Legend of the Mist (11 page)

The sound of children’s laughter flitted through the mist, and soon corresponding forms took shape. Four of them, skipping and frolicking about like faeries and
wisps.

“Norah,” shouted
one, though Torsten could not make out which.

She
stopped and waited for the children to approach, her hands clasped patiently in front of her.

“Norah, ye’ll no
’ believe it.”

“If ye say I willna, then I’ll take yer word for it,” Norah teased an out-of-breath Aibhlin as Roisin, Greine and Cinead trailed behind.

“Roisin ate a moth.”

“Ye tattle tale,” Roisin accused, shoving Aibhlin and receiving a shove in return.
“Ye dared me do it ‘cause
ye
couldna. And now ye’re jealous that I did.”

“I am sorry, Norah,” Greine put in. “I couldna stop her before she had it in her mouth.”

“Ye wee devil,” Norah chided, bending down to eye level with her younger sister. “Doesna Cook feed ye enough as it is?”

“Aibhlin dared me,” Roisin insisted.

“Ye daft mare, ye
asked
me if I’d dare ye,” Aibhlin argued. “I didna come up wi’ it on my own.

“I just wanted to see what it tasted like
.”

“Ah, yes. Of course ye did, sweet Roisin,” Norah soothed. “
Who wouldna wonder such a thing? But remember, that moth had a life. He had a mother and a father, and maybe even wee bubby moths to care for. And by eating him, ye’ve ended his life wi’out needing to. Now he will never see his family again. He’ll never feel the breeze on his wings, nor will he wiggle his tiny wee toes in a dew drop.”

Torsten watched as the little girl with the
dark curls hanging wild about her face considered her sister’s words. The maid, Norah, had a way with the children. A way of explaining things to them so that they’d understand, but without treating them like children. It was a talent not many possessed, a talent he’d seen only once before in—

... In whom?
He’d been about to say a name; a face had come to mind. But like the shifting mist they evaporated before he’d been able to grasp either.

“Sir, may I in
troduce ye to my sister Roisin?” Norah said, standing again. “Roisin, say hello to Sir Einarr’s brother, Torsten Alfradsson.”

“Hello,” Roisin said, dipping into a curtsey.

“I am pleased to meet you, Ruh-
sheen
.”

The girls giggled at the harsh
sound of the Gaelic name rolling from Torsten’s Norse tongue.

“And Greine and Aibhlin
,” Norah added, giving the girls a stern look. “And that, trailing behind, is our Cinead.”

“Sir,” Torsten said, nodding to the sullen boy who hung noticeably back.

Cinead eyed the Norseman with hostility. “Ye have the look of him.”

“
My brother? I have heard that before. I take it you are looking after your womenfolk this fine morning?”

Cinead’s upper lip curled
into a sneer at the remark. “Someone must, since yer lot killed the bulk of our menfolk.”

The b
are hate with which the young boy addressed him caught Torsten off guard, and he flushed.

“Cinead,” Norah reprimanded gently.

Affected by her gentle voice, the boy’s hardened expression softened somewhat, his regret at having embarrassed her evident. He cast one final glare at Torsten, then turned and stalked off in the direction he’d come.

“I
am sorry about him,” Norah said. “He lost his father when ... in the conflict of three years past. He hasna learned to accept our Norse allies so well.”

“I do not blame him, and there is no need for you to apologize.”

“Greine, will ye see if he’s alright? I dinna think he’ll appreciate if ye approach him directly just now, but keep an eye out, make sure he doesna get into his father’s mail and swords, aye?”

Greine nodded. “Aye, Norah. Come on then,
lassies. Let’s all go.” When she turned and led the way, Aibhlin and Roisin followed, peeking over their shoulders one last time at the new Norse face which had appeared on their island.

Norah and Torsten
continued on, and by the time they reached the sparsely populated village the mist had retreated almost to the point of disappearing entirely.

T
he village, Torsten saw, was little better than many of the peasant villages he’d seen on his travels. The houses and farmsteads were widely spaced, the primitive dwellings of rock and mud covered with rooves of thatch. The earthy scent of turf fire floated on the breeze. Torsten was accustomed to wood—both for building and for burning; stone and mud were for those who could not afford to build with anything else. He did not know turf could be burned.

W
hatever the village may have looked like, the people within it certainly were not peasants. They were clean and proud, and greeted their new neighbour with all the courtesy and equanimity Torsten would have expected of nobility. Their clothes were of a decent grade material and in excellent repair, and many of the tools with which they worked had obviously come from the overseas trade of goods. Sheep, a profitable livestock, were in plentiful supply; they roamed the open space at will, grazing peacefully on the low grass. Blissfully unaware were they that their endless chewing was adding extra meat and wool to the summer’s bounty.

He began to see a picture of life on
Fara before the raid, of a chief who did not rile his people into craving a war that was not theirs to fight. It saddened him to know that Einarr’s need of funds had torn through this peaceful world. And it had—the evidence was still visible even three years after. He saw it in the lower number of men in the village. In the wariness with which the people acknowledged him.

Odd ... h
e noticed that they also treated Norah with a certain wariness. As if they were afraid of her, too.

“Why are they so cautious around you?” he inquired.

A curious smile tugged at the corner of her lip, and she set her eyes on him as if they shared a secret. “Have ye no’ heard? I am mad.”

“
Mad
?

“Oh, aye.
Quite.”

“
Wait—mad, like how we say
krasa
? Your mind has shattered?”

“
Now
that
, sir, is an excellent way of putting it,” she laughed. Without any further explanation, she continued on, leaving Torsten to traipse after her, utterly astonished.

* * *

Long after returning to Rysa Beag for the night with Einarr’s men, Torsten stayed awake. Though the lodgings which his brother had provided were more than comfortable, sleep would not find him. He tossed and turned for what felt like ages, watching the shadows stretch over the wall and the distant moon glide across the sky.

Eventually he
gave up on the idea of slumber. He rose from his bed, pulled his braies on and slipped his bare feet into his boots. His shirt he left draped over the oak chest in the corner of the room. There were none but men in his company tonight, no one for whom he needed to be modest. And besides, the soft, still air felt good on his bare flesh.

The unsavoury sounds of sleeping Vikings emanated from the newly constructed buildings as Torsten wandered through the laneways of the developing settlement. It was coming along nicely. Einarr
had always possessed a taste for fine things and grandeur, and with his newfound—and ill-gotten—wealth, he’d had costly Danish wood shipped to Orkney from the forests of
Skaney
. No mud-and-stone huts would his brother have on
his
island.

Torsten chuckled
to himself, imagining the exact inflection Einarr would have given the words if they had been his.

In the three years since their arrival
, basic trades had been established: a blacksmith, a potter, and a boat maker among others. Freyr, Einarr’s loyal captain, was a leather-worker when he was not raiding, and had built his shop and home in anticipation of his wife and children joining him the following year. His two-story dwelling even had separate bedchambers for his sons and his daughters.

There was not yet a
tavern, for the men were gone most of the summer. And why bother to sell ale and mead when the neighbouring island of Fara had more than enough to share? There was, however, a bath house, for as savage as they could be, the Norse as a people preferred to be clean.

The bath house
was a luxury of which Torsten had availed himself before retiring that night. He had taken the opportunity to scrape his chin and clean his teeth as well.

“Alright there, Torsten?”
queried one of the men posted on guard as he made his way past the outer edge of the settlement.

Torsten recognized the man’s face, though he could not recall his name.
He’d been an occasional presence in Hvaleyrr over the years; a mild-mannered presence from what Torsten could remember. This man had not been a member of Einarr’s ranks during the raid on Bjarmaland. Nor before it.

In fact, there were a number of new faces
among Einarr’s men on Rysa Beag that had not been there before Torsten had left his brother to merchant. For that matter, some of the more despicable faces he did remember were missing. Killed, perhaps?

“Ja, it is,” he replied
to the man with the amiable countenance. “I would prefer to be sleeping, but since I cannot ...”

The man chuckled. “I as well, my friend.
I know the feeling.”

“I wonder, can you tell me what happened to Bjurr?” When the man seemed to have trouble recalling the name, Torsten added, “
Einarr’s personal guard. I have not seen him about.”

“Oh, ja.
Bjurr
. I have never met him myself but I remember his face. An ugly one, that. He got it in a tavern in Oslo two winters past. Found himself in the middle of a scrap of some kind and took a blade to the head. Cleaved his skull clean in two, I heard. He was not a friend of yours, was he?”

“No, I can assure you he was not
.”

“Ah, well. No love
lost then. You enjoy your walk, ja?”

Torsten
bid farewell to the guard and continued on, passing only one other guardsman on his way to the harbour.

Across the water Fara could only be seen by the mass of still, white fog which swelled from the sea. To
the right of Rysa Beag, at a distance not much farther across the water than Fara, stood the island of Rysa Mhor, the larger of the two Rysa islands. Though situated in the same mass of air, Rysa Mhor was clearer, its rocks obscured only by the same thin vapour in which Torsten himself stood on the shores of Rysa Beag.

Why Fara should be prone to such thick mist was an oddity.

For a long time he simply stared across the sea, pondering the fact. And dwelling on the unshakeable feeling that the mist
belonged
in some way to Fara. It was not merely a coincidence of weather, it was ... something else. Not quite sentient, yet more than elemental.

Torsten ran his hands through his loose locks, frustrated by the nagging
sensation which would not leave his gut. It was more than a feeling or an inkling, it was a certainty. A certainty that was absolutely absurd.

S
till he could not shake it. Illogical though the idea was, there was a part of him which sensed that everything he’d done in his life up to now, everything he’d experienced and everything he’d been ... had brought him here.

It was inevitable that at
this
time he should be in
this
place, on this forlorn little island in the middle of the North Sea.

And she, Norah, had something to do with that inevitability.

Ten

The
gentle light of a new day, fragile as a butterfly’s wing, slipped past the edges of the curtains and fluttered into Norah’s bedchamber. Tenderly, it kissed her closed eyelids. She breathed deeply, stretching her arms high above her head and her legs as far in the opposite direction as they would go.

Beside her Roisin slept on,
pure in the innocence of slumber. Her wild curls were splashed across the sheets like sea spray and her dark, thick lashes lay softly against the pillow of her cheeks.

Norah smiled,
perfectly content, and snuggled into her younger sister’s warmth.

In those few, tranquil moments before the obligation to rise and dress
took shape, she indulged in the guilty memory of the Norseman. Of Torsten. Without the bustle of the day to distract her, she traced in her mind’s eye every line and plane of him.

He was so much like his brother, Einarr. The same
penetrating blue eyes, the same strong jaw, the same golden locks had all emerged nearly faithfully in the two men. Both had lips that were full and commanding, that could cut the soul of a person with a cold sneer, or melt the core of another with a smile. And as intense as they were, both sets of eyes were undeniably captivating.

Norah had felt the power of those eyes in Einarr when she’d come face to face with him the day of the attack on Fara.

And in Torsten when he’d held her in his arms the night he’d pulled her from the water.

T
hough they looked so much the same, they were different, too. They were both visibly strong, but Einarr’s body was heavy with muscle, his stature frightening. Norah had always thought the men of her uncle’s Campbell clan were terrifyingly large, but Einarr bested them in every way possible. He was thicker, taller, and faster. A natural born leader.

Torsten, on the other hand, while also
strong and well-muscled, was leaner. Lither. There was a fluidity to the way he moved, a power that had more to do with grace than with strength.

I
n their similar features could be found differences also. In Einarr they had taken on a harshness. The lines of his mouth, his eyes, his cheeks were as sharp and ruthless as granite. But in Torsten they were softer, intriguing. Behind the blue of his eyes there was a well of secrets. The man spoke little, but his eyes observed much.

They had observed her from across the hall when she’d entered yesterday morn. She’d seen the recognition in his eyes,
a recognition which she shared and which no one else could understand.

W
hich she herself did not fully understand.

But unlike
her, Torsten was fighting it, ignoring and denying whatever that unspoken connection might mean for the future ... and for the past. She’d seen him struggling to deny their connection when they were introduced to one another by Einarr. When they’d walked together to the village.

She saw
his struggle the moment she opened her eyes to find herself submerged not in the sea, but in the arms of a Norseman whom she’d never before met.

Yet whom she knew in the
depths of her soul.

It was fine. She would let him fight and deny
and struggle as long as he wished. She could wait; there was time. A marriage to Einarr would not be planned for several weeks, until after the harvest—not that there would be a marriage. The hand of fate would prevent it by whichever divine force it chose to exert.

Einarr was not her destiny;
Torsten was.

Through the door of her chamber
came the muffled sounds of Norah’s parents moving about in their own chamber. Ruefully she put aside her daydreaming and crept from the straw mattress without disturbing Roisin. Moving about the room on feet as light as a cat’s she dressed herself, binding her hair in a loose plait which she left unadorned. Water had not been brought to wash with yet, but it was no matter. She’d wash by the stream as she did many mornings.

On the stairs from the keep Norah met
Seonaid, the children’s nursemaid.

“Good morning, Seonaid. How is the day?”
she inquired cheerfully.

The nursemaid
, unaccustomed to such outward jolliness from the chief’s daughter, started; water from the pitcher which she carried in her spindly hands splashed onto the wooden stairs at her feet.

“Oh ... em ...
‘tis grey, Lady Norah, as always. But warm again, I fear.”

“That is alright. We shall miss th
e warmth when winter comes. Let us enjoy it while we have it.”

“Why—
aye, of course, Lady Norah. I shall try to remember.”

Norah smiled. “Roisin
isna up yet, but I think I heard the laddies stirring. I shall see ye presently.”

With a friendly pat on her narrow shoulder,
Norah bound down the keep steps, leaving Seonaid staring after her in astonishment.

Once she reached the ground floor
she turned south, heading over the open land towards the small stream which led inland along a shallow bank. There, with no one but the gulls and the dragonflies to observe her she bent to the cool, pure water and dipped her hands into its flickering surface. The water splashed over her face, her nose, her lips, and she relished its freshness against the muggy heat that was already starting to make itself felt.

Wiping the drips from her eyes, Norah peered at her reflection in the stream. The face that stared back at her, distorted slightly by the thin layer of mist which rose from the surface,
was brighter, more alert. Her green eyes in this light appeared emerald, her skin flushed with life and vigour. The face that stared back at her was happy for once.

As
she watched, her reflection in the water began to shift, to take on a new shape. Before her eyes another face emerged, similar to her own but with subtle differences. The shape of the face was longer, the eyes slightly more angled. The mouth was a touch wider and the lips a bit more full. The hair in the reflection was still plaited like hers, but a band of gold wrapped the forehead.

O
n the cheek was a symbol, painted in a faint, watery blue.

Until now Norah had not
experienced anything like this. The beautiful faces had always belonged to others. Never had her own face appeared amongst theirs. It did not frighten her, though. Longingly she gazed into the water, and knew that she’d seen this face before. That it had belonged to her once.

She smiled. T
he face smiled back.

Just behind the reflection,
in the shadows made by the clouds above her, was another face, another form. It was tall, well-muscled, the loose hair a brilliant gold, and the eyes a piercing blue. The arms, arms which had held her many times, were painted in the same, swirling pattern which was painted on her cheek.

She smiled
wider, this time to the form behind her.

He smiled back.

Once again, time slipped away from Norah like the water that babbled along the stream. She had been immersed in the image for only moments, but when she eventually tore her eyes away she saw that the light in the sky had changed. It was now midday.

As if t
o remind her of the lost morning her stomach rumbled audibly, reprimanding her for not having broken her fast.

Reluctantly she picked herself up from the bank of the stream and brushed the dirt from her tunic. If she’d have any luck finding something to eat, her best chance would be to beg something from Cook directly.

“Yer mother isna best pleased wi’ ye, sweetling,” chided the old man when she appeared at the door to his smoky domain. “When ye didna show yer face this morn she searched high and low for ye.”

“For pity’s sake, I were only at the stream. She had
but to check there and she would have found me.”

“I dinna ken about that, but she were proper cross, she were.”

Norah huffed. “It isna like I havena missed a meal before.” Pouting, she reached across Cook to the scarred wooden table in the centre of the room where a fresh batch of ginger cakes were cooling.

“Aye, but
Sir Einarr didna desire a walk wi’ ye before, either,” he countered, swatting her hand away with a deftness that belied his age.

“He what?
Why would he want to walk wi’ me?”

“
Is wishing to walk wi’ yer betrothed so surprising?” Cook answered as he shuffled to a row of shelves on which a variety of baked goods were kept. Reaching to the highest shelf he pulled down a day-old loaf of bannock, and then from a lower shelf he retrieved a pot of fresh crowdie. Ripping a generous portion of bannock from the loaf he scooped it in the crowdie and handed it to Norah, who took the offering eagerly.

“We are all grateful, ye ken,” he added
as she chewed. “This sacrifice ye’re making for us.”

“It
isna as if I had a choice, is it?”

“No, ‘tis true,” he acknowledged. “But ye bear yer burden wi’ such grace. We ken it’s for us that ye’re doing it. Ye are yer father’s daughter, to be sure.”

Norah forced a wan smile, a lump of bannock sticking in her throat. The old cook was looking at her with such pride, as though she were a true champion for her clan, entirely selfless.

She was not selfless, far from it. Cook did not know that there would be no marriage, that fate would intervene in due course.

Thankfully, she was spared having to answer, for they were interrupted by Cinead who sauntered into the dim kitchen, a line strung with a catch of five large whiting dangling from his fingers.

“Here,” he said gruffly, tossing the slippery fish onto the table next to the
cooling ginger cakes.

“Watch the cakes, lad,” Cook reprimanded half-heartedly. Then, surveying the bounty, he
amended, “Look there, Cinead. A fine catch, that. We’ll have a feast, what wi’ the oysters ye brought me this morning.”

“Aye, Cinead, t
hat’s grand,” Norah agreed, ruffling his sandy hair affectionately. “Ye’ll keep us well fed through the winter. Quite the man ye are.”

“Quit yer fussing, I’m just doing my bit for the clan
,” the boy groaned, batting her hand away. But he stood a bit taller at the praise despite the blush that crept into his cheeks.

Both Norah and Cook watched
his small, hunched back as he departed with matching expressions of pride and sadness.

“He’s changed so,” Cook
sighed. “Doesna care to make mischief anymore. Doesna find much happiness in anything, in fact, since his da’s been gone.”

“I think he finds some happiness in his
foraging and fishing,” she put in hopefully.

“Have ye no’ been paying attention, lass?
That’s all he does when the Norse are about. ‘Tis no’ that he loves to fish so much, ‘tis that he’d rather be as far away from them as he can.”

Norah thought about it
, and sighed regretfully. “Thank ye for this, Cookie,” she said, holding up the half-eaten bannock. “I’ll find Sir Einarr now; ease mother’s fretting.”

She left the kitchens and headed back to the fortress in search of Einarr
. She did not get far, for she found him on the way. He was lounging with a group of his men on a rocky hill which overlooked the harbour. A few of them clutched sheepskin flagons which they were sharing between themselves. And which likely contained a generous helping of Fearchar’s spirits.

“My Lady Norah,” he called to her
, a wide grin on his handsome face.

“Sir Einarr,” she acknowledged. “
I understand ye were looking for me?”

“I was, ja
. But when we could not find you, I decided to get drunk instead. Off on a lover’s ... a lover’s ... damnit,
traust
. What is that
Hruga uskit’r
word?”

“
Traust
I think is ‘tryst,’” murmured one of his men while leering at the beautiful but uncomfortable-looking maid before him: though she did not understand the language, Norah sensed that
Hruga uskit’r
was likely a foul word.

“I can assure ye, s
ir, I were on no tryst. I were only at the stream, a short distance from here. I am surprised my mother didna think to look there.”

“Fret not,
myn fagra
—that is, my dear—I care not with whom you tryst so long as he does not ... shall I say, pierce your flesh with his sword?” His crudity earned a round of laughter from his men. “Forgive me,” he added, “I am only a heathen Viking. I shall mind my manners from now on.”

“I have been told ye wished to walk wi’ me?”
she reminded him.

“I do, ja,” he
confirmed enthusiastically. Then, bowing comically to his men, he said in Norse, “If you’ll excuse me, you lot of
veslingra
, I’ve found myself some better company. Perhaps with any luck I’ll do some
piercing
of my own. Sample the goods before I make my purchase.”