The Book of Bera Read online

  ‘Why do you not have a longer beard?’ she asked Hefnir.

  The man next to him said something and Hefnir laughed.

  ‘Tell me!’ She pulled at his arm.

  He looked down at her. He was very tall. ‘So that no man shall pull me by it.’

  That was not why they laughed. Bera felt childish and excluded.

  Voices grew louder and a crowd formed near the huge central fire. Hefnir caught hold of her and carried her under his arm.

  ‘Put me down!’ Bera hit his chest.

  He laughed again, in high spirits. Perhaps he was already drunk. He used her to ram his way through to where a man was warming his hands.

  His face, even half-turned, was clearly furrowed by a terrible scar.

  Hefnir swung her down.

  ‘My second is like my brother. He will protect you now, as he has me, for many years.’ He took their hands and placed them together. ‘Thorvald, meet my wife.’

  Dismay was like a sword in the stomach. So Scarface was Thorvald, who was mentioned with respect. Bjorn’s killer bowed low over her hand, keeping a tight hold so that she couldn’t break free. She wanted to punch him so that he would jerk upright and be split open like Bjorn.

  He raised his hideous face and scrutinised her. ‘She’s bloodless.’

  ‘The sight of you would make anyone faint.’

  ‘She’s hungry. Like the rest of us.’ He spoke thickly, through damaged lips.

  Hefnir laughed and yelled, ‘Let’s eat!’

  There were raucous cheers and wolfish folk jostled to get hunks of meat that were hacked from the beasts on the spit. Bera was breathless in the crush with its sudden tang of strange sweat. Needles pricked her cheeks and colours swirled. Hefnir swept her up in his arms again and got her away. He put her down at a long table where a small window let in sweeter sea air. At home she stood alone against Drorghers... yet here she was as weak as a baby.

  ‘You nearly fainted.’

  ‘I don’t faint.’

  ‘Look – Thorvald has some meat.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  She was ravenous but would take nothing from that man, who offered her a wooden platter filled with juicy meat.

  ‘We roasted this in your honour,’ he said.

  Bera could not tear her eyes away from the food. The smell was succulent. It was all she could do not to dribble.

  ‘Thorvald’s right,’ said Hefnir. ‘Folk are watching. So come on. Eat.’

  He held up a slice of meat. Bera could resist no longer and she took it like a bear. It was delicious and she had another two slices in quick succession, sucking in the flavour of the meat juices. Hefnir patted her head and she regretted letting him see her hunger.

  ‘I’m not your cur!’

  A man was approaching. ‘We need to speak, Thorvald, but I’ll sort him out first.’ Hefnir went to meet him.

  ‘Aren’t you going with your master like a good boy?’ Bera spat.

  ‘Don’t act the mistress with me.’ Thorvald sneered. ‘He doesn’t even know your name, does he?’

  ‘Of course he does.’

  ‘What he does know is what happened to that reckless boy. Exactly.’

  Bera seethed. ‘I’ll make you pay the blood debt.’

  ‘What was your name again?’

  ‘Bera. A Valla, like my mother and her mother before her. So you had better look behind you, Thorvald. My revenge may come from the dead.’

  He didn’t flicker.

  ‘My ancestors can strike you down, believe me.’ The more she threatened, the weaker it sounded.

  ‘I don’t fear the dead,’ he said. ‘It’s the living you have to worry about.’

  ‘Do you not fear Drorghers?’

  ‘Are they your boggelmen, to frighten children? Get that meat down you. It’s better than your pickled Crapsby muck.’

  She spat her mouthful onto the ground. It was taken at once by a scavenger dog.

  ‘Wasteful,’ he said. ‘That’s your first fresh meat for an age, isn’t it?’

  ‘It doesn’t taste like pork,’ said Bera.

  ‘That’s because it’s horse.’

  She refused to look shocked. ‘I wait my time. You will pay the blood debt. My father may have taken money but I will have blood.’

  ‘Your father! Don’t you know that—’

  Hefnir returned. ‘Let’s get the important bit over before they’re too drunk.’

  Bera wanted to know what Thorvald had to say about Ottar but the chance had slipped and she was damned if she would ask him.

  Thorvald returned to the hearth and folk made a noisy circle about him. He tapped his sword point on the stones until there was quiet.

  ‘You all know why we’re here,’ he said. ‘Hefnir will take this girl, Ottar’s daughter, as his wife. All kinsfolk should recognise his right. Many suffered in the latest skirmish, none more so than he, and it was settled that the loss of the first was not by his own hand. So, are we agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ came the ready response from folk wanting to get back to drinking.

  ‘What did he mean?’ Bera asked.

  Hefnir kept his eyes on Thorvald, who went on, ‘Let us now drink to their health and her fertility.’

  The words were repeated and drinking horns emptied. The towering beams of the huge mead hall were a pressing weight. There was no escape. Seeing herself as an avenger was ridiculous. She was only a girl, brought in as a brood mare. In the yellow heart of the fire her skern’s poor face twisted in twin despair and Bera’s eyes burnt with tears.

  ‘Her turn!’ shouted some red-faced women.

  The brood mare was expected to make her mark in Seabost. How could she do that when she saw nothing but Bjorn’s guts on the sand and the man who had spilled them? Bera was out of her depth, with no idea what their customs were. They didn’t seem to believe in anything they couldn’t trade with. Failure would dishonour her, as well as Hefnir, who was clearly a leader. Sweat poured down her back and she could smell her own fear. She looked across at her skern in desperation. He tapped his neck. He meant the beads – but what about them?

  Hefnir called out to her. ‘Thorvald says you’re a Valla. So make a prediction.’

  There was excited murmuring. Bera fiddled with her necklace, which had never helped her predict anything. She tried to think of some likely future event but Seabost was a mystery to her. Her skern took pity.

  Hold the black bead.

  The crowd let a tall man through. He smiled at her and raised his ale. He was the first one to look kindly at her – and she could picture his face in every detail when she tried to see where he had gone.

  She rolled the special bead; the only one her mother had picked out on her deathbed.

  In desperation she began to tell Seabost about being six and losing a dear mother in the act of giving life to a boy, who had not thrived; about the earlier babies and how these deaths turned her kind father into a hard, ever-complaining master who would not let her show her feelings, ever.

  Bera forgot she was amongst the enemy and spoke from the heart. Her simple truth touched everyone there who had faced such loss – and most had. She did not notice that she had won over the crowd, sentimental with drink, and thought instead about how her best friend Bjorn had become a foster-brother who needed her. Killed by her husband’s second.

  Sadness turned into fury. It felt good, as if she were already an avenging ancestor, so she did not fear death. For killing Thorvald would be at the cost of her own life, whether immediate or at Hefnir’s hand. She moved through the hall, scanning blurred faces for her enemy.

  There was a deeper darkness in the shadows that made her scalp prickle. It had the same menace as a Drorgher, though none could stand the mead hall’s torches. It was the size of a trole and hooded. Then Thorvald appeared and started talking to it. They stood close, although no one was near them. Bera crept to where she ought to see inside the hood – but could not. This was some new evil Seabost drew to its
elf and she tried to prepare.

  Hefnir slapped her on the backside, like a cow.

  ‘Here’s one of my tenant farmers, come for our wedding. I’ve trusted him to get you safely home.’

  The stony-faced farmer had blood-lines crackling over his cheeks and nose. He offered Bera his arm but she ignored it.

  ‘Are we wed, then?’ she asked Hefnir.

  ‘Did you miss it in your faint?’

  Bera yearned for some sign of affection. ‘Do you know my name?’

  ‘There’s years to learn it. Go home now.’

  ‘It’s Bera,’ she said to his back.

  Hefnir carried on in the direction of Thorvald and the hooded man. What was happening? All that remained of Bera was her threadbare pride, so she stalked out of the mead hall ahead of the farmer. Then she could not remember the way, which annoyed her. As did his scornful look when he overtook her.

  ‘I don’t need you,’ she shouted. ‘I’m used to going about on my own.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you? There’s only two hens and a goat at Crapsby.’

  Bera hurried to catch him up, fuming. ‘I keep Drorghers away. The walking dead.’

  He showed no reaction.

  ‘Perhaps you call them something else here,’ she said.

  ‘You superstitious peasants.’

  ‘Then why do you have so many torches?’

  ‘Light?’ He looked at her as if she was simple.

  Bera pulled her shoulders back. ‘My father builds your best boats. He keeps two workers and a foster-child... who was killed in cold blood by a Seabost animal.’

  ‘My, my.’

  She felt for her knife, wanting to slice the smirk from his face. Then she came to her senses. It was Thorvald she should be killing. Things were different here in Seabost. Faces were harder, warier, more used to fighting. There would be no battle won yet, not by an inexperienced girl with a knife that had only gutted fish. She had to plan.

  The man stopped. ‘I wouldn’t put on airs. The whole place knows that we’re getting Ottar’s boats at a price. Your father made Hefnir take you and all if he wanted them.’ He walked on.

  Bera reeled. So she hadn’t been chosen; she hadn’t even been bought. She was only some scrap added on to the deal, like stale fish. Now she was stripped of pride as well as everything else.

  The full moon lit a white path ahead like a trail of gut. Whalebones loomed and soared above them. Every dead thing.

  ‘Home.’ The man gestured at Hefnir’s longhouse. ‘I’m going back. You get inside.’

  He probably showed Hefnir’s animals more respect.

  Bera whistled over the ancestors as she groped for the inner door.

  ‘Perfidy and violation...’

  She clicked the heavy latch and rushed in, shutting out the threat, but their viciousness came hissing in the draught behind her.

  ‘Perfidy...’

  ‘Leave me alone!’

  Rustling and skittering of large rats running for cover.

  The fire was low and shadows flickered and danced on the walls. There was whispering from the far end of the longhouse and the darkness shifted. An old woman, bent like a weatherworn tree, hustled a white-haired child ahead of her. A dog followed, the only one to glance in her direction. They went off towards the back.

  Sadness and loneliness were physical. Her rib cage was torn open as if her skern had just unclasped. Where was he? Even thralls had companionship. Bera felt vulnerable and made for her only lair: Hefnir’s billet.

  No thrall came to light her way and the billet was squid-ink black. Bera bashed her knee against the wedding chest and then felt her way like Blind Agnar to the sleeping platform, stubbing her toes when she got there. She burrowed into the rugs and furs and pulled them over her head. Perhaps her skern would never join her again in Seabost. Perhaps being married stopped all that. Or were her murderous thoughts stronger than her Valla powers?

  She had done nothing but cry for years, or so it felt, and her eyes quickly became sore and swollen. She cried herself to sleep and woke with a start when Hefnir pulled the covers off her. He crashed down onto his knees and swore.

  ‘Sh!’ He put a finger to his lips.

  His taper dripped fat onto her hand and she let it burn.

  ‘Come, wife,’ he said. Sickly mead breath. He tried to get up, chuckled, beckoned her and fell over.

  It’s all right. Get him on his feet.

  Mad with relief at hearing her skern and practised from years of tending to her father in drink, Bera rescued the taper and tried to get Hefnir into bed. But he refused and began to tug her through the hall. Where to?

  ‘Sh!’ he said again, when a log fell on the fire.

  They crossed to a sleeping platform farthest from the main door and paused at its hanging. A dark wooden chest and bench lost substance in the light of the driftwood fire whose flames flickered green and blue with salt.

  ‘Mine,’ said Hefnir. He put a hand on the chest.

  Something nudged Bera’s hand. It was the dog she had seen earlier. One friend.

  ‘Rakki likes you.’ Hefnir pulled aside the hanging.

  The covers on the bed shifted and a child’s face emerged. He had a shock of pale hair, like a pure light. It was the boy she had seen earlier.

  ‘He’s my dog,’ he said, petulant.

  Bera had an urge to shake him.

  Hefnir smiled. ‘Kiss your mother, Heggi. My son is your son, wife.’

  ‘No!’ They shouted together.

  The boy disappeared under the covers.

  ‘I wish it,’ said Hefnir and took Bera’s hand.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ She wrenched free and stamped back to the fire.

  Behind her there were some stern words and crying, which stoked her own fury. When Hefnir came out she turned on him, a hurt child herself.

  ‘Why pretend I have a choice? How would saying something out loud make any difference? You and Ottar have a bargain and I’m the add-on. What you Seabost men want you take with violence. That boy doesn’t want it any more than I do but our Fate is sealed. I’m not swearing to anything.’

  ‘Don’t be frightened.’

  ‘I am not frightened!’

  Someone sniggered. ‘She’s scared all right.’

  It was Scarface.

  Bera’s heart raced. ‘I don’t fear you.’

  ‘Course you do.’

  ‘Shut up, Thorvald,’ said Hefnir and hiccupped.

  ‘Why is he here?’ Bera cried.

  ‘I’m here because I’m more use to him than you’ll ever be.’

  ‘Thorvald, you ugly bastard, you’re my second and that’s all.’ Hefnir hiccupped again. ‘But my home is his home, wife.’

  Thorvald kept his eyes on Bera. Having him live here would be a nightmare but would bring his death closer, so she would put up with it. And plan.

  Hefnir was speaking to her. ‘Heggi lost his mother only a short while ago and it is hard for him. You know how that is. I want you to be a new mother to him but it can wait. I can keep him out of your way, like I did today.’

  Thorvald belched. ‘Not that I’m meddling or anything but you’ve promised two fine redheads for that skinny bint from Crapsby there. If you get as far as the morning gift, that is. The Ser—’

  ‘Careful, Thorvald. The mead’s talking.’ Hefnir’s voice held a new threat.

  ‘All right. I know we need boats but why is she involved?’

  ‘She has Valla skills.’

  ‘She has none.’

  ‘Stop talking about me as if I were the house cow! Anyway, I don’t have to answer to you, ever, the brave man who kills boys,’ she spat.

  ‘Poor little runt got more than he deserved. I didn’t hear you warn him.’

  Bera was dizzy with anger. She pulled out her knife and ran at him. Thorvald lazily held her off and chuckled while she lunged at him, her reach far too short.

  ‘Stop it now, wife.’ Hefnir grabbed her.

  ‘Did you know he k
illed my friend? Am I part of the blood money you paid Ottar?’

  ‘I know Thorvald got a narwhale horn that will keep us safe for a while. Won’t it, Thorvald?’

  ‘He’s taken it, anyhow.’ Thorvald shrugged. ‘We’ll see whose side he’s on.’

  Bera had no idea what they were talking about. ‘Did Ottar take the tusk?’

  ‘No. Someone who is none of your concern.’

  She felt foolish standing there with both men ignoring the puny threat of her gutting knife, so she put it away.

  ‘So am I part of the blood money?’ She made her voice calm.

  Hefnir assessed her. ‘If you must know, weeks before your little hothead died, I had business with your father. Ottar wanted rid of you, that’s all.’

  So it was true. There could be no going home. Bera would have fallen to her knees except Thorvald was watching.

  Hefnir pulled her close. ‘Come on. Time we got down to business ourselves.’

  Thorvald gave them a small salute and whistled his way off towards the men’s quarters.

  Don’t worry, sweetheart. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

  Her skern’s riddle was no comfort. Her childhood was over.

  Hefnir carried her back to his billet. ‘You’re like a bit of stockfish. Light but stiff.’

  ‘I’m not used to being heaved about like a sack,’ she snapped. His playfulness made her more tense, not less.

  He put her down on the bed, nearly falling on top of her, and rolled aside to pull off his boots. ‘Women like it a bit rough.’

  Did they? His experience would make him choosy and Bera knew nothing. Nerves made her mouth too dry to respond. Would this hurt a lot?

  ‘Thorvald’s right! You are scared!’

  ‘No, I’m not!’

  Hefnir went out, taking the light with him. Had she failed already? Was he making a thrall do what his wife should? If she was a wife. There had been no proper vow-taking. But then he was back with a beaker. He drank some mead and kissed her, letting the strong, sweet liquid flow into her mouth. He made her drink and then kissed her again, mouth and breasts, and Bera was glad he was gentler. If only he would begin.