Troll Blood (31 page)

“My—” Peer felt his jaw drop. “No, they’re not!”

“He says, ‘But you want them to be?’” Ottar mumbled.

“One of them.” Peer bit his lip, grinned, and nodded. Kwimu’s eyes danced.

“He says it’s easy. First you ask her father. If he agrees, go to the girl and toss a stick into her lap. If she likes you, she tosses it back. If she doesn’t, she throws it away.”

“Er …tell him it’s not quite as easy as that.”

Kwimu shook his head with a rueful expression, and Ottar explained. “He says, ‘It never is, and is she pretty?’”

“She’s very pretty”’ said Peer quietly.

Ottar wriggled. “I’m going on ahead. I don’t want to talk about girls anymore.” He ran off with Loki, pretending to throw a stick for him, while Loki jumped and barked.

Peer’s smile faded. For the millionth time, he thought about Hilde. And for the millionth time he wondered what to do. The year was on the edge of winter. The sailing season was
over. Back at Serpent’s Bay they’d be dragging
Water Snake
up onto the shore on rollers. They’d take down the mast and lash the sail over her, leaving everything trim and snug, ready for months of snow and ice. The men would go out trapping for those precious furs. Hilde would be stuck indoors.

When will I see her? How can I let her know I’m still alive
?

Even if he could find his way back to the bay and speak to Hilde secretly, even if she agreed to come with him, even if Sinumkw could be persuaded to take in another foreigner—what would be the use?
We still have to get home, and there’s only one ship that can take us
.

Sometimes he thought he should leave Hilde where she was. Gunnar and Harald weren’t likely to harm a girl. That way she’d have a chance of sailing home again—about four years from now.
By then she’ll probably have married Arnë. She’ll think I’m dead
.

There has to be a way.
…

The pale cones of the wigwams loomed against the trees, and the village smells blew on the wind: smoke and fish oil and all the salty litter of human living—wood chips and leather and roasting meat. If he shut his eyes it reminded him of Trollsvik.

Oh, to be home. To be walking up to the farm, past the brook where the water runs sleek over the little stones, knowing that Gudrun and Hilde and Sigrid are all safe inside waiting for me, with supper hot in the pot and old Alf thumping his tail in greeting—

Keen and close and shrill, a woman screamed.

Peer jumped, looking for danger in the early darkness and whipping wind. But the noise came from inside the thin birchbark walls.
“Akaia! Ah, ah, ah! Akaia!”

Ottar shot into the wigwam like a rabbit into its hole. Kwimu and Peer ducked through the doorway after him.

“Akaia!”

Plawej knelt by the fire, doubled over, tearing at her hair and face.
“Ah, ah!”
she screamed, throwing herself backward and forward. The other women tried to restrain her. They were all crying, even Grandmother. Tears ran down her wrinkled face.
Someone’s died
, Peer thought in horror.
Where’s the baby
? He looked quickly around, and saw Jipjawej hugging it, stiffly wrapped in its elaborate cradleboard, but alive all right.
Not the baby, then. So who
?

A dozen young men clustered at the far side of the fire, talking to Sinumkw in angry, urgent voices. They saw Kwimu, grabbed him, and rattled off the same story. Whatever it was, it made Kwimu’s face harden till he looked years older.

Ottar slid out of the throng, and Peer caught him. “What’s happened?”

“It’s Kiunik,” Ottar looked white and shocked. “Kiunik, he’s married to Plawej. He’s Kwimu’s uncle. He’s been found dead with his friend Tia’m. Both killed. I can’t believe it.”

“Killed? You mean deliberately? But—”

Peer broke off. A voice rang out of the past, Tjorvi’s voice, rough with anger.
Skraelings. Just a couple of young
fellows, cooking over a campfire
.

Oh, no
.

Ottar was still talking. “They’d been away for weeks; Plawej was getting anxious. Some of the young men went looking for them…”

“Toward the sea?” Peer croaked. “To Serpent’s Bay? Down the river?”

“Yes.” Ottar’s eyes narrowed. “Kiunik wouldn’t stop hunting there. He said we shouldn’t be driven out. He said he’d hunt where he liked.”

“Did one of them”—Peer’s mouth was dry—“did one of them have a big bear-claw necklace?”

“Kiunik did!” Ottar grabbed him. “Why? Do you know something about it?”

Peer looked at Plawej. She wasn’t wailing now. She was crushing charcoal from the fire between her palms, and methodically, drearily, blackening her face.

Two men, murdered, and I haven’t once thought about them since
.

“I know what happened.” Peer felt almost as guilty as if he’d done it himself. “Harald killed them.”

Ottar’s face scrunched up. He flung himself at Kwimu, tugging his arm and shouting. Everything quieted for a second. Even Plawej raised her blotched, blackened face in tearstained surprise. Sinumkw turned slowly.

Peer quailed. Sinumkw surveyed him as an eagle might, looking down on a man from some great height or icy mountain.
His strong, severe face was carved with lines of authority, and, now, of sorrow and distrust. His black hair was drawn back and knotted with painted strings; on his breast his knife hung from a cord, and looped about his neck was row after row of beads, strung with copper discs and pearl shell. He looked more like a leader of men than Gunnar had ever done. He spoke slowly, coldly, emphatically.

“He says, ‘Why didn’t you tell us this before?’” Ottar almost spat the words.

Excuses whirled through Peer’s head.
I heard about it, but I didn’t see it. I was shocked at the time, but so much else has happened since. I thought it was an awful thing, but it happened to “Skraelings,” and I hadn’t met any then. It didn’t seem quite real. I’ve been ill
.

He met Sinumkw’s fierce, dark eyes, and knew that not one of these sly, shameful answers was possible. “I ought to have told you,” he said quietly. “I forgot. There’s no excuse.”

Sinumkw’s face remained stern. He paused, and asked something.

“He wants you to say what happened,” Ottar said.

Peer explained what he knew, even to the theft of the bear-claw necklace. Ottar translated. The young men murmured angrily. Sinumkw held Peer’s gaze, searching him for the truth. Peer faced him, sweating but steady. An odd thought went through his head:
He’s like my father
. From different worlds, different lives, they shared an inner dignity and stillness, demanding respect.

At last Sinumkw gave a slow, stiff nod. He began to speak, a few sentences at a time, waiting for Ottar to translate.

“He says you were ill, and didn’t know Kiunik or Tia’m. He says you were not to blame for their deaths. He says he already guessed who killed them, because they were so close to the Place of Ghosts. He says he warned Kiunik not to go there, but Kiunik went because he was brave”—Ottar’s voice wobbled and caught—“and proud, like a warrior. He says Kiunik was right.”

Sinumkw stepped to the center of the wigwam, to the swept earth floor around the fire. He lifted his voice so that everyone could hear, and went on speaking, more rapidly this time.

“He says when he heard that the pale people had come back, he wasn’t sure what to do,” Ottar whispered. “He says he didn’t want to fight them because there are not many of them, and they took the bay out of ignorance, not knowing it was ours. He says our lands are wide. If they wanted to live in the Place of Ghosts, he thought they could do so without troubling us, even though they are bad men who kill each other. But now, he says, two of our own young men have been killed. He says …” Ottar chewed his lip, nearly in tears. “He says they killed Kiunik and Tia’m and left their bodies lying to be eaten by animals. Muin and Kopit, who found them, could hardly recognize them. But they gathered up the bodies, and wrapped them in bark, and left them on a—a sort of platform, a scaffold in the woods, to keep them safe, and soon
we’ll go and take them to the burying place. But before that, Sinumkw says, we have a—a duty to them. Their ghosts are waiting outside in the dark right now to see what we will do. He says they will be angry if we don’t send them on their way with honor. They need revenge.”

The warriors yelled—a crash of approval.
“Heh!”

“‘Let us give it to them.’”

“Heh!”

“‘We will go to the Place of Ghosts.’”

“Heh!”

Ottar’s face was sharp and glowing. “‘We will pull down their houses and leave not one alive.’”

“Heh!”

“And he says—yes! He says we’ll rip off the scalp of the boy with the long golden hair and dry it in the smoke, and Kiunik and Tia’m will take it with them on their journey! Hooray!”

“Heh! Heh! Heh!”
the young men roared. Sinumkw gestured, and Kwimu stepped forward with a shallow birchbark bowl. Sinumkw dipped his fingers in and brought them out covered with thick red pigment. Deliberately, ceremoniously, he smeared the paint over his face.

“War!” Ottar whispered.

“Heh!”
shouted Kwimu. He too dipped his hand into the pigment and dragged red fingers across his face.

“Heh!”
shrieked Ottar.

Even Peer felt the surge of excitement.
This will teach Harald Silkenhair a lesson!
All the powerlessness he’d felt in
the face of Harald’s insults boiled up inside him. Harald, the bully with the sword—if he could see what was coming to him!

“Hey! Hey!”
he yelled in unison with the other young men. Everyone was crowding to redden their faces. Peer found himself waiting in line. The
pat-pat-pat
of a drum started up—a stick knocking on a thick roll of birchbark. The men began a dance step, heads high, arms held out with clenched fists. They sang and stamped.

Peer came level with Kwimu. Kwimu’s eyes were hot and bright; his face was taut under the disfiguring pigment. He held out the bowl to Peer. There wasn’t much left, but Peer scooped some out and touched it to his face.

The young men swept him into the dance. It wasn’t difficult—a step forward and a step back. Stamp, step, around and around. Stamp, step, around and around. Stamp—

What
had Sinumkw said?

We will pull down their houses and leave not one alive
?

The wigwam spun. He staggered out of the dance and crouched on the fir boughs that lined the floor, taking deep breaths. Ottar danced past, and Peer thrust out a foot to trip him.

“What’s that for?” the boy cried angrily.

“Wait, Ottar—it’s important.” Peer grabbed his arm as Ottar tried to pull away. “What are we thinking? We can’t do this. We can’t attack the houses.”

“Why not?” demanded Ottar. “Harald deserves to die!”

“But what about the others? The girls? My friend Hilde and her friend Astrid? And …”
And Tjorvi and Arnë
, he was about to say,
who didn’t even sail with Gunnar before. And Magnus and Floki and Halfdan—I don’t want any of them to die
. …

He looked into Ottar’s indifferent face and realized that to him they would be only a string of names.

“I expect you can save the women,” Ottar said. “We can ask Sinumkw if you like. About the others, I don’t care. They didn’t care about Kiunik, did they? Or Pa?”

“What if they surrender?” Peer demanded.

Ottar stared. “Harald and Gunnar won’t surrender! And I don’t want them to. They killed my Pa, and I want them to die!” He wrenched himself free and whirled off into the dance, singing.

Peer put his face in his hands. He rubbed his cheeks, wiping his red fingers on the fresh green fir branches, and looked at the dancing men with sudden loathing. What was all this singing about? Who were these people—these
Skraelings
—who danced and sang about going to war?

Someone touched his arm. It was Nukumij—Grandmother. She sat down beside him and pointed to his face and then at the dancers, smiling sadly. She shook her head, and made an eloquent gesture that took in the war dance, the fire, the sad figure of Plawej with her woeful, besmeared face.

Peer thought he understood.
Killing people
, she seemed to say,
is such a terrible thing that we have to work ourselves up to it
. Making a ceremony out of it—did that make it better?
Better than Harald’s casual killings?

These weren’t people who disregarded life. Those beavers he and Kwimu had trapped—every scrap would be used: the meat, the fur, even the chisel teeth. Then the bones would be placed respectfully in running water, so the dogs couldn’t chew them. Far in the woods, Ottar told him, was the wigwam of the Man Who Brings Back Animals. He would sing his song of power to bring the bones to life, so there would always be beavers for the People to hunt.

That was what they believed.

Harald Silkenhair had killed two young men with no ceremony at all, and left their bodies lying.

Why should Sinumkw care about Magnus or Tjorvi or the others? Why should anybody care about someone else whom they’d never met?

But I care. I’m in the middle. I know them all. Probably Harald deserves it. But nobody else does. I can’t let them die
.

He groaned, and Grandmother reached out and took his hand. Her fingers were warm and dry, a bunch of slender bones covered in wrinkled brown skin. His own were pale in comparison, even after a summer out of doors, even stained with greasy red streaks. She squeezed gently, a gesture of compassion, and let go. They sat quietly together.

Ottar flung himself down beside them, flushed and panting. “Hear them singing?” he asked. “Want to know what it means?

“Death I make, singing
.

“Heh! Hey!

“Bones I break, singing
.

“Hey! Hey!

“Death I make, singing!”

CHAPTER 22
The Fight in the House