Beautiful Wreck (30 page)

I almost felt sorry for them. Almost forgot what they’d done. Especially Eiðr, who seemed like a little boy drawn in the wake of his big brother’s stupidity. But images of Fjoðr came to mind, such a wild and blameless beauty, cruelly destroyed, and my throat closed in disgust.

Betta came to my side, and bent to speak in my ear.

“Woman,” she said to me, “He’s really got you by the throat.”

Her violent echo of my thoughts made me cringe. “What?”

She glanced at the rosemary-scented woman, then took my hand and drew me away to the back mudroom door, at the edge of the party.

“The chief,” she glanced his way. “You can’t take your eyes off him.”

I ducked my head, embarrassed, but no one else could hear her. Sounds whirled around us—laughter and chatter and barks and songs—and our conversation was as private as if we’d put our heads together close in the deep woods.

“Really?” I honestly didn’t know I’d been staring. “He looks so …” I pressed my forehead to her sharp shoulder.

“Fierce,” she whispered.

“Handsome,” I murmured at the same time, and I giggled.

I raised my head and found her looking at me with those clear eyes that changed course as quickly as water, one second insightful and sly, the next incredulous. She shook her head slightly. “He is not a handsome man, Ginn.”

“Stop,” I told her, and pushed back a sudden sadness in my throat. She pressed her lips together and ducked her head, an apology. In the awkwardness, I changed the subject. “I don’t see you looking at anyone.”

“That’s because you are half blind—” she began, but I’d had enough of hearing about my own infatuation.

“—Nei,” I said. “I’ve been watching you. You haven’t talked to anyone special.”

Her lashes swept the soft skin under her eyes, and she smiled a close-mouthed smile, secret and pleased. “You look only for what you expect.”

“That’s not fair!” I nudged her hard in the ribs. “Tell me who he is.”

“Shhhh,” she hushed me urgently, then moved the subject, always, back to me. “You know, the chief sees you, too. He wants to watch tonight.”

“He wants to?”

“You are truly dense sometimes, Woman,” she said.

“I am asleep.” I swayed with exhaustion.

“Well, you don’t see yourself. You look like a handmaiden of the goddess.” She brushed a strand of hair out of my eyes. “Your snowy hair, your eyes like driftwood ash. You wear his mother’s dress. And Amma’s crown.” She ran her fingers across the band on my forehead, and her wistfulness hit me like a wave. She motioned toward Heirik. “You should be sitting in that seat next to him.”

I glanced at the empty seat by Heirik’s side, and her words warmed me all over. I tried to imagine sitting next to him, his wife.

“He can pretend you’re just a guest without proper clothing.” She went on, telling me no one would comment out loud. “He’s careful not to look at you too much. He watches everyone else, how they treat you, where the threats lie.”

The threats.

Oh.
I looked again and now the empty seat by his side was not as welcoming. The rare lavender he’d given me, the precious clothes, weren’t as tender a gesture as I’d thought. I was on display. I stood straighter, anger rising hot in my cheeks. “He’s using me as
bait
.” Nettled and surprised, I said it in English.

“
Bait?
” Betta was curious, her lips pursing to push out the foreign word.

“Luring the animals to his spear,” I told her. “Drawing them out of the woods.”

“Já,” she said. “That is exactly what he’s doing.”

“I don’t like it.” I felt naked and freezing despite the suffocating press of bodies. Now I saw how every eye shied away from me when I looked, determined to prove they meant no harm. The herb-scented woman had seemed completely uninterested in talking with me. Now I saw that she’d been leaning away, evaluating me out of the corners of her downturned eyes.

Betta maintained the chief had to do this. “There are many here who would be … upset … to see that seat filled.”

I drew my shawl tighter. “What if someone does take the bait?”

“Já, well, I imagine you would find Magnus and Hár at your side in a heartbeat.”

I followed her glance.
Oh.
Even now, the old man sat so close he could grasp my wrist without turning. Cold crept up my spine. I had no idea all this was happening around me, focused on me, and I felt dumb and self-conscious, imagining how I’d looked all night. Obliviously wolfing down chicken and cheese and dozing in my seat.

“Hár wouldn’t save me,” I said. “He’d sooner take me to the heart of the woods and leave me.”

Betta’s brows drew tight together and she shook her head. “Nei, what do you mean Woman?” She was truly surprised. “Gods, he would never!”

But I knew what I’d heard, and the great fear that had been dammed up since last night finally flowed out and I told Betta about the fight I’d heard, the heavy body hitting the back door. I repeated Hár’s words. She shushed me and said that I was wrong, that the old man was happy his nephew had someone who cared for him. He wanted Heirik to do just what he had done today—take me somewhere, away from here.

Could it be? That Hár had meant for Heirik to take me somewhere so we could be alone, a man and woman together in the woods?

“Ginn, you must know, this is all new. No one ever thought …” I let her voice wash over me and tried to believe. All the while, in the back of my mind I pictured me and Heirik the way we could be together if we were nobody special, walking hand in hand in the evening light, feeding each other bread at one of these benches, handing a chunk down to our little son who sat between us. If I was from here and now and he was just a simple farmer.

“I’m sick of people caring what Heirik does,” I said, a petulant child.

“Shhh,” Betta told me, with that small push of her fingers, a shushing motion. But no one could hear us in the roar of party.

“Woman, listen well.” Her whisper was grave. “He is chieftain. Everyone will always care what he does. If you succeed, they will care what you do, too. They’ll watch you move and eat and breathe. They’ll watch you carry your blood-cursed raven’s children, and you will learn to guard your back, and shield your eyes and heart.”

I shivered at the center of this cruel and strategic place, a saga come to life.

“Like he does,” I whispered.

“Já,” she touched the fillet on my forehead again. “He is good at it.”

I nodded and sniffed.

“Watch,” she continued. “That’s still the cup Dalla poured for him.”

I forgot sometimes that Betta saw everything, every fine detail and intention. Heirik held the cup absently by its rim, as if he’d forgotten it was there, and through the thick glass I could see it was still half full of murky ale.

“Já well,” Betta said at full volume, making a point of no longer whispering. “Too much ale and a man’s heart is laid open for all to see.”

The men nearest to us laughed at her words. One of them was Hár, who turned in his seat and smiled, a great beautiful smile from behind his silver whiskers that confused me more than ever.

Later I realized how deftly Betta had moved me off the subject of her own heart.

The morning came, soggy and sorry. Every woolen blanket and cloak, every sleeping body, every beam of the house itself stunk of stale beer and the tang of sweat.

I half crept, half stumbled to the front door to get a blessed breath of air. I picked my way over heaps of sleeping people, women and children lying right on the benches where they’d eaten last night, or sitting up against the walls, leaning on one another. I bumbled across one woman’s legs. She started and woke with wild eyes, stared at me for a long moment, then closed them again and pressed her cheek into the wall.

Outside, men roamed the yard and gathered in small groups, grumbling or sitting in stoic misery. Some still slept in the grass, near to freezing, curled around their weapons and drinking horns. A black pit smoked sluggishly where the bonfire had been, and two boys worked at rousing new flames. Lost knives dotted the landscape, and the bones of small animals were strewn across the yard. Bjarni tended to injured men, two who were bleeding, one with something gravely wrong with his arm, another holding his jaw, waiting with his head thrown back against the house.

I’d changed out of the precious clothes last night. I lifted my everyday dress and skirts in my fists to step over weapons and carnage, and as I passed by them, the men and boys stood up taller, nodded to me. They acted deferent and even a little scared, and I tried to imagine my strangeness. Tried to imagine a woman from out of nowhere, spewed forth by the sea and upsetting their universe. I must have looked like the harbinger of doom in that ice blue dress last night, the mother of impending death.

I made my way to the forge. One of my favorite spots, it sat forgotten this morning, high on its rise above the valley. I breathed gratefully, deeply, and looked far out over the woods. This was where I stood the first time I saw Hvítmörk. The first time I looked at Heirik and lied and said I had no story, no why or how. Today, the miles of golden leaves rippled, then began to toss and sway on a breeze that picked up and changed to wind. My dress billowed and tangled around my legs and my hair flew forward and whipped around my face. My eyes teared with the lashing wind and the beauty of the forest.

The chief will think,
Betta had said. I saw it now, how for days he’d known he would do all of this. He must have ordered Hildur to get those clothes ready for me. He’d seen an opportunity when I wanted to cut the grass. He took me to the woods to get away while the party gathered, then brought me out dressed as the image of his mother, the lady of this great house, naive, a target on my back.

When we were alone, I knew Heirik wanted me. Now I was certain. But here with people all around, the chief was someone else. By the time the night was through, I couldn’t tell whether it was me he wanted or whether by chance I’d offered a change of perspective—the notion that he could take a wife and have children after all, curses and vows be damned. It might be possible, if the clan would let it be. He tossed me out in front of them like a chunk of wood on a fire.

Did it matter whether he wanted me, or he simply wanted a wife?

I sat down on my heels and clutched my stomach. Nei, that wasn’t right. I didn’t want a practical Viking marriage. I wanted him to love me.

I stood stiffly and said a small goodbye to the woods for now, turning back to the house to help put it in order. I would clean up the yard and feed the hungry people. From up at the forge, the men looked like a straggling mess of dogs, wandering out to sniff every inch of ground, stopping to scratch and barf. Their wives and daughters made their way out of the house now.

It was a Viking farm in the wilderness, a land of gods-driven, ax-hewn justice. I considered taking Drifa and running for the sea, trying to go back to what I used to call home. I thought about riding her with the wind in my hair, thought about the relative safety of the future.

Heirik stepped from the house.

Clean and awake, he was dressed in his work clothes with his hair pulled back neatly off his face. Nothing lingered from the night before, not a hint of revelry or regret.

With his appearance, everyone seemed to stand up straighter, to shift and move toward the stables. Heirik watched them with an unreadable gaze, and with one hand he tightened the laces on his bracer, working his thumb against one of the odd knots.

Those knots—I’d wondered about them many times. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. They worked one-handed. Heirik had no one to sew up his sleeves for him or tie his laces in the morning, no one he would involve in such personal things. Too stubborn to wear something different, he’d found a way.

I imagined him in the dark of his room, doing this small, daily thing, and I felt a great longing. I feared and hated him for last night, and yet a love so great bloomed under the surface, rushing up through my guts and bones and lighting up my skin. I felt the wind push at my back, urging me toward the house, toward him.

In my mind, I saw myself helping him dress. Not in a romantic way. Nei, I saw it the way others might. A powerful and frightful man made even more so because of me. And I understood some of what Betta was trying to tell me last night.