Kin (Helga Finnsdottir) Page 15

  ‘We heard stories that Karl owed money,’ Jorunn forced out between gritted teeth. ‘A lot of money. Enough to send someone after him.’ She looked at her father. ‘Someone skilled.’

  ‘A good piece of meat thrown to the dogs would have put them off the scent,’ Sigmar added.

  ‘And why didn’t you tell us in the morning?’

  Jorunn looked at her father and spoke gently. ‘Because it would have made us sound very guilty indeed. If whoever he owed money to cared enough to send someone to walk the night, we would never have caught him anyway.’

  Unnthor scowled, but didn’t speak.

  ‘And how reliable is this news?’ Hildigunnur said.

  ‘Oh, very,’ Sigmar said. ‘We buy and sell. People fall over themselves to tell us true, in order to keep us coming back.’

  Unnthor glared at him, then at the others around the table. After some moments, he said slowly, ‘It is possible, I suppose. There have been—’

  The wail of pain came almost immediately after the fleshy thump, followed by a scream of rage and a small voice shouting ‘Mu–u–u–u–u–um!’

  Every head at the table turned as one to see Bragi lying on the floor, sobbing, and his sister running back towards Runa. Volund, standing over the fallen boy, clenched his fist around something. Instead of words, a loud keening rose in his throat, like the sound of an oak splitting.

  Thyri was up immediately and charging at him. ‘Volund—! What are you doing?’

  The boy turned to see his mother approaching; a meaty arm shot out and he shoved her away, sending her spinning. With a shout, Bjorn was up and at the boy, but as he grabbed Volund’s arm, he started struggling against his father and screaming at the top of his voice, ‘Mine! Mine!’ over and over again.

  ‘I only wanted to see it,’ Bragi cried, holding on to his mother’s skirt. ‘And he’s a meanie! He hit me!’

  ‘I know, sweetling,’ Runa said, soothing the child. ‘We’ll have a talk about that later, shall we?’

  ‘Get him out! Now!’ Hildigunnur shouted over the din, and Bjorn shot her a glare.

  The boy was deep in the throes of a tantrum, keening and thrashing about in his father’s arms, until, grunting with frustration, Bjorn drove an elbow into his son’s sternum, causing Volund to double over, winded and gasping in pain.

  The light caught on something silver in his palm.

  ‘MURDERER!’ Agla’s scream was easily as loud and far more piercing than Volund’s.

  When Helga turned to look at the woman, she struggled to recognise her for a moment: her face was crimson with fury, her eyes wide open and nostrils flaring. She looked like something come from Trollheim. A bony finger was extended as far as it would go, pointing at Volund in his father’s arms.

  ‘MURDERER!’ she screeched again, and Gytha rose, her own eyes narrowed.

  Dangling from the boy’s hand was Karl’s amulet: the silver Hammer of Thor.

  ‘Give me that!’ Gytha said, darting forward.

  ‘MINE!’ Volund bellowed again, snatching back his hand. Gytha dived for the dangling pendant and received a knee in the gut for her trouble.

  Bjorn yanked Volund off his feet and walked backwards, half dragging the howling, flailing boy towards the door. ‘Mine!’ he cried out again in despair, ‘mine!’ as Bjorn elbowed the door open and pushed him outside.

  The moment the door closed, Agla rounded on Thyri. ‘YOU!’ she screamed, ‘you owe us wergild for your idiot son! He murdered my husband!’

  ‘Shut up, you horse-faced shrew,’ Thyri spat, not backing down, even in the face of Agla’s rage. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about. Volund couldn’t kill anything – he can’t even hold a knife properly!’

  ‘He did it! He did it!’ Gytha was as shrill and furious as her mother.

  Helga watched as another conversation took place across the table, silent but sharp. Runa kept staring at Jorunn, imploring her, asking for something – attention? But with no luck.

  ‘Hildigunnur!’ Agla implored, ‘you saw the boy – he has a fury in him! He’s dangerous!’ Her face was drawn, twisted in pain.

  ‘We will not decide on guilt under my roof until we are convinced.’ Hildigunnur’s voice could have frozen a lake. ‘I saw no knife. I saw no blood. The boy could have found the amulet on the ground. And ask yourself – could he have planned a murder? He may be harmless, as his mother says.’ She glanced at Thyri and nudged her head towards the door, as good as a command: go and see to your family.

  A memory flashed before Helga’s eyes: Volund, holding an axe, looking very like his father.

  I’d break your head open.

  Unable to harm? Bjorn had struggled to contain his son’s wild strength. Unwilling, yes – but unable?

  Agla sat back down, but she was still looking like a wolf about to pounce. After a moment’s stillness, she asked, ‘How do you know, Thyri? How do you know?’

  Halfway to the door, Thyri stopped. She turned and looked straight at Agla. ‘I am his mother,’ she said. ‘And he isn’t easy, or perfect, but he is my son.’ She didn’t raise her voice, but her words fell heavy. ‘My husband told me that this’ – she gestured to the silent guests, seated around the table, then swept her hand towards the rafters – ‘is family, and that family is the most important thing.’

  It looked as if she was about to say something more, but she stopped herself.

  As she turned back towards the door, it opened and Bjorn came back in with Volund in tow.

  Agla opened her mouth to speak, but a sharp glance from Hildigunnur silenced her.

  ‘He is calm now,’ Bjorn said. ‘And I know what you’re thinking, Agla. You think he did it. But I can promise you’ – he looked straight at her – ‘my son is no killer. He must have found the necklace.’

  ‘How can you know that?’ Gytha snapped.

  Bjorn’s voice didn’t rise, didn’t change. He sounded tired and sad, Helga thought. ‘Because the cuts were neat, precisely placed. They were done by someone who knows well how to handle a knife.’ He rubbed his left arm and winced, before continuing, his voice patient, calming, ‘And my boy is strong, make no mistake, but if he’d done it there would be very little left of my brother to recognise. He can just about work out which end of a knife to hold, but only if you show him every time.’

  Curiously, Agla seemed to see something in this. ‘He might have found it,’ she muttered. ‘Maybe.’ She sat down again, but once more she was eyeing everyone with suspicion until the strength of Hildigunnur’s gaze pulled her back in. The old woman smiled tenderly at the widow, and Agla looked down, sniffling loudly.

  ‘I know it’s early,’ Hildigunnur said, ‘but I think it’s time to get some rest. We all need to sleep on this.’

  ‘Wise words, Mother,’ Bjorn rumbled.

  Unnthor rose without a word, still looking like something carved out of an angry mountain, and glared at the assembled family, which started off a chain of rising and shuffling as they all obeyed. Helga noticed movement towards her left: Runa had somehow managed to inch towards Jorunn, and the look on her face was unlike anything Helga had seen before. Discomfort? Begging? . . . Fear? Curiosity made her inch towards Aslak’s wife.

  ‘Can I have a word, Sister?’ Runa said.

  Jorunn looked at her. ‘Why?’

  ‘I— I—’

  ‘We should be going to bed, my lovely wife,’ Aslak said, swooping up behind her. Helga watched Runa freeze and fall silent. ‘I don’t think my sister wants to chat,’ he added calmly.

  Jorunn looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance. ‘Whatever you say, Brother dear.’ Aslak shot her a smile as he reached over, grabbed Runa by the elbow and started steering her towards their corner of the longhouse.

  Helga looked around. Sigmar and Jorunn were already in their bunk. She could just about make o
ut the shapes of Agla and Gytha, who had moved from the bed where Karl had died and were busy piling hay and blankets near the fire. Runa was lavishing an unusual amount of attention on her children. At the far end of the hall, Hildigunnur had pulled Unnthor, Jaki and Einar into a tight huddle for a hushed conversation.

  None of this mattered to her, though; something else was bugging her, niggling at her, something that didn’t fit.

  She touched the leather thong around her neck, running her fingers along the rough material to the central stone, tracing the contours of the rune under her thumb. Half-remembered words skittered away from her glare.

  Scratch a bit of wood and see what happens.

  It was worth a try.

  *

  Helga waited and listened and waited some more until she was sure time had stopped and the sun would never rise again – but then she felt it: a particular silence in the longhouse, the almost imperceptible sound of steady breathing. She inched towards the edge of her bed. I’m sleepy, she said, not believing it for a second. I’ve just woken up – No, I can’t sleep. She repeated it in her mind until the lie fit her face. Then she stretched her leg until she could feel the floor and levered herself up as quietly as she could.

  A soft light fell from the candles that had been hoisted up towards the beams. Einar sat by the door, looking mortally bored. He waved silently at her. Good. Taking care to sleep-shuffle towards his seat, she waved back. As she moved past the table she grabbed a jug of water.

  ‘Hey,’ he whispered.

  ‘Hey yourself,’ she whispered back, taking up position beside him. ‘Want some water?’ He took the jug off her and took a deep gulp, then another.

  ‘It’s thirsty work, catching murderers.’

  This far away from the candles, it was hard to see his face. His nose and mouth made an outline against the soft glow, but his eyes were dark. He must have heard the teasing note in her voice, but even in the half-light she could feel him glaring at her. ‘Shut up. I’m bored, but I have to do this – probably so Hildigunnur can sleep. I think she’s really scared.’

  Helga scoffed, ‘Her? Here? No – no way. She’s never scared.’

  ‘Maybe not. But I still have to stay awake half the night.’

  ‘Maybe that isn’t so bad, though.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind being awake when none of them are around,’ she said, forcing a little smile into her voice.

  ‘You’re not wrong there,’ Einar said, sighing.

  Now. Had to be now.

  ‘You still feel for her, don’t you?’

  There was a sharp intake of breath in the darkness. When he spoke again, his voice was colder. ‘What are you on about?’

  She reached out and touched his arm and it felt like he was fighting not to flinch away. ‘I’ve seen you looking at her,’ she whispered.

  ‘And? It’s a small house. Hard to look anywhere else.’

  ‘How long has she owned your heart?’

  A pause. Then, softer, ‘Years. Since I was a boy.’ Helga had been watching Hildigunnur tease the truth out of people for a long time now. It didn’t matter how upset or angry they were, if there was something in there that wanted out, it could rarely resist filling a silence. Sure enough, Einar continued, ‘She was always kind to me. She’d stop Karl and Bjorn from beating me too badly when we were kids. Then I started seeing her . . . differently.’

  Helga bit the cheek that faced away from Einar and swallowed all the things she wanted to say. Instead, she held his arm firmly. ‘And then?’

  ‘She grew, faster than I did – and now she is a successful woman who is earning her reputation and married to a spineless, ridicu­lous, weak-wristed Swede.’

  Helga thought about what she’d seen of Sigmar and had to admit that she didn’t quite agree with Einar’s assessment. But apparently the heart sometimes saw what the eyes didn’t, so she decided to go with it.

  ‘Why spineless?’ she asked.

  ‘Because he should have fought for her when Karl . . .’ Einar’s voice trailed off. When he started again, the passion was gone and the wall was back up. ‘He doesn’t seem to be a man with honour or respect.’

  Acting on impulse, Helga reached out and embraced her half-yet-quite-not older brother. There will be words later, she thought. Now, there’s this. The body next to her felt stiff, hardened by farm-work and made inflexible by anger and reserve, but she held on and eventually Einar loosened around the edges, softening into her arms, hugging her back.

  ‘Thank you,’ he whispered after a while.

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ she whispered back. ‘But you’re my idiot, and that counts for something. If you want to go out and get some air, I’ll watch over the sleeping wolves for a bit.’

  Einar rose silently, reached out and squeezed her shoulder, then disappeared out through the door like a shadow.

  The moment the door closed behind him, Helga sprang into action. No time to waste. She looked around, scanning the workbenches. Nothing. Tables. Nothing. Her heart thudding in her chest, she waited for either of the old men to wake up. THERE! The knife lay tucked under Einar’s blanket: a short, stubby utility blade. It wasn’t ideal, but it’d have to do. She leaned over and picked it up, momentarily transfixed by the way the metal caught the light, until a voice a lot like Hildigunnur’s shook her out of her state: And if they find you in the night, holding a blade? What then?

  Blushing, Helga rose and palmed the blade, taking care not to step on or bump into anything that might make a noise, moving at a slow but regular pace. If someone challenged her, she’d simply say she was going back to her bed, that Einar would be along shortly.

  There.

  Runa’s bunk.

  Kneeling, she felt for her rune-stone with trembling fingers. She could trace the shape of the rune with her fingertips, just like she could smell the sleeping woman’s breath, maybe five inches away from her. She pulled out the blade and—

  ‘Mummy?’ A voice softened by sleep-fog.

  Helga held her breath and tried to shrink into nothing. The body just by her shifted with the slowness of the near-unconscious. There was a muttered sentence, couched in a melody of some sort.

  Einar will be coming back any moment now. And he’ll find me lying on the floor by the bed of Aslak´s wife, holding a blade. Someone may wake – how do I explain this away? I am the only one here who is not connected by blood or marriage.

  Her thoughts raced ahead to Agla screaming at her; Hildigunnur, spitting in her face; Unnthor, her adoptive father looking saddened, wielding his giant axe over her neck.

  People breathe differently when they´re asleep.

  The thought struck her just before she realised that the only sounds from the bed just above her were those of rhythmic breathing.

  Quick as she could, she traced a very gentle line straight down, no longer than her thumb, then another diagonally from left to right across the centre. The rune of Nauth. Wants, wishes and needs. It’ll look like a scratch. Just a scratch! No time to think. Move! Forcing herself to move slowly and carefully, she pushed herself to her feet and walked at a torturous, measured pace across the room, making sure to put the knife exactly where she’d found it.

  She drew breath three times in Einar’s chair before the front door opened again and he slunk in, silent and light on his feet.

  ‘Anyone stir?’ he whispered.

  ‘No,’ Helga said, ‘nothing happened.’ She was glad he couldn’t see her face. The smell of warm bodies, sleep and Runa’s breath still lingered in her nostrils. ‘Nothing at all.’

  Chapter 12

  Fight

  Helga blinked.

  ‘Wake up, girl,’ Hildigunnur repeated, ‘you’re sleeping the day away.’

  Helga blinked again. The longhouse was just a shade less than night-time dark, bu
t Hildigunnur was standing by her bed, fully dressed. ‘We’ve got work to do.’

  She knew better than to argue. ‘I’ll be right up,’ she said in her head, listening to her mouth as it made some noise that sounded like hwl b r’umph. Moments later she felt the rough packed earth under her feet. Around them, the family slept still. Like wolves in a den. The thought was there, then gone.

  ‘Come on now.’

  ‘What are we doing?’

  ‘New barn. We need to make sure we’re ready for winter.’

  ‘But I already—’

  Hildigunnur’s glare stopped Helga in her tracks. She started to mutter an apology, but decided silence would be smarter.

  The air outside was cool and fresh on her skin. The familiar song of the river calmed her as she followed her mother on a brisk walk up the hill, away from Riverside. As the forest ­enveloped them, she felt herself gradually waking up. Who did it? The question sat there, a squat and ugly thing, a rat in the middle of the road glaring smugly at her. The smell of pine tickled her nose and she could almost taste the raw morning air. The sun would not creep up over the horizon for a while yet, and the breeze on her cheek stayed refreshingly cold.

  Who, though?

  Faces crowded in on her, followed by snippets of people shouting at each other and sentences half-snatched from memory. A snap of annoyance jolted her brain. This needs to be tidied up. In her mind, Helga imagined a jumbled storeroom with things scattered all over the floor and empty shelves on the wall. She quickly scratched lines on the shelves – one line for Gytha, two lines for Jorunn and three lines . . . Aslak. No reason, she told herself. No particular reason at all. She bent down and picked a dress up off the floor. A beautiful piece of craftsmanship, must have cost a small fortune. Folding it carefully, she placed it on Gytha’s shelf. Wants to go to court; can’t go. Overbearing, controlling father. Does cruelty pass through the blood? She thought of Unnthor’s face, creased with rage, and shuddered. Add to that whatever Karl might have done while raiding . . . She thought of Gytha’s face as she stormed out from the longhouse, mocked by her father and uncle, murder in her eyes.