he laughed too. Betta’s horse came up behind Magnus and inserted her nose under his armpit, curious and worried. We laughed more, and it covered up the racing of my heart and an unsettled feeling.

It wasn’t until we got near the house and I heard the chief talking to Hár that I fully relaxed. I felt the safety of him speaking, no matter the words.

I dropped a kiss on Drifa’s forehead, meaning it for him, and went inside.

Saturday was always washing day. Thralls worked on our clothes by the river, and everyone made a point of bathing. I didn’t want to make a spectacle of myself getting in the pool and washing my hair more often than everyone else, and so I waited a few days at a time. By Saturday, I felt grimy, hot and disgusted.

I didn’t understand why we couldn’t bathe first thing in the morning. The pool would be lovely right now, reflecting the massive, cloudless morning sky. I’d sneak a break now, while I could enjoy it alone. I’d dip my toes in the water and watch its blue and purple ripples. I grabbed a wool blanket to take with me, to dry my hair.

The tunnel was fairytale sized and scented with freshly swept dirt and roots. A place where trolls could travel, certainly, hiding from the light. Solitude echoed, along with my footsteps, but it was a brief moment alone, just two minutes’ walk. As soon as it seemed too dark to go on, I saw the square of light. I was about to push the door open with my hip, when he rose from the water. I froze, too stunned to breathe.

Heirik was bathing alone. He stood in the center of the pool, looking down toward the sea. Thigh-deep in spring water. It was running off his hair, over his skin. Fine tendrils of steam curled and drifted off every bit of his back and waist and hips. His muscles were both lush and solid as iron. The swells and hollows of him were lit everywhere in tones of palest rose and darkest brown blood. I said thank you out loud. It was the barest whisper to any goddess nearby, for he was fiercely and divinely made.