Daughter of the Wind (11 page)

The thought was foreign to the strong young hunter, but he could not put it out of his mind: Perhaps he should fall upon his spear, here, on the open sea. It would be better than returning to his beloved village and becoming a danger to his comrades. Gauk had once entertained a secret whim of being such a killer, and now he would pay any price to return to his former life.

The seal appeared again, and Gauk wondered if this animal was now going to utter some portentous speech. The creature looked happy, alive to some delicious secret.

“Tell me what will happen,” whispered Gauk.

Twenty-two

It was a sun-drenched afternoon.

The little town of Blot nestled at the edge of a harbor. The low hills around the settlement were rocky and lush green, with a line of dark forest and fuming hot springs high beyond.

The seal had offered no syllable of prophecy, but Gauk knew where to get help. Spjotfolk had a reverence for this northern village. The town's name meant worship, sacrifice, and the place had for generations been associated with Odin. Legend had it that one night-dark winter day a fisherman, mending an
eikja
, a crude sort of boat, spied Odin walking along the frozen land, carrying a two-pronged stick to keep from slipping on the ice.

Blot had been the home of the famous seeress Steingirdr Hakarsdottir, who had foretold the kingship of the old king of Denmark Angantyr. Possessed by envy and frustrated spite, one of Angantyr's rivals had killed the seeress, cut off her head, and thrown it onto the sea. Within weeks the foolish rival had gone mad, hearing the seeress's voice in every hissing wave.

A new seer named Jarn Ketilsson lived in the hills above Blot, and for a price this man was as prescient as any prophet who had ever drawn a breath. The story was that this seer had burned out one of his own eyes so he could resemble Odin. Other stories told that he had cut off one of his ears, or axed off one of his hands. In any event, Jarn was reputed to be a knowing and austere man, who turned many seekers away from his door. His powers were expensive, but insight into the future was considered by most Norse a gift beyond reckoning.

Gauk tied the boat against the rude wharf and hefted his heavy load, the uncured bear pelt, staggering under the burden.

A man planing a ship's spar with a two-handled blade looked up at his step.

“Good shipwright,” asked Gauk politely, “please tell me, which is the way to the house of the seer Jam Ketilsson?”

The shipwright eyed Gauk with an air of cheerful suspicion. “The seer consults with princes,” he said, running a thumb along his blade. “The sons of jarls might be allowed into his company. A sea leader with an armed fleet waiting might, possibly, be allowed to put his head into the doorway of the seer. But not, I think, an ordinary hunter.”

Troubled by this, Gauk set down the heavy pelt and straightened, easing his back.

“And Jarn,” the shipwright continued, “is not pleased at the sight of a bear fur, hunter. Anything that reminds Jarn of a bear killed, or hurt, or even troubled, offends him greatly.”

Gauk sighed, feeling dismal, unequal to the challenge of an audience with the famous seer, but willing to pay any price. “What can I do?”

Perhaps something about Gauk's downcast eyes touched the shipwright. The man turned away and examined the spruce wood spar. “You'll find Fat Grim at the top of the road. He's an honest trader and has been known to set his hand on silver.”

The merchant who fingered the bear pelt did not wrinkle his nose at the overripe stink.

He probed and pinched the fur, but made no remark at the rancid, black flesh along the edges. The luxurious hides of black fox and beaver hung head-down from the walls of Fat Grim's dwelling, and squirrel pelts were spread on wooden stretchers. In Spjothof such a store of furs would have indicated a dazzling degree of wealth. Fat Grim was a deep-chested, hale man with a gray-streaked beard. He was, as his name had promised, a portly individual. He ran a hand over the thick, bright fur, and noted the place where Gauk had cut it.

“It would have fetched a better price if you'd not cut it so,” said the merchant as Gauk took a seat on a three-legged stool.

“No doubt,” said Gauk. “I would like to sell the pelt—but keep the paws at my hip.”

He had always left bargaining for sailcloth or salt cod to Snorri, who had always had the cheerful retort and the offhand, easy manner that brought a price lower and lower, with laughter and gentle teasing on both sides.

Fat Grim was an old hunter himself, judging from the scar that ran along one arm, a long, pink cord from wrist to elbow, the sort of wound a boar made, slashing with his tusks. The grizzled merchant touched the walrus scar in the bear pelt and said, “You did not kill this bear all alone.”

“I hunted with a friend,” said Gauk. “But as the Norns wove my fate, I had no choice but to kill him with my own hands.”

Gauk had heard hunters and warriors describe their feats with a terse humility, and always had admired the matter-of-fact stoicism of such men. Gauk had never anticipated sounding like this himself.

“No doubt that is why you wanted to keep the paws,” said Fat Grim, indicating the remnant at Gauk's feet. “As a memorial to your friend.”

When Gauk smiled, but did not make any further remark, the merchant reached for a pitcher and poured ale into a wooden cup. He offered the drink to Gauk, who accepted it in both hands, as good manners dictated. He waited until the merchant had poured a cupful for his own enjoyment. Drinking was rarely casual among Norsemen.

The two drained their cups. It was good, sweet ale. Fat Grim poured them new servings and they both drained their cups again—to show restraint in drinking was unmanly and discourteous. Grim wiped his heavy mustache with his sleeve, took in Gauk's sword and the dried blood on his tunic, and gave a belch, the sign of a good-hearted appreciation for drink.

“Six seal pelts will fetch an
eyrir
of silver among the Swedes,” said Grim, “but try to sell seal pelts to the Franks and they'll ask you to throw in a keg of boat pitch, something they could use.”

Gauk said nothing, aware that he knew too little of such things.

“Bear pelts, though, are a different matter.”

“How much can you give me?” Gauk asked.

Grim raised a finger, silently counseling patience. “Perhaps you would sell the sword strapped around your middle.”

“I won this—”
with bloodshed
, he nearly said.

The trader sighed. “The Franks have rare ladies. Cream-fed noble folk. They take a special joy in feeling bear pelts against their skin.”

“So how much—”

“I've heard such Frankish ladies dream of cloud-borne pleasures when they drowse on such furs.”

“I've never met a Dane, let alone a Frankish lady.”

Grim's eyes grew small as he offered a compassionate smile. He added, “But there are no Franks in Blot, my brave hunter, and not likely to be until much later in the summer—if even then, when their ships call this far north.”

“The seer,” said Gauk, “will want a plump purse before he'll agree to the son of my father.”
Son of my father
was the polite, formal way of referring to oneself. Gauk felt disconsolate, and more in need of a seer's advice than ever.

Grim poured them both more ale. “It is at this point in the bargaining,” said the trader, “that a merchant from one of those fjords to the south cheats the youthful traveler.” They both drank. “They give the hunter a bag of resin and a tethered goose, and weep that the price is too dear.”

Gauk burped. The drink was strong. “It is a pity to cheat a traveler.”

“And the gods,” said Grim, with a bright look in his eye, “loathe a crooked merchant.”

“I've heard that is true,” agreed Gauk.

“Although none are cheaters,” said Grim, “like the pelt buyers of that coarse, smoky hole called Spjothof.”

Gauk stood, his fists knotted.

Twenty-three

“What did my ears just hear?” Gauk asked, the old formula for asking for an insult to be repeated.

“I said no one cheats,” said Fat Grim, “and no one fights as badly as the weak-kneed men and women from the stink hole called Spjothof.”

Gauk kicked his stool to one side.

To his surprise, Fat Grim was laughing, slapping the table with his hand.

“Sit down, my good friend—and accept my apologies,” said the stout merchant.

Gauk made no move.

“I recognized a Spjotman when you stepped through my door,” said Fat Grim, “and I played a game at your expense.”

Conversational sport was prized among all the Norse. Men and women would sit around the simmering stew pot and enumerate the virtues of a certain leader, or ship, or village, and sometimes such talk turned just the opposite in tone, and involved colorful but well-intended mockery.

“Who else but a Spjotman,” Grim continued, “would wear such a fine herringbone-weave tunic?”

“The men of Blot take humor in rough ways,” said Gauk, after a silence.

“We do indeed,” said Fat Grim. “I apologize again to my brave guest.”

Gauk sat. He felt more than a little embarrassed to have been so easily offended at such a traditional form of teasing. Calm in the face of word-sport, like a strong head for drink, was widely admired.

“And to repay you for your patience,” said Fat Grim, “I shall offer my advice.”

Gauk eased himself into a bubbling spring, letting the warm water knead him, the heat of the merry waters seeping into his muscles. Baths were enjoyed throughout the Northland, and the time after the evening meal was often referred to as
badferd
, bathtime, so frequently did men and women enjoy such quiet pleasure. Fat Grim had cut a slice of boiled seal steak and let Gauk wash the sweet, close-grained meat down with yet more excellent ale. Gauk felt that he had stumbled upon the best hospitality a traveler could desire.

Beyond the bathhouse, through the cracks in the birch wood shelter around Fat Grim's spring, Gauk observed the merchant's female house servants at work on his own bloodstained clothing, beating the garments with the
vifl
, the traditional laundry bat. When the clothes were clean, the house servants hung them on a line between two poles. Gauk watched his tunic and leggings and coarse-woven linen underclothes dance madly, alternately full of wind and empty, an amusing sight, like the crazy, spirited dance Gauk's neighbor Hego did when he had a belly full of drink.

The span of rank bear skin waited in a corner of the bathhouse, rolled tight.

Because people bathed frequently, and streams of warm water flowed from the numerous springs up and down the mountainous coast, cleanliness was both widely admired and expected. Fat Grim's advice that a clean, well-laundered supplicant would be more acceptable to the seer had been wise, and Gauk was grateful. He soaked for a long time in the purling waters.

A
badkona
, a bathing servant, brought Gauk's newly cleansed garments to him, and the pretty, dimpled young woman helped Gauk into his clothing. Unused to the attention of servants, Gauk thanked her. That the servant was a comely woman made his self-conscious thanks all the more heartfelt.

“It's all a part of my duty,” she answered, using a word Gauk knew well,
morginverkin
, daily duties varying from splitting wood to milking goats.

But a stiffness, a decided reserve in her tone, mystified Gauk—until he stretched his arms down his sleeves and found that the tunic's shoulders were too tight and the sleeves too short.

“Please don't be angry,” said the servant.

Her subservient tone, and the way she flinched when Gauk swung his arms, trying to loosen the cloth, made Gauk feel all the more self-conscious.

“I'm not at all angry,” he said. “I am a little surprised that soaking in the spring has made me bigger than I was when I last wore this garment.”

The servant put a hand to his sleeve. She said, “The laundry women were afraid the wool might shrink. And it has.”

Courtesy was wise when a traveler inquired after someone's name, and so Gauk phrased his question using the time-honored phrase, “Whose daughter are you?”

“I am Jorunn Sursdottir,” she said, “servant to Grim.”

She was Gauk's age, he guessed, and her pale skin indicated that she spent little time outdoors.

“My clothes have shrunken only a very little,” said Gauk. While it was true that the tunic was smaller, Gauk realized that the bloodstains were nearly gone.

“If you keep silent about this to my master,” she said, “I'll find you a fresh tunic, of good lamb's wool, and new leggings as well.”

“When I fasten my coat, no one will notice my long arms,” said Gauk with a laugh.

“For your silence,” she said, “I will do anything.”

The warm spring purred and simmered behind him. Gauk considered what the comely Jorunn had just said. Sexual favors were often considered a part of a female servant's duties. Control over one's passions was admired as well as every other form of self-control, but Gauk felt a surge of temptation.

And a certain urgent curiosity. “Are you so afraid of Fat Grim?” he asked.

“No, not of him,” she answered. “He is kind. His wife, however, is cruel,” she added, lowering her eyes, “being jealous.”

It was late in the day when Gauk followed the flowing shape of his own shadow up a wending, pebbled path to the seer's longhouse above town.

Now that he approached this heavily timbered dwelling, far from any neighbor, Gauk felt his steps falter. His newly washed clothes were not dry, after all. Gauk felt cold, chilled by the wind whistling across the long hillside. The steam from the hot springs up the rocky slope twisted and tattered in the breeze.

He wore the sword at his side, the best weapon he had found among the seamen he had killed. As he traveled the upward slope he fastened the ill-smelling length of hide and its dangling, black-clawed forepaw around his hips. If this offends the seer, thought Gauk, so be it. He wanted to hear the truth, no matter how painful. Gauk used Whale-Biter as a staff as he climbed the hill. He knew that he was a shabby figure, his wrists jutting from his shrunken sleeves within his shaggy coat.