Troll Blood (21 page)

Hilde was used to people being glad to see her. Back home, Ma, Pa, the twins, even the babies greeted her every morning with warmth and love. Even the quarrels were loving quarrels. She’d never thought much about it. She’d taken it for granted.

Now, after a night spent in Astrid and Gunnar’s cold dark
room, here was Peer, simply happy to see her, and showing it. It was like stepping into sunlight and fresh air. A strange thought crossed her mind.
We belong together
.

“Hilde.” He kicked a log farther into the flames and came toward her. His lanky frame was filling out: He was broader across the shoulders than she’d thought. He moved lightly, with grace.
I once said he looked like a heron. Not anymore
. …

“Hilde?” he asked, puzzled.

She jumped. How long had she been staring at him, dumb as a post?

“Is something wrong?” He threw a glance at the dark doorway behind her, ready to tackle anyone who might have upset her.

“I’m fine.” She pulled herself together. “I’m fine, but Gunnar’s not well. Astrid says he shouldn’t get up.”

“Still ill?” Harald looked up sharply. “You should have said so immediately!” He vanished into the far room with a swirl of his cloak. Hilde and Peer crowded around the door.

Gunnar sat facing them, leaning against the headboard, red-eyed and pale-faced, wrapped in his wolfskin cloak. Astrid sat on the bedside, singing softly.

Harald gave her a dark glance and knelt on the other side of the bed. “Father.” His voice was full of tender respect. “Can’t you get up?”

“He’d much better not,” said Astrid.

“I didn’t ask you,” said Harald with a snap. “Father?”

“I—I tried.” Gunnar lifted his hand to his throat as if it
hurt. “Dizzy. Listen, son …” He muttered hoarse instructions.
Water Snake’s
boat should be unloaded for use in the river. Some of the men should go hunting. …

“Yes, Father. But get up! Don’t lie in bed like a woman. Fight it off. Get out into the sunshine.”

“Fight it off?” said Astrid scornfully. “How can he do that? There are things you can’t fight with a sword, Harald.” Her voice dropped into a sinister singsong. “Bodiless things. Insubstantial things. Things you had better leave to me.”

“What … things?”
said Harald between his teeth.

Astrid’s face was a mask of innocence. “Fever, of course.

What did you think?”

They stared at each other across the bed. At last Harald said, “Just cure him quickly.” He strode out. Peer and Hilde hastily drew back to let him pass.

Astrid turned back to Gunnar, stroking his forehead. “I’ll sing to you again.”

Gunnar nodded wearily. His head rolled back under her fingers; his eyelids flickered shut. Peer and Hilde tiptoed back to the fire.

Peer was laughing. “I think Astrid won that bout,” he whispered.

Hilde nodded impatiently. “Peer, I have to tell you about last night.”

But before she could begin, Magnus sat up and stretched. With his arms widely spread, he used one foot to prod Floki in the ribs. “Wake up, Floki, you lazy young brute.” He gave
Hilde his gap-toothed grin. “Morning, Hilde, my lass. What have you got for a starving man’s breakfast? Or has Tjorvi scoffed it all?” Then he cocked his head to one side, and his brow furrowed. “What’s going on in
there
?”

Astrid’s voice floated out of Gunnar’s room, half singing, half chanting:

“Troll girl. Witch woman,” said Magnus darkly. “Brrr! It makes you shiver.”

CHAPTER 14
Disturbances and Tall Tales

G
unnar was ill for days. Astrid and Harald clashed constantly over his care till Peer wondered if it was more about curing Gunnar or scoring off each other. Mostly Astrid won, but Harald became dangerously sullen. When Gunnar recovered enough to get out of bed, he was very weak, and spent his days shivering over the fire with Astrid in attendance. Harald kept urging him to go outside, but he seldom set foot beyond the door, though the weather was now gloriously hot. Summer seemed to arrive all at once. Wild roses, a curious bright pink, flowered in tangles around the salty marshlands, and down on the shore purple pea blossoms twined over the dry sandy stones above the tide line.

There was food everywhere. Flocks of ducks and geese nested in the marshlands, and more flew in every day. Harald
and Arnë took bows and shot down dozens. Salmon were spawning, running upstream in such numbers that Tjorvi joked, “You could almost walk across the river on their backs.” Strange birds sang in the bushes. Strange animals were glimpsed in the woods. At night, flashing fireflies wandered silently in the air. The Nis found them too tempting to resist. It went out every evening and caught handfuls, releasing them indoors to drift among the rafters like bright sparks. Tjorvi put one in Hilde’s hair, where it winked off and on like a green jewel.

Summer drew on. The settling in was over. With the house roof steaming and smoking, and chickens running in and out, and Loki sleeping in the sunshine, Vinland felt almost like home.

But at home it would be harvest time. Here there were no fields to tend. Peer wondered when they’d start felling trees, but Gunnar seemed in no hurry. For much of the time, the men just sat about, sunning themselves or talking.

And Thorolf’s house remained empty, a cold, silent reminder of how alone they all were, how far from other people. Every morning Peer gazed across the bay, hoping to see a square sail making its way in from the gulf. Where were they, Thorolf and his son Ottar and the crew of the
Long Serpent
? When would they come back?

One evening as they sat around the fire the latch flew up. Hilde burst in from outside, eyes wide and black. She doubled over, gasping. “There’s someone out there! I was filling my
buckets at the stream, and I heard something moving in the trees—farther up the slope. And I’m sure I heard singing.”

Harald leaped up, grabbing a bow and a fistful of arrows. He ran outside, and everyone but Astrid and Gunnar followed him.

It was nearly dark. The wooded slope behind the settlement was a wall of shadows, full of creeping sounds, sleepy birdcalls, snapping twigs—all strange, all mysterious. As they approached the trees, the mosquitoes came out to meet them in stinging clouds.

“There’s something there all right. Loki knows,” said Peer. Loki was staring into the trees, hackles up. He backed off, whining and growling.

“Skraelings, perhaps,” Magnus muttered. “Lurking there, watching us …”

The slope was almost as steep as a cliff. The stream cascaded down a deep cut between mossy banks, cluttered with fallen branches. The sound of rushing water filled their ears—and then the sound of something crashing and sliding downhill.

Peer’s hair stood on end. Would he see Skraelings at last?

“Bear!” Tjorvi yelled. Out from the trees plunged a shambling, sloppy-coated black bear. It saw them and reared up, paws loosely dangling. Peer saw its curved black nails, the white spot on its chest, and its small, narrow-set, blinking eyes.

Harald’s bow sang. His arrow flew just as the bear shook its
flat head and dropped onto all fours. The arrow vanished, and Harald swore, fumbling for another. But the bear was gone, melting into the dark bushes as swiftly as any deer.

“Well now,” Tjorvi said to Harald. “If you’d stung that bear, young master, it would have charged us. And then what would you have done?”

Harald’s teeth gleamed. “I would have stepped back and let you deal with it, Tjorvi. You look like a bear yourself. It would probably mistake you for its mother.”

Halfdan and Magnus snickered. Tjorvi pretended to scratch his head and said, “I’ve always fancied a bear-claw necklace.”

“But I heard singing,” Hilde said. They all looked at her.

Arnë put his arm across her shoulders. “I don’t think you could have, Hilde. Bears don’t sing.”

“I know that, Arnë. And I know what I heard.”

“Mosquitoes,” suggested Tjorvi helpfully after a moment.

“Don’t be silly!” Hilde bent crossly for the buckets she had dropped, but Peer picked them up for her.

“Whatever it was, Hilde, please don’t fetch water by yourself again.”

Harald’s voice sliced through the dusk. “Why don’t you fetch it? You look a proper milkmaid with those buckets.”

Magnus choked and slapped his thigh. A hot flush crawled under Peer’s skin, but he knew it wouldn’t show in the dark.

“What a shame we didn’t bring any goats,” Harald mocked. “Can you milk, Barelegs? I’m sure you can.”

He wants a fight
. With difficulty, Peer controlled his temper. “Of course I can. If I meet the bear, I’ll milk it for you, shall I?”

There was a split second of silence, and he knew he’d shut Harald up. Tjorvi burst out laughing. He threw his arm around Peer’s shoulders, roaring, “Milk the bear! Excellent! That was very good, young ’un. Here, give me one of those buckets. Bear’s milk! I like it.”

With a quick, dancing step, Hilde caught up with Peer. “Good for you. That showed him!” But Peer’s flash of triumph was already fading.

He’ll make me pay
.

Was there no way of dealing with someone like Harald and winning?

Whizz! Whizz! Whizz!

A metallic rasping sound greeted Peer’s ears as he and Floki came out of the house together the next morning, heading for the fish traps on the shore. Harald sat on a cut log near the porch, sharpening his sword. He hissed between his teeth, tilting the blade this way and that so that the sun flashed off it in brilliant winks.

It was an ominous sight. Peer was going past without speaking, but Floki stopped in delight. “Your sword, Harald! Bone-biter. You’ve got her out again. My, what a beauty.” He stared at the bright, dangerous thing, obviously longing to touch the sword, just as obviously not daring to ask. “I
suppose it cost a lot, a sword like that,” he added wistfully.

Harald glanced up, shaking his hair back. “Yes, it cost my father a pound of silver.”

Floki gasped like a fish, and Peer just managed to keep his own jaw from dropping.
A pound of silver!
More than the price of a really good horse.
A pound of silver!
He looked at his own little silver ring, the most valuable thing he had. How much silver was in that? A fraction of an ounce. How long had his father scrimped and saved to buy it?

Harald laid the whetstone down. He lifted the blade, shutting one eye to look down its length. “My father always gets me the best,” he said to Floki. “Pattern welded, see? Gilded crossbar. And the hilt’s bound with silver wire. But the balance—that’s where the skill comes in.” He reversed it neatly and offered the hilt to Floki.

Floki flushed till even his ears turned scarlet. He took the sword reverently, one hand clutching the hilt, the other palm out under the blade.

“Try her,” said Harald. “Go on, give her a swing.” He gave Peer a bright look. “Not too close to Barelegs, though. We know what happens if he gets a fright.”

With sly glee, Floki prodded the sword at Peer’s ankles. Peer stepped back. “Stop it, Floki.”

“He’s scared!” Floki grinned. “How do I look?” He bared his teeth in a ferocious snarl.

“Floki,” said Harald lazily, “with a sword in your hand, you frighten even me.”

Peer’s lips tightened. But Floki didn’t notice the mockery. He raised the sword and slashed it through the air. “Hey, look at me!” he cried. “Magnus, Tjorvi, look at me.”

“Mind you don’t take your own leg off,” growled Magnus from the porch.

Tjorvi emerged, ducking low under the lintel, his shock of hair white in the sun. Yawning and stretching his arms, he watched Floki chop down invisible enemies, yelling, “Ya! Hey! Take that!”

Hilde came out with a pail of dirty water and stopped to stare. Encouraged by the audience, Floki whirled ever more wildly till his toe caught on a loose turf, and he fell flat on his face. Everyone burst out laughing. Harald strolled forward. Floki scrabbled for the sword on all fours, and handed it back. He knelt in front of Harald, gazing up with an expression of raw adoration on his silly red face. Peer stopped laughing. This wasn’t funny anymore.