Two Ravens (14 page)

The fair girl raised her eyes, wide and clear as glass. She said, “Poor Hoskuld,” and laughed. At her leisure, she went out of the hall.

“Those dogs,” Hoskuld said.

She sat beside him, wondering how she would get him to the safety of his bed. He put his hand to his chest.

“It hurts here.” He sounded puzzled.

She realized now that it was more than the night’s drinking. She clasped her hands together. “Holy Father,” she said, and knew she could ask for nothing.

“Hiyke,” he said, “stop mumbling.”

“Can you walk?”

He pushed himself onto his feet. “I am just drunk.” His cold fingers gripped her hand. “Come to bed, wife.” His feet dragged over the floor. She helped him; it seemed to take the whole winter night, that traveling to their marriage bed.

* * *

Hoskuld did not rise. He kept the jug by his bed. Hiyke would not fill it, yet it was always full.

Once she came into the bedroom and found Gudrun there, sitting on the foot of the bed.

“The poor man, someone must keep him company,” she said. She slid down to the floor and went out of the room, past Hiyke in the doorway. Hoskuld snored full-throated in the bed, the jug under his hand.

After that she sat in the room with him whenever he was awake. When he was cold, she brought him blankets, but then he complained that he was too hot.

“I am dying like a woman,” he said. “Bjarni had the better death.”

She lay down on the bed beside him and held his hand. “You need not die.”

“I am dying.”

“Say only,
I believe in God,
and you will not really die.”

He turned away his head, groaning.

She tried to pray but it was as if a wall rose between her and God. For hours she crouched on her knees on the floor by the bed, wordless and hopeless. From one such false prayer she rose to find him unconscious in the bed. She went to the cookhouse and there in the warmth covered her face with her shawl and wept.

Gudrun found her there. “Well, Hiyke,” she said, “you are a river of tears lately.”

Hiyke thrust her shawl back. She turned to the cupboard and snapped open the doors.

Behind her, Gudrun said, “You have never taken any pleasure or joy of life; I do not wonder Hoskuld is dying of it.”

Hiyke wheeled around on her and slapped her. Gudrun stepped back. Her pale eyes narrowed like a snake’s.

“You will pay for that,” she said. She went out of the cookhouse. Hiyke rubbed her stinging palm on her skirt.

HOSKULD WOKE AGAIN. He seemed a little better. He called them all into the room and sat up and told them his will for the inheritance of his goods.

He gave the farm to Ulf, with
Swan
and the stock and the fishing rights and wood-cutting rights. To Jon and Andres he gave ten marks each, and he paid it out to them there, stacking the silver money on the bedcover before them. To Kristjan he gave five marks.

“You may stay here as long as you wish,” he said to Hiyke. “You may live here forever if you wish. We had differences, but in all my life no other woman suited me as well as you.”

She could not answer him. With Kristjan’s silver in her fist she stood at the side of the bed, her dry eyes burning. He lay down again.

“As for Bjarni, I leave him nothing.”

“Bjarni is dead,” Ulf said.

“You did not see him die,” Hoskuld said. “He will come back. I came back.”

He shut his eyes. When he began to snore, they left him there with Hiyke.

Hoskuld died there, in the dark. On hearing it, Ulf and his brothers cheered and shouted like fools in a game. Kristjan dug the grave. The ground was soaked from the rains and the pit filled rapidly with water. None of Hoskuld’s children came to bury him. Hiyke knelt down in the mud and prayed, but the prayers were for herself, not for Hoskuld. Kristjan stood behind her. When she could not pray anymore, she fell to weeping, and he lifted her. With his arms around her, he turned her away from the grave. He stroked her cheek. For the last time she wept for Walking Hoskuld.

GUDRUN CAME TO HER, a few days later, and said, “Now that Hoskuld is dead, I suppose you will go home to your family.”

Hiyke put her feet on the rails of the loom. The cloth filled the top third of it, light grey, with the double black stripe up the side she used on all her goods.

“You heard Hoskuld,” she said. “I shall stay at Hrafnfell.”

“If you wish,” Gudrun said. “But you cannot sleep where you are. That is the finest bed at Hrafnfell, and I mean to have it.”

“It is my bed!”

Kristjan was by the hearth, watching. He came closer to listen.

Gudrun said, “I am mistress here now, Hiyke.”

Hiyke did not answer that.

“I shall speak to Ulf,” Gudrun said, and made as if to go. Hiyke caught her arm.

“I have no wish to be humiliated. I will sleep in the loft in the barn.”

Gudrun put her head to one side, smiling. “You may have the small clothes-chest.”

Kristjan came past her to his mother. “I will help you take your things to the loft,” he said.

They gathered the sheets and the featherbed she had brought with her from her husband’s home, packed her clothes, and took them through the yard to the barn. The loft was half full of straw. She spread out some and laid her bed on it.

“Perhaps we should go,” Kristjan said. “My father’s brother will take us in again.”

She picked straw from her hair. “I will be here when she is wormridden,” she said. Her voice trembled. “I swear it. I swear it.”

PART THREE

Climbing toward the pass through the mountains, Bjarni came into the sunshine, and he paused there, in the light. Gifu huffed and groaned up the steep trail behind him. After the weeks at sea she was soft and easily tired. Waiting, he lifted his gaze to the black peaks all around him. The wind keened off the serried edges of the rocks. He went on a few steps.

“Wait!” she cried, still many yards below him.

“I am waiting.”

He had moved only to widen his view to the east, through the gap between the lava blades of the mountains, to where the sun burned on the glacier. Panting, Gifu reached his side.

“Shall I carry you?” he said.

“No—” She came gratefully to a halt. Her hand rested on the curve of her belly. “How far now?”

“Just a little farther on.”

“You said that an hour ago.”

“We are close now.” He nodded up to the summit of the pass, where the trail ran through a notch in the stony slopes. “That is the top. It’s easier walking downhill.”

She started off again. Bjarni went along beside her. He carried both their bundles on his shoulder. They climbed past rocks spotted with lichens. In the joints of the stone, coarse yellow flowers grew. They reached the summit, and the path turned down.

He held himself to Gifu’s pace, although he longed to go on at top speed. A fold of the hillside shut him in against the mountain. The downward slope pulled him faster, and he slowed his feet. Gifu breathed harshly beside him. The path ran out along the bare side of the hill, and the whole valley opened up to his view.

He stopped. There was his home before him, the long narrow bay, the faceted water winking in the sun, and on the left the sheer face of the Raven Cliff. Sheep trails crisscrossed the slope below it. The buildings were small and low in the grass.

He started down the path and stopped again. Midway between him and the bottom of the path was a little dale where birch trees grew. The wind had bowed the trees and turned their branches all to one side. A woman was walking through the trees toward the path.

At the edge of the path, she saw Bjarni and Gifu above her. She paused. It was Hiyke.

She recognized him; she dropped the bundle in her hands and stood staring at him. He went down the hillside toward her, leaving Gifu behind.

He said, “Well met, Hiyke.”

Hiyke stooped to gather up the bundle. She had been carrying pieces of birch bark in her black shawl, and the bark had scattered over the ground at her feet. She collected everything into the shawl again. Straightening, the bundle tight in her fists, she came a step toward Bjarni.

“Bjarni,” she said. “It is you. So you have come back. Hoskuld said that you would.”

“Did he say what I would do to him, when I was here?”

She said, “Hoskuld is dead.”

“Dead. Of what cause?”

“He died of drink,” she said. “Last winter. In the long night.”

He noticed now that all her clothes were black. Fine lines webbed the corners of her eyes. She looked weathered and hard. He could hear Gifu coming down the path behind him, and Hiyke was watching her, intent. She lifted her thin black brows at him.

“Where have you been? It was nearly a year ago that you sailed away.”

“In England,” he said.

Gifu trudged the last few steps to his side and slid her hand under his arm and leaned on his side.

Hiyke said, “Is this your wife?”

“No. She is not my wife, the child is not mine.”

“Well, come home,” Hiyke said. “You must be tired.”

They started on again. Gifu walked between them. Bjarni told her Hiyke’s name, and told her name to Hiyke. They walked a little way in silence. Bjarni thought of his father. He had leaned on his hate of Hoskuld; the death unsettled him.

Hiyke said, “That is a beautiful coat you are wearing, Bjarni.”
 

“The King of England gave it to me.”

“And the gold belt?”

“Yes, that too.”

Hiyke wagged her head a little. “All this while, we have thought you were dead.”

They were coming toward Hrafnfell. The high grass rose and fell like waves of the sea; the sod roofs of the buildings stirred like the rest. Gifu clung to his arm. Hiyke went ahead of them toward the farmhouse.

Ulf was in the yard, saddling the grey mare. Bent to reach for the girth, he did not see Bjarni until he was almost on him. He wheeled. All the color fled out of his face, and he clenched his fist in the mane of the mare.

“Bjarni.”

Bjarni put out his hand. “Welcome me back, brother.”

“I welcome you,” Ulf said. He gripped Bjarni’s hand hard. “Well—well—you are welcome.” He pumped Bjarni’s hand up and down.

“Who is that?”

Bjarni turned and raised his head. Kristjan stood before the barn. He saw who Bjarni was, and he yelled. His hand flew up to cross himself. Andres came out of the barn behind him.

“Bjarni.” Widely he smiled, his two hands out. He brushed past Kristjan. “Bjarni. Where did you come from ? Who is this?” He nodded to Gifu; he set his hands on Bjarni’s arms, smiling.

“Come inside,” Ulf said to Bjarni. “You look as if you’ve traveled far.”

Bjarni put his hand on Gifu’s shoulder. “She is tired. Let me show her where she can rest.”

Ulf had put a stiff smile on his face. “Yes—naturally—”

“I’m hungry,” Gifu said.

Hiyke reached for her hand. “Come with me. You can rest in my bed.” She paid Bjarni’s coat and belt another look and took Gifu away.

Bjarni followed Ulf into the hall. The room was hot from the buried fire in the hearth. Ulf walked one step ahead of him toward the High Seat.

A woman sat in it. The black bear fur set off her pale beauty.

“See who has come back,” Ulf said to her. He swung his hand toward Bjarni.

Gudrun’s face did not change. For a moment, her gaze on Bjarni, she said nothing. Finally she turned to Ulf.

“Is the horse ready?” she said.

“Yes.”

She stooped for the red cloak on the bench by her feet. She said, “Welcome to our home, Bjarni Hoskuldsson.” The red cloak went around her shoulders, and she came down from the High Seat toward Ulf. “Now I am going to hear Mass. Are you coming, husband?”

Bjarni fingered the gold rings of the buckle of his belt. Ulf hesitated. At the steps up to the door, his wife waited for him. He clapped Bjarni on the shoulder. “I will be back. You must be tired. Rest and eat.” He followed Gudrun out to the yard.

Bjarni set down the bundles he carried on his shoulder. He took off his belt and coat and went to the fire. He looked long around him. The High Seat stood out crooked from the table as if Hoskuld had just left it. A lamp lay to the side of the hearth; its string had broken. The door creaked open, and Andres came in and walked down the room toward Bjarni. Kristjan trailed after him.

“Where did you go?” Andres said. “How did you get back?”

“Do you mean, how did I escape from Sigurd?” He sat down on the stones of the hearth. “With no help from you.”

Andres rubbed his hands together. “We were afraid. We could not make up our minds what to do—you always decided what we should do. So we came back home.”