Tindr Read online

  Once in her tent, lying between her sleeping parents, Rannveig considered the Southerner who had looked at her and compared her to Frigg, Odin's wife, the Queen of the heavens. His name was Dagr. She had never seen him before and very likely would never do so again, unless their paths somehow crossed over the next two days; the Thing was a crowded place. He was not bad-looking, and there was a decided steadiness about him. He was not tall, and he certainly looked young. Yet there was boldness in his manner, and surely in his words, that made him stand out from the jesting crowd of idle drinkers. And the fact that his first words to her were akin to the things trained skalds spouted in the great halls of the rich further marked him. She wished he would have stepped a little closer to the fire's light so she could have seen his face better. She wished she had not had, at last, to turn away, not goaded by the distant calling of her mother which she had twice already ignored, but by the heat which she felt in her own cheek at looking into the stranger's eyes while he compared her hair to a sunset.

  When she had finally fled the fire circle the other maids had chaffed her about him, repeating his name, wondering about his people and prospects, and most of all teasing her for the way he had proclaimed himself an admirer upon first glance. She fell asleep at last, straining to recall his exact words to her, and cursing herself for not having remembered it all.

  An hour after sunrise Rannveig was walking back from the latrines dug out beyond the first line of trees. Her back was stiff from the thinness of the lone featherbed she had shared with her parents, and the fact that stuffed between them she had been unable to move much. In the new light she saw the front of her over-gown was smudged with charcoal ash, and she had but one other with her. She should have carried the crock with her for more water, and had left it back at her parent's camp. She was walking, head down, brooding on these things and not noticing the man walking before her, crossing also from the line of trees and headed back to the morning camp-fires.

  He paused for a moment, perhaps scanning the camps to find his own, and she ran into him. It was Dagr. Her booted foot caught his instep, and he staggered a moment, but quickly straightened up. He blinked his eyes and looked at her, sweeping his hand across his brow, and she saw his eyes were blue-green, and slightly bleared from a night's drinking. His hair was light brown and fell unevenly to his shoulders, and he tossed his head to send it away from his face.

  His mouth opened, and broke into a smile. She saw that they were just the same height, and the raking morning light showed the scant stubble upon his chin, which looked as if it had never yet been shaved. He was little more than a boy.

  Her cheek flamed again, but it was her own doing, not his. Rannveig was a maid of over twenty Summers, and had found no man to please her. She had lain awake last night thinking of this one, who turned out to be a lad.

  “Hej,” he said. He was watching her face and hoping his greeting did not sound as uncertain to her ears as it did to his own.

  “Hej,” she returned. She felt a fool, standing in the harsh light before this boy. She wondered if now, looking into her face a mere hand-span or two away, he thought her old.

  “I am Dagr,” he said. His eyes were still fastened on her.

  “Já,” she returned, and glanced down to her soiled hem. “Something about a ram.”

  He laughed then. “Já. My father sold a ram to a man from near here, and he wants his ewes back.”

  She nodded her head in a short motion, and made as if to leave. He lifted his arm, a small gesture of supplication.

  “Will you not tell me your name?”

  She was silent. She was standing out in an open field, on the pathway back from the latrines, talking to a boy who made her feel a fool.

  But Dagr would not give up. “I know only that you brew no ale, and will not drink with strange men, as befits a maiden of good birth.” He took a breath. “And that you are of rare loveliness.” This last line he had also learnt from the tales told by his uncle.

  She tossed her head, a short, impatient jerk. “Who fills your head with such stuff?”

  She watched his own head move, a little jolt as if he had been slapped. She could not stop herself.

  “You are a boy. Go and play a boy’s games, and leave me in peace.”

  She made a movement with her shoulders, a little shiver, almost as if she were shaking him off, an unwanted wrap. Then she moved from him, towards the waking campsites.

  Dagr stood speechless in her wake. He did not expect a rebuke, and did not welcome being called a boy. He had known last night she was the elder of them, just as he knew Frigg was a Goddess. One did not expect beauty to be always attainable. It did not keep him from admiring her, and wishing to tell her so. He stood there, watching her retreat, seeing the slight sway of her blue gown and the long, light red hair trailing down her back from beneath her white head-wrap. He shook his head, but as he did, a realization was born within him, and steadily grew until he could name it: She had actually considered him a potential mate, at least last night. That was why she was angry this morning.

  This knowledge flared up like an oil torch, warming him from the inside out with an unaccustomed heat. It then died out just as quickly, quenched by the simple facts of their lives. She was a few years older, strong-headed, and well-to-do. The skillfully-cast bronze brooches on her gown, the deep yellow amber beads resting on her breast between those brooches – her folk could and did take care to give her the finest, and the fancy-work on her sash and hem showed she had time enough to do such things with her needle. And she was pretty, very much so; the small nose and rounded cheeks dusted with light freckles, the skin beneath those freckles as white as new-drawn milk. Her eyes were pale blue, not wide, rather a bit narrow, and flashing beneath the bow of reddish brows. Those eyes had looked at him carefully for one moment, and then dismissed him.

  He had nothing. His wrist bore no cuff of silver, his neck no twisted chain, and the knife at his side was of the plainest. Unlike most gathered here at the Thing, he wore an ordinary tunic and leggings, not those on which some loving mother or sister had lavished care in decorating; his brother’s wife was a big, good-hearted woman, and kind, but had her hands full enough with her children; she kept Dagr and Gunne decently clothed but nothing more. When he left to make his way his portion would be a small one; it was all his father, with many daughters to dower and other sons to provide for, could give. He knew of farming and animals just what any other youth his age did, nothing more. He was an indifferent hunter, and had fished but little, but he liked the sea none the less.

  No wonder she spurned him. And – he was younger. Maids did not wed men younger than they, at least not often. He might grow prosperous if the Gods smiled on his efforts, but that one thing he could never mend of. He let go a sigh, then continued on his way back to his father’s waggon.

  By mid-day Gunne was ready to leave the crowded meadow. He had found the farmer with whom he had swapped the ram, and convinced him to take back the ewes. He had no wish to wait until late afternoon, when he had been told the Law-Speaker would address the case, nor to stand before so many strangers and plead that the ram had always done his duty in the past by his ewes. No, he had slept poorly in the waggon-bed, with so much boisterous talk and song going on about him; and he wanted to go home. The farmer had led the ram in question to the pen where Gunne’s ewes awaited, and Gunne, a peace-loving man, had expressed his regret to the man. Dagr stood by, watching it all and saying little; they had scarcely arrived and now would be off again.

  They had already hitched the oxen up, and Gunne pulled the tethered ram back to their waggon. “You are destined for the pot,” he muttered to the old ram, who glared balefully back at him. The four ewes he had given up would all bear lambs next Spring, by another of Gunne’s rams, so that his loss was doubled, perhaps three-times as great, should they all throw twins.

  “Já, the pot for you,” he reminded the beast, as it lowered its horns and tried to b
utt him. Together they pushed the ram up the plank ramp and into the waggon bed.

  But before they left Dagr and his father walked the line of trader’s stalls, looking for a good pair of shears. Gunne was as able as any farmer to forge simple tools, but a well-aligned pair of shears, one that would take and keep a sharp edge, and that had good spring to them, was a craft beyond his skill. There were two black-smiths there, and Gunne spent some little time looking over the wares of each, and after a decent amount of chatter he settled on a pair forged by the first, who Gunne had known from the start he would buy from, but for the sake of an improved price had made show of with the second.

  As his father was closing the bargain, and drawing out silver from the small pouch hidden in his belt, Dagr glanced up and down the teeming way. Nearly opposite the iron-worker was the stall of a silver-smith. Dagr and Gunne had walked past the display of braided necklaces, thick coiled armlets, and hammered wrist cuffs. Arrayed on a makeshift trestle of planks lay bowls of silver beads and other baubles, such as women covet. Two women approached, stopped, and now bent over the table, and Dagr saw from the blue gown and long red hair that one of them was his maiden. The other, he guessed, was her mother, for she was older, but too had red hair, now fading with age. But she was as well dressed as her daughter, and Dagr did not wonder that they had stopped to look at silver. He drew closer and peered over their shoulders. It was not silver beads that had caught the maid’s attention, but a bowl of something even brighter – round glass beads. They were red, blue, and green, with tiny specks and swirls of other colours mixed in, and some were spheres and others short cylinders. The trader was offering them loose so that women could string, upon twisted linen thread, a combination most pleasing to them.

  At that moment his father, having lost sight of his son in the crowd, called out, “Dagr.” The red-haired maiden straightened up and turned and found herself looking into his face. Colour bloomed across her white cheek.

  Rannveig ducked her head as soon as she saw the lad’s face. What sort of a hussy was she become, turning like that at a man’s name, looking for him as if he mattered? She busied herself with the beads her mother was still counting out, and did not stand upright again until Dagr had left.

  Back home Ake greeted Dagr with an embrace. “What did you lose?” he wanted to know. Dagr had returned with every meagre possession he had travelled with. But thinking back on the red-haired maiden, he knew there was in fact something he had lost to her.

  Dagr left home the following Spring. He went first to the farm of Gulli, his middling brother, nearly a day's walk away. Dagr’s brother shared the farm with his wife's brother, and his wife, and it was made lively by the children of both couples and by the yet un-wed sisters of Dagr's brother's wife. Gulli raised sheep, grew barley, rye, oats and vegetables as all farmers did, and was beginning to be skilled in iron-working. He had, like every farmer, some skill in forging or mending tools, for the nearest iron-smith was more than a day’s travel away from the farm, and in deep-snow time impossible to reach. Gulli was not content with hammering up a useable substitute for a broken pick-head, but wanted to provide through his own handiwork the tools he and his brother in law needed. So Gulli took to the trade of Weland, the smith of the Gods, and had learnt to draw credible nails, fashion iron clasps and hinges, and hammer out smooth and level strapping-bars to embrace the wooden chests that held bronze or silver goods.

  Though Dagr mainly earned his keep in the fields, Gulli was glad to show his young brother a few of the things he was mastering, so that Dagr's time with him was well spent, and he learnt enough of forge-work to make a passable file. Then too, Gulli's wife had her two sisters living with them, the older of whom was not averse to allowing Dagr to steal an occasional kiss. She was an attractive enough maiden, and was besides quite handy about the household; for being dedicated to the gaggle of geese who ran to greet her every morning, had increased their number to the extent that boiled or roast goose was no rarity at the farm. But she would allow little more than a kiss to Dagr, for despite the family connection she had in mind a man with more prospects than the youngest son of large family could offer, a youth who had as yet no property, riches, nor home of his own to bring her to. Still, they were the first kisses Dagr had known, and he said goodbye to her with a grateful warmth not solely arising from the half of boiled goose she had packed into his leathern food-bag.

  For it happened that the next Spring Dagr set out West, to the sea-side home of his eldest brother but one. Dagr had rarely seen any of the western coast of Gotland, and to reach his brother's he walked for a full day. Tufi had taken to the sea, and was a fisherman with his own boat. Dagr had always liked looking at the sea on those occasions when he had found himself within sight of it, and now he had the chance to feel the heave and swell of the Baltic beneath tarred planks of straked oak, to smell the salt-brine and taste it upon his lips, and to hoist the sturdy mast and struggle with the damp and flapping sail. Together he and Tufi would heave the heavy net over the ship-rail and tease it out as it spread and dropped, and together they hauled it back in, thrashing and glistening with fat herring and cod if the day were good.

  To begin Dagr had to grow his sea-legs, for the first times out he felt himself as wretched as a hound who had drunk soured milk. As the Summer progressed he found himself more and more at ease on water, and even began to complain a bit if the winds were so light that there was no pitch nor roll to the trim little boat. At this Tufi would grin and remind him that they had not yet been caught in a squall; came the day they did Dagr would change his tune soon enough. They did not set sail every day, only those dawns that foretold the smoothest weather. On off-days they had the task of drying the net upon upright pikes struck into the stubbly grass just above the beach. There they could try every knot, look for weaknesses, and mend up any holes through which their precious catch might escape. There was also the endless work of gutting, flaying, salting, and drying the fish, for the settlement where Tufi lived was so small that only a few could be sold fresh.

  Some years back Tufi had taken to wife a young widow, and they were raising her two children and the three they had brought forth together. Her first husband had also been a fisherman, one whose boat had last been seen beating against the rapidly growing waves of a late-Summer storm, and she welcomed the fact that Dagr was now here to help Tufi. Her eldest boy was not quite big nor strong enough to fish, but all the young helped in the salting and drying, and one of her girls, with the nimble fingers typical of the young, was a true help to her father in the twisting of the hempen strands used to stay the fish-net knots.

  Dagr spent three years with them, by which time the elder boys had joined Tufi on his forays. It was then that Dagr's older brother suggested that Dagr cross the Baltic westwards to the land of Svear with a hull full of last Summer's dried and salted herring. Last year he had gotten a second boat for his young brother's use, which Dagr had been paying off to him in labour, in Summer through fishing and in Winter through the bits of useful iron-work that Dagr could forge before the small fire-shed. Dagr would sail with another man on board, Halle, a neighbour of Tufi’s, and like his older brother, a seasoned fisherman. Halle had often made the crossing and knew which bays to put into, and where their fish would be most welcome. It was but a long day's sail, straight West, and even should they need to beat against the wind the entire trip should take no longer than four or five days, including that spent unloading and selling the stock-fish.

  Dagr, Halle, Tufi, and the older boys rolled the casks holding the salted fish up the treaded gangway and aboard, lashing them well. They had Dagr’s share of what he had caught, and a number of casks of Halle’s as well. There was a cask of water, and one of ale, and food for two men for many days, also fish hooks and a small net, for Tufi knew well that in a misadventure at sea such things had often been the saving of a crew. As the journey would take him away from his own box bed, Tufi's wife insisted Dagr carry as well his featherbed,
a thick one she had stuffed and sewn for him when he had first come to live with them, the ticking made of linen well-oiled and then waxed, as proof against fleas. Halle laughed at this, shaking his head and pointing out that if any man should be able to sleep well on a wadmal blanket on the hard deck it should be a young one; but that night, trying to settle himself into sleep wrapped only in his own blanket, he secretly began to regret that his wife had never pressed him into enjoying any such comfort himself.

  They set off just before dawn, when winds are always light, and sailed due West, the rising Sun behind them lighting their watery path and making the grey-green water shimmer. As the Sun rose in the sky, so did the wind, forcing them to tack to reach their goal. The greener mass of Gotland receded from view as they ploughed on, and in time a dark smudge on the water’s edge proclaimed land ahead. They took turns at the steering oar, even though the waves were not demanding of a man’s strength, and Dagr reflected that the boat, small as she was, was a good one, and he lucky to be sailing her.

  Dagr had never before been out of sight of his homeland, and knowing that soon he would be landing in Svear-land added to the thrill of anticipation he felt at the potential profit his cargo would yield. Halle knew ready buyers aplenty, and if they arrived before other Gotlanders or stock-fish traders from the Baltic rim, they could sell at a premium. He could finish paying Tufi for the boat, and perhaps invest in a new sail as well. On top of this was the gladness any young man feels when approaching a new land, even one as similar to his own as that of the Svear.

  Dagr was at this point in the prow, leaning into the wind and gazing at the slowly growing landmass ahead, and thinking on all this. He heard Halle, standing at the steering oar, cry out. He turned.

  Coming across the water towards them was a ship: long, low, and serpent-slender. The large single sail billowed against the wind, but this was not the only cause of its speed. Twenty-five or more pair of oars rose and fell into the Baltic, the blades dripping with sparkling beads of salt water before swiftly dipping back into the dark sea.