Fargoer (9 page)

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A longboat was moving slowly down river and towards the ocean. It had done its duty, and the men were relieved to get away from these unfamiliar waters. The old man standing on the bow had a happy expression on his wrinkled face. A leather belt, pitch black and ornamented with white bones, was wrapped around his waist.

The Roots of Evil

A new dawn

Vierra loved the morning and waited for it. That short moment when she was about to wake up, but the dizziness of sleep forbid her from remembering where she was. That one moment gave her the strength to keep on fighting. The bleak sun of early autumn forced its way in from the crevices of the walls, and Vierra once again awoke to reality. The moment was over.

Lying next to Vierra in the dark were the two who shared her destiny, still asleep. She was always the first to be awake, together with the dawn. In the early morning gloom, Vierra looked at the faces of the sleepers. Slumber had momentarily stripped them of their masks of pain.

Alf, a skinny young man, was snoring lightly. His protruding teeth and slim forehead were clearly distinguishable, even in the gloom. He did his chores quietly and without complaint, as did Vierra. And when he didn’t work, he minded his own business.

Beside Alf lay the man they called Oder. They had once asked if it was his real name. It wasn’t. His skin was as dark as that autumn morning’s twilight, which shrouded the scars and bruises covering his face. Oder was from somewhere far away, where the sun scorched the people’s skin dark.

Sensitivity to omens was in Vierra’s blood. The day before, the sky had darkened suddenly and the brightest day had turned to a dusk similar to evening. Chilly wind had carried whispers, the message of which Vierra didn’t want to hear any more than to understand. A chill went down her spine. The future looked like a darkness unknown. It was like black water that had stayed still for a long time, but suddenly stirred.

From underneath a bundle of cloth that Vierra used as a pillow, she heard a familiar voice. These days it spoke to her every morning.

“Take me out.”

Vierra obeyed. From underneath her sleeping underlay she pulled a long, badly rusted blade.

“Try me.”

Vierra tried. She had kept the blade in as good condition as it was possible. With her thumb she felt the hard, unforgiving edge.

“Shall we do it today?” the blade asked. Its voice had a waiting, anxious tone. “How easily would I cut flesh, draw blood. Set free.”

Vierra didn’t say or do anything. When the blade had presented the same question for the first time, she had thrown the weapon away and forgotten it for a few days. Finally she had set it back under her mattress, though. From that day on the decision had been harder and harder to make.

“Tomorrow,” she finally sighed and put the knife back under her berth. She had said so yesterday and the day before, actually for as long as she remembered. Her hand was trembling.

Suddenly the latch of the summer hut slammed open. With unimaginable speed, the two sleeping denizens of the hut woke up and got on their feet, readying themselves for what their minds, torn away from the freedom of sleep, knew was about to happen.

The door flew open and the light of the autumn dawn squeezed into the hut together with the one who had opened the door. This large man was living his autumn years. His pitch black hair was streaked with gray stripes that reached his tangled beard. He was handsomely clothed. The darkness of the man’s hair and beard were also in his eyes, the true color of which was perhaps only known by gods -and could possibly have been known by Vierra, had she wanted to look into them. It was impossible to tell the old man’s age, but his eyes gave away that he was even older than he seemed.

The man grabbed Oder, who was standing by the door, with both hands and threw him out of the hut. He was immensely strong and the slave, much scrawnier than him, rolled far away before stopping. Arduously Oder got up as the blackbeard yelled:

“Up, dogs, and get to work!”

The master is in a good mood
, Vierra thought.
He didn’t even kick Oder after he fell.

Vierra’s family wouldn’t probably have recognized her, had she been led into their hut in her present condition. Her already slim figure had wasted so that she was thin as a rake, and the clear gaze of her green eyes had waned to a feverish glow, which blazed amid a messy, black bush of hair. She was as quiet and unpredictable as a wolf that has been chained and subdued to do a dog’s work,

Almost three years had passed since violence and murder had torn her from her previous life. Vikings had not killed her, even though she had slain many men with her bow that day. They revered prowess and courage in combat. The Norsemen had sold her to slavery for a good price in their homeland after she had recovered, against the odds, from her self-inflicted stomach wound.

That had been the beginning of a nightmare in which one day after another passed in a purple-gray haze of violence. Anyone who had lived Vierra’s life would have soon released themselves from that merciless torment. There were more than enough opportunities for one who eagerly searched for the final escape. Only Vierra’s primal willpower and the memory of the discussion with the Seita still kept her clinging on to life. She wouldn’t give up, at least not yet.

Vierra slipped out of the summer hut to begin her daily chores. Outside a familiar scene surrounded her. A great longhouse with its smaller side buildings had been erected to the edge of a large glade. A slowly running creek split the glade in the middle, and there was a bridge that connected it to a field. There Vierra, among others, had been taught many lessons about the work of the hay-biters, lessons learned with pain and suffering. Compared to them, the calluses in her hands were hardly noticeable.

In the middle of the glade stood a great oak, the branches of which shaded the house in the morning and the opening behind the creek by night. The tree was older than the house, older than the glade. During the centuries its gnarly roots had reached every corner of the clearing. Even in the furthest point of the opening it was possible to feel a thick, branch-like lump underfoot.

Walking toward the house, Vierra could hear familiar whispering. She looked at the great oak and then at the edge of the forest glade. A cold shiver ran through her spine. The forest on the edges of the opening was too dense. It reached for the meadow, and every morning Vierra felt as if it was a bit closer than the morning before. Any forest would have been a comforting home for Vierra. Any forest save this.

There was enough forest around the house in every direction for a day’s walk, no visitors ever came through it. And the master was the only one to leave; a few times a year he left the glade alone, just to return in a couple of days with more slaves, salt and tools. He seemed to have enough silver to buy all this. Vierra had lived in the house for two years now, and when the master brought her into the house there had been five slaves. Now there were three left, and only Alf had been there longer than Vierra.

Vierra felt a wave of nausea rising inside her. She tried to contain it with her will but lost, and knelt down to vomit. Only green bile came out; it had been a while since her last meal.

“Blackboy, stay and make sure that the Wolfgirl can work soon. She must try the fish traps.” There was threat in the master’s voice. Vierra knew that if she couldn’t work, she would suffer for it soon.

“Can I give her food? She would recover more quickly to work,” Oder replied. There was a strong foreign accent in his speech, even more so than in Vierra’s.

“So be it, but hurry. We will go and harvest the turnips.”

Vierra sighed. The master was indeed in a good mood.

Oder and Vierra shared a simple meal of turnips, fish and birch-leaf beverage. Oder used this chance to eat as well. The master kept close guard over the food, and the slaves didn’t get to eat every day.

“You have been nauseous for many mornings,” Oder stated when they were finishing their meal. “Are you ill?”

“No,” said Vierra thoughtfully as she licked the grease off her hands.

Oder looked at her intensely for a moment. Her hips were waiting for food in vain, food which would round them up to more healthy measures.

“You carry a child inside you,” Oder said finally with a whisper. “Children are the gift of God, but I already grieve for its destiny.”

Vierra knew it, had known it deep inside her even though she hadn’t admitted it to herself. She felt chilled about giving birth to a child in here, amid all the horror. Something would have to happen before it.

“It is a bitter gift,” Vierra finally answered, wiping bile off the front of her ragged woolen coat. They finished their meal quickly, as any further delay would’ve been followed by punishment.

Outside, the early autumn day had gotten the best of the morning dusk, and they started to walk toward the field with rapid steps. The forest was silent, as always, except for the quiet whispers. Little birds didn’t sing in the glade, nor did the animals of the forest make their trails there. Even the domestic animals that the master brought had to be forced to come there, and it took a long time before they got used to their new life.

The walkers crossed the bridge and stepped toward the working men.

“Are you sick?” the master blurted to Vierra as they arrived to the site. “I have no use for you, if you cannot work.”

A sudden burst of mutiny struck Vierra, one she hadn’t experienced in a long, long time.

“You should be happy, master, because I give birth to your son soon. He will be your heir and your keeper in your old age.” The wording was kind, but Vierra didn’t manage to hide the mockery from her voice.

The master wasn’t slow-minded. Still, Vierra’s straightforward message took away his confidence for a moment. He had the same cure for loss of confidence as for many other problems: violence. The back of his hand fell heavily to Vierra’s cheek, throwing her to the ground.

“I will not bring up brats, and if you cannot work, I will drown you to the river with it, too. And from the fall market I will get two stronger slaves to replace you.”

Vierra’s weak defiance snapped like a twig. The boat that was about to save her from drowning sank back to deep, dark waters.

I just sit here. Maybe the master will beat me to death
, she thought.

As she sat on the ground holding her cheek, Alf switched everyone’s attention to the edge of the forest, where he was pointing.

“Look,” he yelled.

A man had stepped out of the forest, staggering to the glade with feeble, unsure steps. The beard and hair of this large man glimmered red in the sun. There was bear-like softness in his impressive figure as well as brisk strength in his movement. His clothes were well made, although worn and torn after traveling through the woods.

The whole group hurried silently closer to this strange apparition. Even Vierra got up slowly and trudged after the others. The red-bearded man brought with him a simple truth: if someone could reach the glade through the forest, it was also possible to leave the same way. Such thoughts were not hers, though. The old Vierra would have darted into the woods, long ago, whatever threats the forest could raise against her. But years of blows, repression and subjection had driven that Vierra deep into hiding. She couldn’t rise up in an instant.

The group of four people met the redbeard, and saw that his clothes were soaked in blood and his face and arms bruised. There was a glassy, burdened look in his eyes.

“All my men dead... need to get back home...” the man slurred, and clearly didn’t realize there were people around him.

“I am Bothvar, also known as the Blackbeard. Who are you and how did you find my home, hidden in the forest?”

The man didn’t react to the master’s question at all.

“Wolfgirl will get water and Loosetooth, you drag him into the house. The Blackboy will go get food to the guest - and make sure you don’t stay and eat yourself.”

The orders were fulfilled without delay. The master himself followed the actions closely and sharply, and let out malign yell if he thought any of the slaves was working too slowly. Vierra carried out the orders with her head held low and in grim thoughts, as usual. Oder’s eyes had a new kind of glow, however, and, when the master’s eyes were occupied, he secretly glanced to the edge of the forest. Alf worked in an even, emotionless rhythm, as if the foreigner didn’t exist at all.