Bracelet of Bones (8 page)

Then Solveig saw how rough Vigot could be. He caught the islander’s arm and twisted it behind his back. The young man bucked and writhed, but Vigot wouldn’t let him go. He forced him down onto one knee, groaning.

Solveig was dry-mouthed. She wanted Vigot to win, and she wanted him not to win.

As it was, Vigot did win. He forced the islander onto both knees and then flat on his face. But after the young man had submitted, Solveig saw Vigot give his arm a terrible extra
twist. Then Vigot kicked him hard in the ribs so that he lay in the grit, groaning.

Vigot swept up his own piece of silver and the thimble as well, but the villagers were angry.

They yelled, and one young man made a dive for Vigot’s shirt. Vigot tried to grab it back, but two more men restrained him.

“Give it back!” Vigot shouted, but by now he and Solveig were in the middle of a scrum, and Solveig was slapped around the face and elbowed in the ribs.

“Out!” yelled Vigot. “Come on! We’ve got to get out!”

Then he seized Solveig’s right hand. He dragged her behind him, and the two of them broke away from the crowd and began to run along the track leading straight back to the harbor.

“Oot!” howled the villagers. “Oot!”

They spit at Solveig and Vigot, and several boys threw stones after them.

By the time the two of them were sure the islanders were no longer following them, they were both gasping for breath.

“You fool!” cried Solveig.

“He asked for it,” panted Vigot.

“He gave in. You were cruel.”

“He played foul.”

Solveig didn’t believe him. “It was you who played foul.”

“There’s only one way to defeat foul play,” Vigot said, “and that’s with foul play.”

Solveig was still gasping. “There was no need. You put us both at risk.”

“Pff!”

“You did,” she said angrily. “We could have been stoned.”

“Are you hurt?” asked Vigot, putting his left arm around Solveig’s shoulder.

Solveig brusquely shook him off. “Who taught you to wrestle like that anyway?”

Vigot shrugged.

“Your brothers?”

“I have no brothers.”

“Your father, then?”

Vigot shook his head. “Dead to me,” he said.

“Your mother—where’s she?”

Vigot shrugged, and Solveig could see he didn’t want to talk about her or any of his family.

As soon as Solveig and Vigot walked up the gangplank, Red Ottar and Torsten advanced on them. The skipper narrowed his eyes and slowly drew his fingernails over his own right cheek.

“Well?” he asked. “Love tracks, are they? A woman’s claws?”

“Wrestling,” said Solveig. “He was wrestling.”

“Not with you!” Torsten exclaimed.

“Of course not,” said Solveig, and the blood rushed to her own cheeks. “Over there, in the village. There was a contest.”

“You won?” Red Ottar asked.

Vigot nodded.

“And the prize?”

Vigot showed Red Ottar and Torsten the silver thimble.

“Vigot cheated. The whole village turned against us,” Solveig said. “They yelled at us and chased us.”

Vigot glared angrily at Solveig, but she said nothing more.

“Where’s your shirt?” Red Ottar asked him.

Vigot clamped his jaw and thrust his chin in the air.

“They grabbed it,” said Solveig. “They wouldn’t give it back.”

“Disgraceful!” barked Red Ottar. “Both of you. We’re traders, not raiders. They’ll be waiting for you on our way back.”

Solveig knew that if she tried to say more, it would only make matters worse.

“Right!” said Red Ottar, clapping his hands. “The stew’s ready. Chicken stew. We’ll be off at dawn, won’t we, Torsten?”

“Ægir willing!” Torsten said.

“He’d better be,” the skipper retorted. “This is where our journey really begins.”

“Not mine,” said Solveig.

“What do you mean?” Red Ottar asked. “Staying here, are you?”

“No,” said Solveig. “I mean, I’ve been on my journey since the day my father left home.”

“Then it’s high time you started to pay for it,” Red Ottar snapped. “That’s what we agreed, isn’t it? Instead of making us enemies, you should be carving.”

8

S
olveig watched as Slothi drew the game board on the pine planking with a piece of chalk and then asked Bard and Brita to set out the walrus-bone chessmen. “Now remember,” he told them, “you don’t have to kill all your enemies. The best players win without spilling too much blood.”

“How?” Brita asked.

Slothi reached out and tapped the top of his daughter’s head. “By using what’s in here,” he said. “Wits. Cunning. If you can win without too much slaughter, that’s more satisfying.”

I wish my father had taught me chess, thought Solveig. It’s more interesting than checkers. More sly. It makes my brains ache.

But what was really aching was Solveig’s heart. Seeing Slothi play with his children made her miss her own father.

“What’s in your bag, Solveig?” Bard asked her.

“It’s a sack,” Brita corrected him.

“Bones!” said Solveig.

“Bones!” exclaimed Bard. “Human ones?”

“No. Well . . . yes. One is.”

“Let’s see,” said Brita excitedly.

“Bard!” warned Slothi. “Brita! You’re like a whole swarm of buzzing flies.”

“She doesn’t mind.”

“Do you, Solveig?”

“I’ll show you later,” Solveig told them. “You’re going to play chess, and I’m going to carve. That’s how I’m paying for my passage.”

On her own, Solveig quickly opened her little sackful of bones, rummaged in it, and pulled out the wad of bog cotton. She checked that no one was watching . . .

However often Solveig looked at the precious gold brooch, her heart beat faster each time. That man in the bows, she thought, I still don’t know who he is, but I quite like not knowing. I can make my own mind up. And the smaller one in the stern, arms outstretched, I don’t know who she is either, but the longer I look at her, the better I know her.

Solveig turned over the brooch.

and
. HS and HA.

I know. I’ll cut two more runes next to these.
—Solveig Halfdan’s daughter.

Then she quickly wrapped the brooch up again.

It’s all right to keep it here, thought Solveig. No one’s going to delve down to the bottom of this sack. And no one aboard would steal anything. I don’t think they would.

So Solveig got to work on the antler of a red deer, and she scraped it and began to shape it for a good part of the quiet afternoon before setting it aside. Then she stretched and closed her hands to ease the ache in her fingers.

I’ll finish off the walrus pin, she thought. I’ll decorate it with long wavy lines. Like wavy hair. Like the salt waves all around me.

But no sooner had Solveig put the point of her awl to the pin than the boat shuddered and the awl slipped.

Solveig pressed her lips together and frowned. She held the pin tight between her right thumb and forefinger, and, clamping her arms tightly to her sides so as to keep it steady, she pointed the awl at the pin again.

“Ah!” said a voice. “My apprentice.”

“Ow-wow!” exclaimed Solveig, frustrated at being unable to incise the bone and at being interrupted.

“What’s wrong?” asked Bruni Blacktooth.

“I’m not.”

“Not what?”

“Your apprentice.”

“The wise craftsman always know there’s more to learn. It’s like climbing a mast. The higher you climb, the more you see. Now then, you’re decorating that walrus pin.”

“I can’t,” Solveig told him. “The boat keeps trembling and shuddering.”

Bruni grunted. “Put the pin in your left hand,” he told her. “Yes, and the awl in your right hand.”

“But I’m left-handed.”

“Now, Solveig, slowly bring the pin to the awl, not the awl to the pin. You see? This way you have better control.”

Solveig nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I never knew that.”

“Mind you,” Bruni went on, “young women can’t carve. Too soft. Neither can old ones.” Bruni leered at Solveig, and she could smell his foul breath. “Still, they’ve got their uses.”

“Is that what you think?” Solveig asked fiercely.

“I’ve never met a single woman who’s a good carver. I’ve never met a good woman, for that matter.”

Solveig tossed her head. “So were you against me coming?” she asked in a sharp voice. “The same as Bergdis?”

Bruni ignored Solveig’s question. “But as it is, my dear,” he continued, “we’re yoked. Yoked!” He put an arm around Solveig’s shoulders.

“No,” said Solveig angrily. She pulled away, and as she did so, she drove the soft heel of her left hand, just below her thumb, into the point of the awl.

Solveig screamed as lightning flashed in her thumb, and the muscles separated. Then hot red blood spurted over her gown, and when she sucked her hand, she smeared her face with blood as well.

Solveig cried furious tears. “Look! Look what you’ve made me do.”

“I’ll bind it,” said Bruni.

“Get away!” sobbed Solveig. “I’ll do it myself.”

Solveig’s thumb ached. Her fingers were stiff, and her whole hand was red and hot. Her left wrist and forearm throbbed.
For two days she sat in the prow or by the mast, her hand swaddled with greasy strips of cloth.

Bergdis scolded her because she couldn’t help with the cooking. And Red Ottar was annoyed because she couldn’t carve.

Strange birds with dark wings and pointed tails were following the boat, and Solveig trundled to the stern to ask Torsten about them.

“Skuas,” said Torsten. “Of a kind. You don’t often see them this far out to sea.”

“So why are they, then?”

Torsten gazed at Solveig, and she found herself thinking she had never met anyone with so clear a gaze, an unblinking gaze that could see over all the rolls and scrolls of the ocean to the edge of the world.

“Why?” Solveig asked again.

Torsten flexed his broad shoulders. “I can tell you truths about tides and stars and winds, the breeding grounds of walrus, the feeding grounds of whales. I can tell you about birds too. But . . .” The helmsman spread his arms wide and slowly shook his head.

“They’re not the same as the ones in our fjord,” Solveig told him. “They’ve got sharper bills and tails.”

“Sharp as awls,” said Torsten.

Solveig sucked in her breath and screwed up her face.

“I saw the way Blacktooth was talking to you.” Torsten looked her square in the eyes. “And pawing you. You be careful.”

Not long after Solveig had gone back to amidships, Edith came and sat down beside her.

“Aching?” she asked.

“All over. And shivering.”

Edith screwed up her eyes and nodded.

“Not just my hand.”

“Your heart,” Edith said.

Solveig shook her head in frustration so that her golden hair swung from side to side. “Ohh!” she cried. “What if I never get to Miklagard?”

“I know,” said Edith, and she very gently squeezed Solveig’s right arm. “I do know.”

Solveig sucked in her cheeks and swallowed loudly.

“Expect the worst,” Edith told her. “Anything better will be a mercy then. Even small pleasures will become great wonders.”

Solveig stared at Edith. Her dark hair keeps flapping over her eyes, she thought, like the fringe of a glossy long-haired pony. And she always looks as if she’s smiling even when she’s not. She soft-foots around like a sweet shadow.

“Expect the worst? Is that what you have to do?” Solveig faltered. “Well, I do know you’re Red Ottar’s slave girl. His slave woman. But . . .”

Edith crossed her legs and drew her shawl around her. A black beetle fell out of it and hurried across the deck.

“See that?” said Edith. “Free. Free to go where it wants.”

“Without knowing it is,” Solveig replied, “or where it’s going.”

“Which is better?” asked Edith. “To be free and not know where you’re going or to be enslaved and know?”

“That sounds like a riddle,” Solveig said.

“You do know I’m English?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where England is?”

“South.”

“South and west,” said Edith. “Opposite Denmark. Beyond two groups of islands.”

“Shetland . . .” said Solveig.

“And Orkney.”

“Oh! That’s where Slothi’s chess pieces come from.”

“Yes,” Edith said. “He told me that.”

“I like the way you speak our language,” Solveig told her. “The way you try it out, as if each word is like stepping on new ice.”

“It is,” said Edith with a smile, and she edged closer to Solveig. “Do you want to know . . .” she asked, “what happened?”

“Oh!” breathed Solveig. “Everything.”

“A gang of Swedes attacked our village.”

“Why?”

“Something about a curse. A curse that old Hilda . . . she was our wise woman . . . a curse she put on them.”

“What did they do?”

“They killed Hilda, and then they speared my father . . .” Edith put both hands to her throat.

“No!” cried Solveig.

“He was the headman. They dragged me away from my own children.”

“Children?” gasped Solveig. “You’ve got children.”

Edith lowered her head and raised two fingers.

“Oh, Edith!”

“Emma,” she whispered. “Wulf.”

“No,” wailed Solveig.

Edith grabbed Solveig’s arm, the wrong one, and Solveig flinched but she bore the pain.

“Then . . .” Edith went on, swallowing furiously, “they carried me to their boat. I was screaming. They threw me down and bound me. They sailed me to Sigtuna.”

Solveig stared at Edith, speechless.

Edith nodded. “Yes,” she said in a voice cold as stone, “and they sold me.”

“To Red Ottar?”

Edith nodded again.

At that moment, Brita and Bard rushed past, yelling, and Edith at once burst into tears. Solveig put her right arm around her.

“It’s Emma,” she said in a choked voice. “And Wulf. It’s all right otherwise.”

“All right?” said Solveig angrily. “Being Red Ottar’s slave? To do with you as he pleases?”

Edith looked at Solveig through her veil of hair and tears. “Solveig,” she sobbed, “Ottar’s not a bad man. He’s good, as men go. But this is how it is for most women. Drudgery from daybreak to dark, and then after dark succumbing to your man’s desires. It’s dangerous, carrying babies and giving birth. It’s painful when men slap you or thrash you or even worse. That’s why we must expect the worst. That’s why we must take what small pleasures there are.”