Beautiful Wreck (53 page)

I was surprised at the warmth it gathered, how much it blocked out the cold. I trailed my fingertips along the taut, thick fabric. The perfume of sweet and grassy autumn rose up from the hay floor and brought memories of sunlight and blistered hands, of clearing my acre, of kneeling in snowblooms.

I dropped to my knees in the dim tent and ran my fingers through hay. I lifted a few pieces to my lips and kissed the grass we’d gathered and stored. Maybe this hay was mine, that I had cut. No matter how Heirik could or could not love me, I had a place here.

“… A new wife in this house.”

The words shot out sharp and clear from among the women’s spiraling voices and chirps of excitement.

“Unexpected match,” someone else said, breathlessly surprised. “Beautiful,” another voice added. My heart beat swift and hard. A wife, here. We would meet her tonight.

Heirik was afraid to take a wife, wasn’t he? Afraid of holding a woman close to him, afraid of what evil spirited children a union might bring. The whole family feared it. He wouldn’t do this, já? The little, nibbling fear in my gut suddenly grew. Disgust and fear drove me down onto my hands and tears clogged my throat, trying to come up. I asked the air and the hay, “What about me?”

Women still gossiped outside the tent, about how there was wind but not much snow. Egil’s daughter would be here with the old man. “They are hearty people,” another voice said. “Even she, at such a young age. And her father, he is like an ox.” His house was grand, they said, the only other in Iceland as big as this one.

It would be a powerful union.

There was some logical reason Heirik would do this, and that fact made me sick. The chief would always think, and his logic was always elegantly hard and true. Yes, he would do this if he felt it was the answer to our tangled mess.

He’d said goodbye to me, just moments ago. This was why.

Something thumped on the outside of the tent. A loose flap of fabric, beating like the wing of a massive bird. I shook my head and stood, brushed hay off my dress with shaking hands. Outside the door, I looked hard into the unknowable expanse. As if conjured by the women’s frosty words, four dots of light crested a hill. They floated and bobbed like fireflies, tiny in the vast valley, but as they climbed toward the house they became steadily larger.

I pressed my hand to the tent frame and thought of Saga, asked her what the hell she intended.

Egil was a friendly bull. He entered the house in a gust of frosty air, arms spread wide in greeting, and cheers erupted from the dozens of people already drinking inside. He owned the room with that sense of authority and privilege that I’d only seen in the chief.

Quiet as a shadow in comparison to Egil, the chief nonetheless drew everyone’s attention when he approached. Silence hovered in the air until he formally welcomed his guest. Heirik greeted the man with a small but real smile, his eyes bright against the wool of the blue swan.

Then Egil announced, “My daughter, Brynild.” He beamed, and stepped aside to present a young woman who was consumed by cloaks. Her face was rimmed with a charming gray and white fur hood, pulled tight so that all I could see were dark eyes and a button nose, red as meat. “She skied like Skadi herself,” Egil said with broad pride. His voice was like the eruption of Hekla.

“I was not staying home,” she stated tartly. She drew the fur hood back and golden-red hair sifted down, straight and sleek. She shook it out, down past her shoulders, and its brilliance shamed the hearth fire itself. “I am old enough to travel, Da.”

She sounded like any fifteen year old, but she said it without a pout. Inquisitive, smiling, her voice and her years could not keep up with such bold and smoky eyes. Such a spirit, and powerful body to match, as though she were born from a giantess of the mountain snow.

Heirik bowed his head to Brynhild and cold fingers climbed my spine.

“I’ve heard so much about you, Rakknason,” she said. “The God-Maker.”

I’d never seen a woman look him over without revulsion or at least hesitance. Her eyes took Heirik in actively, and she pursed her lips, undecided, and then moved into the room. My face felt hot and my stomach roiled with sickness. I didn’t like how she consumed him with her gaze. How her voice sounded when she called him a name I’d never heard before. God-Maker. Nei. I’d rather die than ever hear it again.

I didn’t like how she looked at our house. It was beautiful tonight. The big room glittered with a hundred little fires from lamps hung everywhere. The curtains on the sleeping alcoves were all drawn aside, tied back in pretty swags, with juniper boughs over every bed. Long tables lined the room, every bench draped with furs and people. The heartstone crackled with a cozy flame. Brynhild took it all in speculatively, as if she were buying it.

Heirik led her in with a nod, and if he were willing, he would have taken her by the elbow, an honored lady. As they walked past the fire, he turned and caught my eye and a small, drunk smile touched the corner of his mouth. It was mean and humiliating, and I left the house.

It was serene and cold outside, just me and the stars and tents. And a single dog, who sniffed at the house. His head lifted for a moment, but he found me uninteresting and followed a smell away toward the stable. I went inside a tent to get warm.

Soon Haukur came out of the house and headed in the same direction. And moments later, he came back drawing a small horse by a rope, taking it right into the back door of the house. For the blót. The Jul sacrifice. Heirik would be with Freyr again tonight, and already full of drink, sitting near such a woman as Brynhild, his emotions running wild. I feared going back inside to see what he would become, and so I stayed in my tent and sat alone in the hay.

It was on a day like this, when Freyr was in him, that we almost kissed for the first time. We talked about these animals that now lived in the stable right outside. How many could live, how many we would eat. The horse selected for just this night. Heirik’s hand had rested close to mine in the scratchy grass, and it was a moment of turning, a singular bit of time when he and I could still happen.

Ageirr had interrupted us. The thought of him made me shiver. I hadn’t seen him tonight, and it worried me at the back of my mind.

I mumbled my thanks and wishes alone in a cold tent. “Freyr, we are mindful of your power and blessings. Please let us have a good year,” I said under my breath.

He would have touched the horse’s blood to his lips by now. Would have sprinkled it on his honored guests, perhaps climbed the high seat and now heard thanks and petitions from men on bent knees who came forward to speak. Our weaving room, where we sat and played together, transformed into the chieftain’s hall.

“God-Maker …” I heard a drunk voice pass by. Brynhild had called him that. What did it mean?

The dog came nosing at the door of the tent, pushed the fabric away and came inside. He checked first, dug with his snout to see if he could get inside my locked arms.

“Nei,” I told him. “I have no snack for you.”

Instead, he sat close beside me. He leaned his weight into me, wanting warmth.

Was it a new name for Heirik, to take the place of Rakknason Longhair? A name that didn’t sound at all demeaning. Much the opposite. It was a name a bold girl would say to his face.

My teeth chattered, and soon I had no choice but to head into the house. I could lurk at the door. It would be alright.

That was my plan, which was soon shattered by Hár’s strong hand pulling me along.

“Woman,” he said. “I won’t have you hide in this house.”

He lifted me from the ground and I laughed, but the sound was harsh. I thought he might throw me over his shoulder, but instead he carried me like a bride, past the heartstone and through the sparkling room I’d decorated. The boughs passed by me in a blur. He brought me across the threshold into the weaving room, where the long tables were drawn together. Dozens of people were digging into heaps of food and dipping cups and horns into cauldrons of ale. My eyes found Heirik instantly, but he was talking to Egil, his head bowed in conversation.

Hár set me down, and then took a place by my side.

I needed more ale, a lot more, and Hár supplied it to me over and over, drinking with me until my head felt pleasantly glossy and disconnected. The old man himself drank three cups for every one of mine, becoming more and more bizarre and rambunctious. His emotions and actions swooped from glumness to a kind of frantic jollity that made people duck and sent cups crashing. He snarled and ate pieces of meat with his hands. A small part of me wondered if he would keep this up for two weeks. And I wondered where Betta hid, what she thought about her love right now, ripping into animal flesh and drinking himself raw. Another minor part of my mind, far behind all immediate thought, wondered how the house would smell for a month after this. About cleaning up all these cups and bones.

What if I just walked away? The voice in my head was bitter. What if I just left it all for Brynhild to deal with?

I was about to say this to Hár, when my thoughts were interrupted by a crash and bellow. It was Egil. He got up from the table with a pound of his fist and shouted to conjure up dancing.

Somehow, at his bidding, drumming and song sprang up out of nothing and tables were drawn back just enough to make a small space.

Before I could speak or even think, Hár picked me up and literally handed me over the table, my skirts knocking over cups and dragging in meat. Egil’s arms went around my waist, he set me gently on the floor beside him, and then we danced. I didn’t know how and didn’t care. People clapped around us, faces blurring as we turned in circles, ale sloshing in my belly, my mind free and slack. Others danced too, impossibly crowded, we bumped into each other with great force and laughed. No space for bumbling embarrassment, just incomprehensible motion, faces blurring as Egil and I spun.