Beautiful Wreck (24 page)

“How many acres does a man cut in a day?”

Heirik glanced at Hár, throwing the question his way, and turned from me. He went to soothe Vakr, removing his saddle and telling him unknown things, thoughts, endearments. I envied the horse, the low murmur of Heirik’s voice in his twitching ear. I wanted to know what Heirik told him, when they were like this. I wanted the chief to talk to me that way, gentle and sweet.

He wore two shirts, like always. Seeing him sweat-soaked, it hit me—the reason why—and my heart broke. It was to hide himself.

I remembered I was angry.

Hár answered me. “Depends on the acre.” His voice was like rocks, dry and crumbly. “And the man, já?” He winked, then told me seriously. “In good grass, it’s a swine’s own piss of a job. In sparse land like we did today, an acre and a half, maybe two.” He was peeling leather bracers the size of small tree trunks from his sweaty wrists, leaving trails of filth on his skin and shirt. He held them out by the laces, toward Betta, and she took them from him gingerly in two fingertips.

Hár spoke thoughtfully, under his breath, “A long day.”

Longer than twelve hours, and even then an acre or two seemed like a lot, like an unfathomable area for a man to clear. These were strong men like none I had known, perhaps not taller, but bigger by far. They could do brutal work. I looked out over the land that rolled away at my feet, and I pictured Jeff out in that field, the one Heirik had just shown me, working with his body instead of his mind. I saw his lovely blond hair pulled back, his tall frame—taller by far than any man here—out in the high grass. He spent his time in icy seclusion or a cozy cafe. But in fairness, I thought he would, yes, he’d be able to cut a field. It was amazing what we could do if we had to.

Or if we were challenged.

Betta looked at me sideways, a growing wariness in her features.

Hár patted Byr on the rump and the horse trotted off to find its own rest. Then he barked at Betta. “Woman, is there no drink?” With a swirl of skirts, she turned to hurry ahead of him and they disappeared into the house. I was alone with Lotta.

“I guess we should feed them,” I sighed.

Most of the family and all of the thralls labored all day, but Hár and Heirik had come back early. I supposed they could quit anytime they liked, being such powerful men. Then I realized how uncharitable my thoughts were, and how angry I still felt. These two men gave their blood and flesh for this family, the work of their bodies. It was fair that they should come home, should spend some time reflecting, feeling the warmth of the bath on their stiff, exhausted bodies. Even now, they probably conferred about how many animals could live this winter, how the people could possibly be fed. They held our lives in their hands just as they might hold a scythe blade, turning it over and considering and caring for it.

Still, Heirik did underestimate me. And still, I simmered.

After giving the two of them an unthinkable quantity of ale, Betta locked up the pantry, and she and I took our work outside. Betta looked up at the sun, expertly judging hours and conditions. “We have some time,” she said, and she sat down in the cool of the house’s shadow and took out her binding. The littlest kids were crossing sticks, smacking them and warbling, tuneless in the breeze. A long-ago memory doing something similar came to me, a glimmer of a former life, here in my hands, but I couldn’t catch it.

Betta and I talked about nothing at first. Then small things, like the laundry women and how the dairy was producing. Who the dairymaids were this year. One of them was lazy, she thought, but Hildur never reported it to the chief. The woman would have nowhere else to go, and the season was waning. She wouldn’t be hired again next year.

I looped the wool around my thumb and pushed the bone needle. Forward, under, tighten, again and again. Slippery lanolin shone on my thumb where I pinched the yarn. The flies were all buzzing again, and the sound rose like a chant, blanking my mind. Wool on fingers was all I knew. The slick, blunt needle. One of the dogs came and sat nearby, then dropped to its side, four legs stretched out straight in the grass. Its chest rose and fell with big, doggie breaths.

Betta made a choked little sound, and I awoke. She was staring at something, down the slope away from the house. I followed her gaze and saw what she saw.

We were sitting in that spot, where a trick of the landscape revealed the bath, like a sea-green bowl at the bottom of the hill. Heirik was in the water already, sunk down to his shoulders, his sweaty clothes soaking where he tossed them into the runoff to rinse. Hár stood by the water, peeling his filthy shirt off over his head.

Betta watched with wiry interest, strung tight, and I realized she was probably not very familiar with the adult male body. She’d seen boys, já, and probably some men in such close quarters. But now she craved it and studied it. And Hár was an interesting subject, unlike any man I’d ever known. A character from a Viking fairy tale. I could imagine him in armor, a battle cry on his lips, setting fire to some hapless village or abbey. I watched too, mesmerized, as his shirt joined Heirik’s in the stream.

He reached to untie the drawstring around his waist, and Betta and I instantly turned away, as one, so fast it was comical. It was quiet for a second, both of us like children caught at something, waiting, and I heard her swallow hard. Then we looked at each other and burst out laughing. There was mischief and amazement in her eyes. She looked delighted and shy, and I wondered how much she knew, how much she had touched or seen of whatever boy she snuck away with.

“A man’s body is a wondrous thing, já?” I asked her.

Her eyes widened. “You have seen a man … that way?”

My stomach dropped for a second. I’d forgotten to be unsure, to pretend I didn’t remember.

“No, just at the baths …” I stumbled over the familiar guilt of these small lies. “I’ve never seen anything like …” I trailed off. There was a bit of truth to it. I had never seen anything in the world like Hár. Betta didn’t notice my fumbling. Her eyes were five minutes in the past, watching again as his clothes came off. Almost inaudibly, she agreed. “Fearsome, já.”

Almost everyone was asleep, thrown across their benches with great abandon after a grueling day’s work. A few of us who hadn’t worked so many hours—or those of us who’d cooked and watched children and done nothing as hard as haying—lingered by the heartstone after evening meal. Even Heirik, who sat back away from us, sharpening a two-foot-long blade like a silver curve of death.

I’d proposed a bet, and people talked in warbling tones of rising excitement about it. It would be like this. It would be like that.

“Please, I want to do it,” Ranka begged.

“You’re too little, Child.” Betta told her. “The blade alone is as tall as your chin.”

“Já, young maid,” Hár told her. The he widened his eyes with exaggerated concern and leaned in to grab her braids in one big hand. “Girls your size have been known to cut their braids clean off and leave them for the cows to eat.” He tugged on them, and she giggled with bright hilarity.

“Nei,” he went on. “What you ladies need for the job is someone delicate. A tiny bird like my Thora.” He cast his eyes to where his unwitting daughter slept. She and Grettis hadn’t even taken the time to close their curtains. They lay sprawled in a plump, snoring tangle of blond hair and dirty linen. Thick ankles seemed to poke out everywhere.

“Nei matter,” I broke in. “I’m the one who will do it. It’s my bet.”

Hár turned serious, and he spoke to me like a caring uncle, gently breaking bad news. “It is no real bet, Woman. It just is not how we do it, if we can—”

“—The maids will cut the grass.” Heirik’s voice was even and low, but it cut through our chatter with the ease of a thrown knife. We all turned to him. He sat a few feet away, swiping at his blade, setting off rich sounds of whetstone on steel.

“Ginn and one other,” he stated. Then to me he said, “If you cut an acre by noon, I will work for you the rest of the day.”

In the shocked stillness, my head swam with thoughts. But my voice didn’t waver.

“Good,” I said.

I didn’t betray the gorgeous feeling it gave me, the notion of Heirik doing my bidding, the idea of him being mine for one afternoon. Grave doubts came, too. Would it be too hard? After all my courageous talk, could I really do it? I had no idea how to cut grass.

Heirik offered more. “If the rest come behind you and rake so the hay is drying by nightfall, I will give a party.” His eyes flicked briefly to his uncle, his smile a brief trick of the light.

Voices rose again around the fire. Other terms were discussed, having to do with Hár making dinner and washing Thora’s socks. I concentrated on nothing else. He’d said yes.

It was just a half hour later when I went to the mudroom, searching for an extra cloak for sleeping. The wool was all stiff and cold, and a miserable chill seeped into the soles of my feet, right through my socks, climbing my ankles. I reached for a sheepskin and started to turn back into the house when a big weight slammed against the back door. I jumped and clasped a hand to my mouth, stifling a yelp. I stared at the door, frozen in place, the sheepskin clutched to my chest.

There were voices then, Hár and Heirik. They were fighting, and not just arguing. Someone had been thrown against the house.

Hár’s words were like knives. “That one does,” he said forcefully. There was a long space of quiet, and I imagined them both catching their breaths, gazes locked. My own breathing was ragged, my eyes riveted to the door as though I could see through it and into the heart of their argument. When Hár spoke again it was almost tender. “Take her somewhere,” he said. “Away from here.”

Her.

He had to mean me.

Hár was telling Heirik to send me somewhere away from Hvítmörk. And though it was in a loving voice, it was very much a command. I’d never heard anyone talk to Heirik this way. I had to know his reaction, but the chief didn’t answer in words. In the thick silence, behind the muffling heaviness of dirt walls and wood door, I had no way of guessing what he thought. If he nodded in ready agreement, if he smiled or glared or stalked off into the night I didn’t know. Neither of them came inside.

Later, huddled under cloaks, I told myself that Heirik wouldn’t do it. Betta had said he wouldn’t make me go, and she knew these things about him.

I rested my forehead on her bony back and forced myself to believe.

Hár handed me the scythe. I let it settle in my hand and tried not to stare at his black eye.

The wood was almost plush in the crook of my thumb, where many hands had held and swung this tool before. It had a strange, uneven weight. But even as it was odd, it was elegant too, and lighter than I expected. Magnus showed me how it worked, how its awkward shape was made perfectly for its single task. I stood it on end, and the blade curved just over my shoulder.

“Not near your face, Maid.” Hár told me, gruff and irritated. “Unless you want to live with one ear.”

What did he care? He wanted me gone.

I looked for Heirik and found him standing at the top of a small rise. He talked to the boys, his arms crossed, unworn gauntlets hanging from one hand. From far away, I could see his shoulders slightly raised and hunched forward in frustration. When he turned and his eyes caught mine across the distance of field, he didn’t melt into a smile. He looked through me.

His open sleeves moved in the breeze, and the grass spoke all around me like a thousand whispers.
Take her somewhere.
I remembered Hár’s words from last night.
Away from here.