The Book of Bera Read online

‘That’s because she never does any work.’

  She had forgotten Sigrid was there. At least their laughter gave Bera some excuse for being so flushed.

  ‘And the goat milk?’ he asked Sigrid.

  ‘What goat milk?’ Bera disliked Sigrid having a life outside the longhouse.

  ‘It’s for the bairn,’ explained Dellingr. ‘As well as the breast, Asa wants him to have goat milk. Our girl failed to thrive on cow’s and she thinks the lad will be the same.’

  ‘Heggi’ll bring some milk,’ Sigrid said.

  Bera would not be outdone. ‘Heggi will bring the goat!’

  ‘I’ll be shutting up shop soon as it gets dark.’ Dellingr followed the two women outside.

  ‘When should I come back?’ Bera asked.

  ‘Whenever you like.’

  Ordinary life was restored – but Bera was sure Dellingr had felt their special connection, of ancient smithing and Valla powers.

  Then Sigrid exclaimed, ‘Nearly forgot!’ and rummaged under her various cloaks and furs.

  Trust Sigrid to bring a present for the wretched baby.

  ‘If you wore less you’d shift quicker,’ Bera snapped.

  Sigrid’s hand emerged, holding a piece of tooled leather. ‘Made this,’ she said and actually blushed. ‘It’s a sheath for your sword, Bera. To keep you safe.’

  Bera kissed her, in shame and remorse. ‘Let’s go up to the rune stone.’

  Bera stood the sheath against the seaward side of the rune stone. ‘I’ll think about what to say.’

  ‘Have a bit of something first.’ Sigrid sat down and burrowed under her layers again.

  Bera took the weight of the furs, to help. ‘You haven’t got a stewpot in there, have you?’

  Food and laughter; their way of making up. Sigrid pulled out a cloth that held a few hunks of smoked meat and a mangled piece of cheese. They chewed for a while and gazed out over the water, as still as stone today, as if still frozen. You could see beyond the Skerries, towards the Ice Rim. Bera wondered if Sigrid knew how close she was to where Bjorn met his death.

  ‘Do you think I’m like my mother?’ she asked.

  ‘What way?’

  ‘Babies. She only managed to have me and the last one killed her.’

  ‘More than that killed her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you going to have that cheese?’

  ‘It’s too mashed.’

  Sigrid gulped the cheese in one.

  ‘What killed her, Sigrid?’

  ‘Did you ever look about you back home, and wonder where all the girls were?’

  ‘Not really.’ But a tightness was inside Bera, something she had pushed away.

  ‘Time was, there was enough food to go round. But we had a run of bad luck and things got scarce. Mouths to feed and that. Men had to choose.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Open your eyes, Bera. It’s nearly as bad here. You’re so busy trying to be a Valla and pestering that skern that you don’t see what’s under your nose.’

  ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘Poor folk can’t keep every baby. They make choices.’

  ‘What did my father choose?’ Bera knew the hardness in Ottar.

  ‘Don’t dare to let on I’ve told you.’

  A squall hit and they gritted their teeth until it had passed.

  ‘How many did he refuse to raise?’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about not being able to get pregnant,’ Sigrid said. ‘That wasn’t her problem. And Hefnir’s wealthy enough to raise girls. He’s a good man, Bera. You want to be careful.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing. Only Ottar’s been saying things.’

  Bera took some ale. ‘So how many did he refuse to raise?’

  ‘Three girls. Then they had you. The last was a boy but his mouth was all wrong and he couldn’t suckle.’

  ‘So he put him out for the wolves. Why didn’t he expose me?’

  ‘He’d given up on having a son. Your mother told him you were special.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Every baby’s special, Bera.’

  They held hands. Bera had hoped that falling pregnant would be difficult. Now she would have to be sure to take her herbs on the hunting trip.

  ‘Why does Ottar talk about unfaithfulness?’

  Sigrid bundled herself upright. ‘Come on. Do what you’re going to do and let’s get home.’

  Bera took the sheath and pressed it against the runes spelling ALU. She felt a deep vibration running down her arm and the leather leapt like a fish in her hand. It would double the power of the sword once it was inside. If only Thorvald was coming hunting with them.

  On the way home, a new thought struck her. ‘So Hefnir only took me because they were short of young women in Seabost?’

  Sigrid looked shifty. ‘Sort of. The sea-riders carried what women they could off to the dragonboats, killing some in the process, like Hefnir’s wife.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Asa.’

  ‘What does she know? He still might have chosen me.’

  ‘Ottar wanted you off his hands.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh – so you’d be fed and clothed by someone else.’

  ‘And Hefnir needed boats.’ It still hurt. ‘Ottar says my mother was unfaithful. Is that true?’

  ‘He should let sleeping dogs lie.’

  ‘So it is true?’

  Sigrid hid behind her hood. ‘No.’

  ‘No, it’s a lie?’

  ‘It’s not exactly true. It’s just...’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t judge Alfdis harshly, Bera. She was married so young and your father being what he is. And being a Valla makes you more... She could have had anyone.’

  ‘And she wanted to?’

  There was no reply.

  ‘Sigrid? Did she?’

  It came like a sigh. ‘There was only one she loved.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  But Sigrid stomped off and Bera knew she would say no more. Were she and Ottar suggesting Valla power came with equal lust? As Bera’s own skills were growing, were her appetites also? That rushing moment when she held Dellingr’s fingers now made her feel ashamed. How far was she fooling herself?

  She caught up with Sigrid. ‘Did Asa tell you about the sword?’

  ‘Course. Why else would I make the sheath?’

  Bera dropped back, fuming. What had been something special between her and Dellingr now had Sigrid and his snotty wife trampling all over it.

  The longhouse was silent through the threshold and empty when they went in.

  It made Bera angrier still that Hefnir was not available to be shouted at.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ she shouted.

  A thrall rushed in from the byre, wiping his hands on a rough piece of sacking.

  ‘Where is my husband?’

  He pointed behind him. ‘All men went to latrine.’

  ‘That’s that then,’ said Sigrid. ‘We won’t be seeing them once they get in there, talking.’ She went over to the loom and did not ask Bera to join her.

  That was all right; she needed to be on the water. She threw the tooled sheath onto the table. The gift was spoiled.

  Ottar helped her push a boat down the slipway. Bera could hardly bear to look at him. All she could see were the cold blue bodies of dead babies. Silence suited her father, if he noticed it, but it oppressed her. He pushed her off and she took a few strokes of the oars, into deeper water. The sight of his back as he walked away enraged her.

  ‘It’s not my fault I’m not a boy!’

  He stopped. Water dripped from the oars while she waited to see if he would turn. He carried on walking.

  She used the rune stone to keep a straight course as she headed out across the mouth of the fjord. Her skern sat facing her, shivering.

  Dangerous, boating in our beads.

  She felt for her necklace in a sudden pa
nic that it had dropped overboard, then got back on course.

  ‘I wear them all the time.’

  You don’t feel the draught of my absence so much then, do you?

  ‘No. But I also...’

  ... keep trying to summon me by touching them. Doesn’t work, sweetie. Not me, not your ma.

  Bera clenched her teeth and rowed on. The sun was low in the sky and the air had a chill. The slap of water against the hull grew louder and the call of seabirds more strident.

  ‘I’m off soon on a hunting trip with Hefnir,’ she said.

  I know.

  ‘I wanted Thorvald on the trip now I have the sword.’

  I know.

  ‘Stop saying you know! I know you know!’

  Then ask me a question instead of stating the obvious.

  ‘You never say anything useful. You just riddle and smirk or clear off at the first sign of trouble.’

  I’m here now. And, if you don’t mind me saying so, anger makes you splash the oars a lot and I’m cold and wet enough.

  ‘Why do you turn up, then, if you don’t like it?’

  I don’t ‘turn up’ as you put it so elegantly; I’m here all the time. We skerns are very misunderstood.

  ‘It’s sad that ordinary folk never see their skerns till they’re about to die. Then they don’t want to see them at all.’

  They have each other before they’re born.

  ‘But that makes them sad the rest of their lives, even though they can’t remember why.’

  The skern embraced her like perfumed smoke. Have a lovely trip.

  ‘Will I?’

  There was no reply.

  Bera’s hands were sore. She shipped her oars and studied her palms. A couple of blisters were forming and she gave them a hard stare. How quickly her hands had become white and useless, like the bellies of dead fish. She blamed Hefnir.

  ‘Let’s get cracking,’ she said.

  She attached two lead weights to the length of strong line. Hefnir used them to measure goods for trading and she hoped he would not miss them. Bera pictured the waters of the fjord in layers of fish: the small ones at the top; then middlers, who came up to eat them; then bigger fish who ate them; then huge fish that ate them and so on. If she could get the line to sink low enough, she was certain she could catch something that would make Heggi jealous. Better than her, indeed!

  She put her largest hook onto one end and tied ribbons of white cloth along the line to lure them. She threw it overboard and took a few turns round the biggest block Ottar had. Perhaps he wished he had exposed her when he fostered Bjorn. Now he had Heggi. She could drown for all he cared. Yet out here that didn’t hurt so much: the music of the water running past the hull was the drumming of a mother’s blood.

  In no time at all the line twitched and Bera began to wind it in. She put the biggest of the catch safe in the fish keep, baited the line with another and threw it over.

  A grey fin was slicing the water, surging towards the boat. Bera dashed to the oars and fumbled, trying to get one in. She managed it, pulled, and the boat did a circle. The creature lunged at the stern. It was an ugly Thorhammer shark.

  It took the bait and dived. The line screamed through the block until it reached its end and the stern dipped towards the water. Bera slid, clutching the oar, and cracked her shins on the thwart. The boat was shipping water. She needed to free the line but the knife was clipped at the stern.

  The boat bobbed upright, spun round and tilted sideways, plunging the rail underwater. Bera scrabbled for the high side. A bucket floated away with the smaller bait. There was one chance to cut free. In one swift action she lunged for the stern knife, banged it down hard and returned to the rail. She had only managed to fray it and the strands snapped one at a time.

  ‘Mama, help me!’ she cried.

  The shark surfaced in frilled horror, its sickle-mouth gaping. Then the line broke and it flicked away, picking up the dead fish.

  There was no time for relief. Ottar’s boats were sturdy but it was too low in the water. Bera bailed for her life. Why had she believed she should be out on the water today? She was totally alone and very stupid. So much for her growing skills.

  Her skern pointed. Look!

  An arrowhead of troubled water coming in from the sea paths. It was the black and white death. Starkwhales. They never came as far as her home village but fishermen spoke of them in awe and Bera knew she needed help.

  No sign of a boat.

  The starkwhales spread out to form a hunting line that stretched across the fjord. Tall black fins dwarfed the lone grey shark fin. The whales sank down and surfaced as one, with loud hissing sighs, then dived again, closing their prey.

  She had to get away from the kill, though it meant heading into the pack. Bera rammed the oars back in place, braced her feet and pulled hard, straining every muscle. Unfit as she now was, her stomach screamed as she desperately made for open water. When the vast black and white bodies streamed past, Bera’s bravery was rewarded. Her small boat rocked in the wave surge but was not swamped.

  The shark stood no chance. A gleaming starkwhale tossed it into the air; another lunged, snapped and fell back in a white mountain of water. Then a threshing, bright red boil.

  The wind had got up without her noticing and a mackerel sky was darkening. She needed to get home.

  Her father was waiting for her when she got back, which surprised her.

  ‘Saw you out there,’ he said. ‘Boat tipping about. Trouble?’

  She opened the keep and proudly showed him two grey fish, as thick as Ottar’s thighs and longer.

  ‘Bottom feeders,’ he said. ‘How’d you catch them with no net?’

  ‘Help me with the boat.’ She was not so quick to forgive him that she would share a sea adventure. Besides, it was her own precious meeting with the starkwhales, who had come to save her. Perhaps her mother had too, and he wouldn’t like that.

  They winched it up together, took out the fish and then upturned the vessel so that all the water drained out and would not freeze. Even a sliver of ice could unclench all the nails.

  ‘I’ll cook these later,’ she said. ‘You’ll be there?’

  Her father nodded. ‘I’ll get a lad to wheel them over. So how’d you catch ’em?’

  ‘My secret Valla skill.’

  ‘My arse.’

  Ottar walked back through the boatyard with her. There was something on his mind, but he wasn’t sharing it. He instructed his lads to get the boat off the slipway. Then, at the whalebone gates, he stopped.

  ‘There was a boy,’ he started, then looked off into the distance. ‘After you. There was a boy but he... Has Sigrid never told you, or anyone?’

  ‘I knew it was a boy that killed my mother.’

  ‘Not as simple as that. Maybe it was a punishment, his jaw being cleft. Fine strapping lad he’d have made but a face like a monster.’

  ‘You exposed him.’

  Ottar looked at his hands. The palms were covered in fish blood. He rubbed them against his work smock.

  ‘He couldn’t feed, not with a mouth like that. It was a kindness, a quicker death overnight, in the cold. He would have fallen asleep, that’s all. They say it’s the gentlest death, like drowning in snow.’

  Bera snapped. ‘Gentle? With wolves? Bears? Drorghers!’

  Ottar turned away abruptly but not before Bera saw the first tears she had ever seen him weep. She could not feel any pity.

  Bera waved away a thrall and gutted and chopped the fish herself. The blisters on her hands were bleeding but it was good to do it again, even if it all took longer than it used to.

  Heggi rushed in as she finished. She wanted to boast about the size of her catch but he had exciting news that he was bursting to tell.

  ‘Guess what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘No, go on. Guess.’

  Bera closed her eyes and saw a baby cow curled inside its gossamer sheath.

  ‘Is it to do with
Feima?’

  ‘That’s not fair, using Valla stuff.’

  He kicked at the rushes on the floor. He was right to be cross, although Bera was pleased that her powers must be stronger – and that he recognised it. She rinsed her hands in a bucket of water, dried them on her apron and was kind.

  ‘The cowman told me how potent this bull is, so I guessed.’

  He perked up a bit. ‘The cowman felt her and says he’s sure she’s got a calf ready to come, almost. He’s the best cowman, too, so he ought to know.’

  ‘Lucky girl.’

  ‘Who’s lucky?’ Hefnir came in from the longhouse side, hiding something behind his back.

  ‘My cow, Papa. She’s about to calve.’

  ‘I doubt it.’ He put his arm round Bera. ‘I have a surprise for you.’

  ‘I completely forgot! Heggi, get one of the milking goats and take it up to Dellingr. Quickly – it’s getting dark.’

  The boy was glad to be off again. He whistled and Rakki followed him outside.

  Hefnir removed his arm. ‘Why are you giving Dellingr a goat?’

  ‘They need goat milk for the baby.’

  ‘And you give him a whole goat.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is it always going to be like this?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your lies. There’s talk about you and the smith. Who should I believe?’

  ‘Dellingr’s like a father to me.’

  ‘You already have a father. Who told me to watch you.’ Hefnir turned over her hand and made a face. ‘I told you I won’t have you going out in the boat. And you stink of fish.’

  She wanted to hurt him. ‘And I know the surprise is a sword.’

  His face closed. ‘Then you can present it to yourself.’ He went out without another word.

  Spoiling his surprise only hurt herself.

  That night they made plans for the journey and then Ottar went straight to the boat to supervise everything. Hefnir was as excited as a child and stomped about issuing instructions. Finally, Thorvald snapped and Bera got her agitated husband into the billet, where they lay together, pretending to sleep.

  Next day, Hefnir told Bera to meet him at the jetty and left. Thorvald reamed out his ears with the end of his knife, looking as if he didn’t care. Bera made sure all the herbs and potions were in the basket she had packed while Sigrid fussed. Then she was ready to leave.