Sky in the Deep(40)

“It’s Gyda!” He jumped up and down, waving her to him.

She smiled widely. “It’s time.” She held a hand out to me.

I looked at it, the soft, slender line of her fingers, splayed out and waiting. She looked down at me, the smile still broad on her face.

I lifted my hand and almost pulled it back before I let her take it. She pulled me up beside her, brushing the grass off my pants like a mother would do to a child.

“Let’s go.” She lifted the basket onto her arm and started toward the trees.

The length of her dress parted the tall dry grass as she walked, her arm swinging at her side as she ran after Halvard. Her long dark hair fell down her back in one intricate braid.

It didn’t matter how much I didn’t want to see it or how hard I tried to remember what I’d always been taught. Inge was a mother. And whatever the difference in blood, she loved Iri as if there were none.

*

I watched out the front door, across the path to Gyda’s house, where Inge and Runa were inside. The labor had already been going for hours, but it was Gyda’s first baby. They could be there all night.

Halvard finished eating and climbed the ladder, leaving Fiske, Iri, and me by the fire. I pulled a pair of Halvard’s pants into my lap and started mending them where he’d torn a hole in the knee.

“I’ll stay until the thaw,” I said, pulling the needle through the wool.

Iri sat up, leaning forward. Beside him, Fiske glanced at me, his gaze lingering for only a moment.

“I’ll stay until the thaw and then I’ll go home.”

Iri nodded, smiling. “Alright.”

If Inge wasn’t going to tell anyone, there was no sense in me taking the risk now. I would stay out of sight and out of trouble. I’d go home and face my shame and try to find a way to earn back what I’d lost in the eyes of Sigr.

Runa came through the door, her face flushed from the cold, and fetched a wooden box from the shelf. I filled a bowl with the stew we’d eaten for supper and handed it to her.

She hesitated, looking at it and then behind me to where Iri sat. She took the bowl, smiling. “Thank you.”

I sat back down, starting on the pants again, embarrassed. I hadn’t thought about it. I’d just done it.

“Did the baby come?” Iri caught her hand as she passed and pulled her to him.

She smiled, touching her nose to his. “Not yet.” Her fingers slipped through his grasp and she went back out the door.

Halvard’s snoring rumbled in the loft and Fiske and Iri sat in front of the fire, mending opposite ends of a net. I listened to them, talking about the next hunt. The next fighting season. The next visit from the Riki traders. Making plans.

Their lives would go on when I left. I would fade like a bruise or a memory.

Fiske rubbed the salve into the broken skin on his knuckles that appeared after he went to see Thorpe. I ran my fingers over the wound on my arm and the same sting that had crawled over me when he touched me ignited again, making me feel too warm by the fire.

A screech echoed through the air outside and we all straightened, Iri and Fiske falling quiet. I stood, looking out the door, into the dark village, but I couldn’t see anything. It was quiet again.

“Maybe it was Gyda.” I leaned into the doorpost.

Iri relaxed back into his seat, throwing another log onto the fire. “Eelyn’s good with nets.”

I looked back at them. “What?”

“We need a new net made. Can you make it?”

I looked back out the door, remembering. Sitting on the dock with salty rope in my hands. Tying knots and repairing broken strands while Iri cleaned fish beside me. I nodded.

Another scream rang out and Iri shot to his feet and froze. Listening.

Then another. And another.

I knew that sound. We all did. Screaming in the middle of a clear night. Wood breaking. Metal clanging.

They were the sounds of a raid.





TWENTY-SIX


As soon as I thought it, the warning bell sounded in the ritual house and Iri and Fiske moved like one person, going for their weapons on the wall.

I pulled the door, leaving it cracked open just enough to peer out. The only thing I could see was the warm glow of the fire in Gyda’s house across the path. When I turned back around, Fiske was holding my weapons in his hands. They hovered in the air between us. My sword and my axe. My knife.

I stared down at them, my mouth falling open.

“Fiske?” Halvard’s sleepy, wavering voice came down from the loft.

He pushed the weapons into my hands and I clutched them to my chest as that still quiet poured into me. That sure, steady thing I knew. The fight inside of me. The whistle sounded again and the bellowing grew, getting closer. Fiske looked at the door and then back to Halvard.

“Go.” I dropped the scabbard over my head, tightening the straps. “I’ll stay with him.”

He looked at me and then back up to Halvard. “Get across the path to Gyda’s when it’s clear.” He waited for me to nod.

Iri went to the door, sliding his knife into his belt and taking an axe into each hand. I swallowed hard, turning back to the fire, and they slipped out into the dark, where more wailing echoed in the village.

I fit the axe onto my back and it centered me. Brought me back into myself. The familiar weight of my sword at my hip was an anchor.