Bracelet of Bones (10 page)

The Bulgars were indeed interested in all the furs, especially the more valuable ones. They pinched them and rubbed them between their fingers, talking quickly to each other as they did so.

“Their condition,” Slothi told Solveig. “Their color. Their thickness. Look! Now the age of the animal.”

“How do you know?” asked Solveig.

“By watching them,” Slothi said. “Look how that man keeps turning over the sable. There! Smelling it. Checking how well it’s been cured.”

When Brita and Bard ran up, pink and breathless, and flopped down on the hide of a black bear, the two Bulgars smiled broadly at Slothi and nodded.

They grunted and growled like bears themselves. Then one of them bent down and squeezed Bard’s left shoulder. He put his thumbs on the boy’s cheeks and forefingers on his brow; then he pulled his eyes open and stared into them.

“Leave me alone,” complained Bard.

The other man, meanwhile, pinched Brita’s bottom as if he were testing whether she was ready to be plucked and roasted. Then he put both hands on her cheeks, dragged down her jaw, and peered inside her mouth.

“Stop it!” cried Brita. “Why are you doing that?”

“That’s enough!” said Slothi, and he drew his daughter to him.

But the Bulgars only nodded and smiled, and then they examined another hide, all the while talking thickly to each
other. They sauntered away, and then they strolled back again.

The older man stroked his beard. “How much?” he asked.

“Which ones?” said Slothi, spreading his palms. “The red squirrel . . . the sable marten . . . How many?”

“Both.”

“Both what?” asked Slothi.

“Children.”

“No!” cried Solveig.

“No! No!” said Slothi, half frowning, half smiling. “These children,” he said, pointing to himself, “they’re mine. My children.”

“Ah!” said the Bulgars, much surprised.

“No slaves?” one man said.

“No,” said Slothi. “Certainly not.”

The other Bulgar pointed right at Solveig. “Slave?” he inquired.

“No!” said Solveig loudly. “Of course I’m not.” Her heart hammered in her chest.

The man stuck out his lower lip and rubbed his thumb and forefinger extravagantly.

“Tell them!” demanded Solveig.

Then Slothi linked arms with Solveig. “My companion,” he told the Bulgars. “Good boatwoman. Good sea woman.”

“Ah!” said the men. “Ahh! No slave.” And they nodded at Solveig, but they still went on eyeing her and Solveig’s heart went on thumping.

“Next time,” Slothi said. “Slaves next time, maybe.”

So the Bulgars each gave Slothi a handclasp, and with that they sauntered off again.

“They’ll buy our hides and furs,” Slothi told Solveig. “You’ll see. But if they think they’ll get a better price by keeping Red Ottar waiting, they’re mistaken.”

“What did you mean?” Solveig demanded. “Next time, maybe. Red Ottar doesn’t sell slaves, does he?”

“Not unless they come his way,” Slothi replied. “Believe me, they’re not the best cargo.”

“He wouldn’t sell Edith?”

Slothi laughed. “No, no! Not Edith.”

But what about me? thought Solveig. What if I can’t pay my way?

“Actually,” said Slothi, “I’ll tell you a secret. Red Ottar’s very pleased with Edith, and he wants to buy her a gift.”

“She’s like my older sister,” Solveig told Slothi, “except I don’t have one.”

Slothi smiled. “We all need one of those,” he said. “They tell us to ourselves. Yes, Red Ottar has asked Odindisa to choose a brooch for her from the fine craftsman here and say charms over it.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Solveig. “I do wish I could see his workshop.”

10

B
runi and Odindisa set off for the workshop, taking Solveig and Vigot with them.

“I’d rather be fishing,” Vigot grumbled, “but I’m short of hooks. Bronze ones. You’re sure this man . . .”

“Oleg,” Bruni told him.

“You’re sure he’ll have a good supply?”

“He did last time. And a fine fish knife with a bone handle.”

“Bergdis guts them,” Vigot said. “I catch them.”

On their way, the four of them walked through the cemetery—it stood on a grassy knoll, looking out to sea.

“Rus and Swedes and Finns and Slavs and Balts—they’re all buried here,” Bruni told them.

“All together?” asked Solveig.

“Why not?”

“But they don’t all worship the same gods. I mean, Christians can’t be buried alongside us. Not in Norway. Not unless they worship the old gods as well.”

“True enough,” said Bruni. “But the men who settled here were all far from their first homes. They may have been divided by their faiths, but they were united by their trading. Bulgars and Arabs—a few of them settled here too. They all lived together, and now they lie together.”

Solveig examined a roughly dressed stone rather taller than she was.

“I think I can read these runes,” she said.

“Old or young,” Vigot said, “Odin doesn’t care. A brave lad, cut down in battle.”

“You can’t tell that,” Odindisa replied. “He may have caught fever.”

“Or drowned,” added Bruni.

Solveig looked at the memorial stones all around them. She stared out to sea.

“What survives of us?” she asked. “Here on middle-earth.”

But Bruni and Odindisa and Vigot were all so caught up in their own thoughts that none of them replied.

Then Solveig heard her father’s words:
“One thing never dies nor changes: the name you earn during your lifetime
.
”

What survives, she told herself, is just runes, some so salt-eaten it’s no longer possible to read them. No! That’s wrong. Each stroke of each rune in this place was carved
with love, with tears. That’s what survives of us. The longing that binds daughter to father, mother to son.

Solveig remembered going to her mother’s grave on the evening before she left the farm, and kneeling in the lank, wet grass, and talking to her. She realized her eyes were blurred with tears, and she sniffed and wiped them away with the bandage on her hand.

“Ghosts,” observed Bruni. “No one can escape them.”

“No one should want to,” Odindisa said. “We should give them peace. We should lay ghosts, especially our own.” But then she grabbed a rune stone to steady herself, gasped, and fell to her knees.

“What is it?” asked Vigot, and he quickly looked around him. He knew, as Bruni did, that Odindisa could see what they could not. They’d followed her when she traveled into what has been and foretold what will be.

“Did you see him?” Odindisa whispered.

“See who?” asked Bruni.

“Standing here. Waving.”

“Who?”

“Bergvid.” Odindisa was trembling. “Bergvid was. Brave lad! Warning us to turn back, back home to Sigtuna.”

Bruni and Vigot and Solveig all stared at one another.

Odindisa closed her eyes. “Come and gone. And now I’m a sodden rag.”

“All white,” said Bruni.

“And moon-blue,” said Solveig.

“Go back to the boat,” Bruni told her.

“Shall I come with you?” offered Solveig.

“No,” said Odindisa. “You go. You’ll be glad.” Then she opened her eyes and gazed listlessly at Solveig. “Slothi . . . did he tell you?”

“About Edith?” Solveig said. “He did, yes.”

“You must choose it, then. You’ll know which. You’ll recognize it.”

With that, Odindisa got unsteadily to her feet and turned back toward the boat.

“She’s walking between worlds,” observed Solveig.

“Lurching,” said Vigot.

“There’s an old woman in our fjord like that,” Solveig told them, wrinkling up her face, “and we never know how much to believe.”

“In any case,” said Bruni, “Red Ottar’s not going to be put off by a ghost. Not likely!”

For a while the three of them watched Odindisa, and then they continued into Earth Town.

“You see that building over there,” Bruni told them, “the big one with the conical roof . . .”

“It looks like a squatting troll,” Solveig said. “Some trolls wear hats like that.”

“Earl Rognvald’s house,” Bruni said. “He rules this town. Red Ottar told you.”

Solveig smiled and tapped her head. “He did? I fear the ale was speaking more loudly than he was.”

“Do you know why the Rus are Christian?” Bruni asked her.

“I didn’t know they were.”

“You don’t know much,” said Bruni. “There was a king in Kiev who decided it was time for the Rus to choose one faith.”

“Why?” asked Solveig.

“Stop interrupting me,” Bruni said testily. “I wasn’t there, but the Swedes, and the Finns, and the Balts, and the Slavs, and the Bulgars, and the Khazars, and the Arabs all had different gods, I suppose, and . . . I don’t know.” Bruni waved his hands in exasperation. “So this king, Vladimir, sent his ministers to many, many countries to find out about their religions. They rode into Asia, they sailed the length of the Great Sea, and when they reported their findings, the king thought that Islam—the faith of the Arabs—was the best religion.”

“Why?” asked Solveig.

“But then his ministers told him that the followers of Islam never drink liquid that’s fermented or distilled.”

“What?” said Vigot. “They don’t drink ale?”

“No! Not ale or cider or wine or any ardent spirit.”

“What do they drink, then?”

Bruni shrugged. “Moldy water. Milk.”

Both Vigot and Solveig slowly shook their heads.

“When Vladimir heard that,” Bruni told them, “he shook his head like you two. He said that a religion forbidding ale would fall flat on its face.”

“In Norway too,” said Solveig.

“So then the ministers who had traveled to Miklagard . . .”

Solveig’s ears pricked up.

“. . . they told the king how glorious the Christian church was, the great church of Hagia Sophia, and all the ceremonies inside it. ‘On earth,’ they said, ‘there’s no splendor to compare with it, no beauty to better it.’”

Solveig’s eyes were shining.

“So King Vladimir decided the Rus should be Christian,” Bruni said. “But you can be sure most of them worship their old gods as well. In fact, I’ve heard there’s even a word for it. Garthar, they say, is
dvoeverie
—a country of two faiths.”

From the moment she lowered her head under the lintel and stepped into the little log room, Solveig felt she had crossed into a magical world.

It was hot and stuffy and sooty, and everywhere, on each surface, in each corner, lay treasures such as she had never seen.

Here, a pile of glass beads, forget-me-not blue and mossy, pearly, crocus yellow . . . there, a piece of amber almost as large as a kneecap . . . there, a stack of rivets . . . two silvery birch baskets . . .

Solveig could scarcely look closely at one object before her eyes were drawn to another. She felt quite breathless and would willingly have stayed right there for the remainder of her life.

There was a stirring in the inner room. Then the tatty piece of curtain dividing it from the workshop was swept aside, and out jumped—out bubbled, almost—a slight little
man with a head too big for his body. He had such a warm and open smile, and the whites of his eyes were almost as pink as pink roses.

“Oleg!” exclaimed Bruni.

“Bruni!” exclaimed Oleg.

The two men embraced, and, with their hands still on each other’s shoulders, they appraised each other and laughed.

Bruni gestured to his companions. “Vigot,” he said. “Solveig.”

“Welcome!” said Oleg. “Man . . . woman . . .” He smiled sweetly at them and slowly locked his fingers.

“No!” exclaimed Solveig. “No, we’re not!”

“Not what?” asked Vigot.

“Man and wife,” said Solveig. She felt her blood rush to her face. “He thinks we’re married.”

Vigot just laughed. “She keeps begging me!” he told Oleg.

“My young friends have heard about you,” Bruni said. “The smith of smiths!”

“Stuff!” said Oleg.

“Whoever wants to learn should work with you. Not that women ever make good carvers.”

“I have two apprentices,” Oleg replied, “and that’s enough for me.”

Solveig saw how restless Oleg was—picking things up, putting them down again, blowing soot from surfaces, pulling at his clothing, as if he couldn’t keep still for a moment.

“Solveig wants to learn,” Bruni told him.

Oleg smiled at her, and she could see that although the whites of his eyes were rosy with so much smoke and rubbing, the irises were brown as chestnuts and glistening.

“For one . . .” Oleg said warmly, “for one, success at swordplay . . . Do you know this song?”

“That’s you, Vigot,” said Solveig accusingly.

“For one the hawk on the fist . . .” Oleg continued. “And for one the skill of the craftsman. What I think is . . . the craftsman’s workshop is a crossing place.”

“How?” said Solveig.

“Let me ask you this: Is anything beautiful unless it’s useful? And is anything truly useful unless it’s also beautiful?”

“No,” said Solveig. “They go together. Please show me.”

That was what Oleg did. He showed her the drinking cups he had just thrown on his wheel in the inner room. He showed her the decorated bone handles and arrowheads and rivets and nails and pieces of polished and cut amber and dress pins . . .

Then Oleg dug into a pocket, pulled out a bronze key, and unlocked a solid hinged wooden box. It contained several pieces of metal jewelry, and the moment Solveig saw the bronze brooch, she knew it was the one. The one for Edith.

Like a little double hammer, handle end to handle end. No . . . like a double cross. Two silver eyes in each of the hammerheads . . . Solveig couldn’t take her eyes off it.

Oleg laid the brooch on Solveig’s right palm. She felt how heavy it was, and when she turned it over, she saw how finely Oleg had fashioned the pin catch.

The craftsman took it back and peered closely at it. Then he pressed the brooch to the top of his workbench and picked up a little hammer.

At once Solveig noticed how still he had become. When he’s talking, he’s all movement and busyness, she thought, but when he’s working, he’s so quiet. So still.

Oleg gave the fastening the lightest tap, and then a second, smarter one, and eyed it again. “That’ll do,” he said. “Yes, poems, sagas, tapestries, ships, harps and pipes, swords, brooches—each has its own material, but they all have to be well wrought.”

“This is the one,” Solveig told Oleg.

“One what?” asked Bruni. “What are you talking about?”

“Ask Odindisa!” Solveig replied. And then she told Oleg, “Odindisa, she’ll come here tomorrow and buy it. I’ll come back too, if I can.”

Oleg smiled. “I’ll be waiting for you both,” he said.

How old is he? Solveig wondered. His skin’s unlined, almost. He’s got no hair, though, except those pale patches over his ears. He’s supple and quick, but his eyes are age-old.

Oleg’s sandy eyelashes flickered, and he gave Solveig a knowing look. “All ages,” he said with a merry laugh.

After this, Vigot bought seven bronze fishhooks, and once the craftsman had wrapped them up in a scrap of oily sealskin, Bruni said it was time they were getting back to their boat.

“Our skipper’s a slave driver,” he told Oleg with a wink at Solveig and Vigot. “Anyhow, Solveig wouldn’t want to be out with men like us after dark.”

“She wouldn’t want to be out without you,” Oleg said. “That’s for sure.”

“I can look after myself,” Solveig protested. “I’m rising fifteen.”

“Exactly,” said Oleg with a rueful smile.

Then Oleg pressed something into the palm of Solveig’s injured hand and closed her fingers around it.

“You have a maker’s eyes,” he told her. He stretched his thumb and forefinger. “Two colors. Wide and dreaming.”

Solveig opened her left hand. A violet-gray glass bead nestled in it, shining with a quiet inner light.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, holding it up to what little light there was. “It’s beautiful!”

“Your third eye,” murmured Oleg.

“Subtle as a fish scale,” Vigot observed.

Swiftly Solveig stepped toward the craftsman and embraced him.

“Not much of a man,” said Vigot disparagingly as the three of them strode side by side out of Earth Town. “An overgrown dwarf or something.”

“The best smith and carver I’ve ever met,” said Bruni.

“More skilled than you will ever be,” Solveig told Vigot.

“All he wanted to do was talk about his . . . stuff.”

“What did you expect? We didn’t go to see him to talk about the weather.”

“He made it all sound . . . well, as if it matters more than anything else in the world.”