Chapter Fifteen: Orka

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ORKA

Orka shook the black pan sitting on an iron grill over her hearth fire. Flames flared as slices of smoked ham and chopped onions crackled and smoke drifted up to the high beams of their steading, searching for the smoke hole.

Orka saw small fingers reach into the pan and slapped them with her wooden spoon.

“Wait until it’s ready,” she said.

“But my belly’s growling like a new-woken bear, Mama,” Breca said.

“And mine,” Thorkel muttered, sitting in a chair and sewing a patch in his nålbinding cap.

“Smells good,” Vesli the tennúr squeaked beside Breca.

Orka frowned at the tennúr, who had followed Breca’s every step from the moment he passed through their steading’s gates. The vaesen’s wounds seemed to be healing well.

“I hope Mord and Lif are all right,” Breca said.

“As long as they do nothing stupid, they will survive,” Orka said, thinking of how she and Thorkel had restrained Mord from snatching up his father’s axe and hurling himself at Guðvarr and Jarl Sigrún’s thrall.

They had been home less than half a day, having stayed at Fellur a while to help Virk’s sons raise a barrow over their father. Afterwards Mord and Lif had welcomed them to their hearth and fed them well on salted cod and smoked salmon, but the mood had been dour. Mord had muttered oaths of vengeance and Lif had shed constant tears. By the time Orka, Thorkel and Breca left, the two boys had calmed a little, both pale and red-eyed. Thorkel had invited the young men to their steading in the hills, but they had declined. Many boats still bobbed out on the fjord, moored to the Oath Rock as the Althing continued, and Thorkel had advised the two brothers not to return to the gathering.

It was late, now, the darkness thick as oil outside, a wind soughing through the forest, and all of them were tired and hungry, after their climb into the hills and then seeing to the chores of the steading. Spert had complained vehemently that they were conspiring to starve him to death, neglecting to bring him his blood and spit-soaked porridge on time, but Breca had eventually placated the vaesen creature with a bowl twice as large as he was usually given. Spert was asleep in his small underwater cave now, satiated and swollen.

Orka picked up a wooden bowl and gave it to Breca, took some flatbread that had been warming on stones around the hearth fire and spooned some skyr and thyme on to it, then stabbed a slice of ham and placed it on the flatbread, finally pouring fried onions on top of it all.

Breca took his eating knife and skewered the ham, ripped a chunk off and stuffed it in his mouth. He made huffing noises as he tried to chew, the meat too hot.

“Have some patience. You’ll scald your belly,” Orka said to him.

Thorkel held his plate out and Orka filled it. He stroked the back of her hand as she did so, sending a warm sensation tickling into her belly. She was glad of it, because a wyrm of worry had been squirming in her gut since they had carried Virk’s corpse from the Oath Rock. She had thought it would fade once she was back in her home, away from the Althing, but instead the sensation had grown inside her, a creeping dread spreading through her veins like poison.

Orka filled her own plate, then looked down at Vesli, who was staring up at her, pointed nose twitching, a line of drool glistening from mouth to chin. With a grunt Orka nudged some of her ham and onions into a bowl and held them out for the tennúr. Tentatively the creature reached out and took the bowl, then dipped its head. There was a chewing, grinding sound, as Vesli tore through the food.

Orka frowned.

“I hate Guðvarr and Jarl Sigrún,” Breca said abruptly, his eyes fierce as he blew on his hot food.

Orka was still watching the tennúr eat, its two rows of teeth slicing and grinding at an alarming rate. The bowl was empty in heartbeats. Vesli smacked her lips and licked her chin, then looked up at Orka.

“Tasty,” Vesli said. Orka just scowled, imagining her crunching through human teeth.

“Hate?” Thorkel said, raising an eyebrow, onions stuck in his beard. “Hate does no one any good,” he shrugged. “Sometimes killing has to be done, but do not do it with hate in your heart. It will eat at you, like maggots laid beneath the skin.”

“But what they did,” Breca said. “Virk won, and then they killed him. It is not fair.”

“No,” Thorkel agreed, “it is not. But Vigrið is not fair. All that can make the world fair is this.” Thorkel leaned forward in his chair and put a finger to Breca’s temple. “Your thought-cage. The choices you make. Choose to treat others fairly: you’ll sleep better for it.”

“But what about when others don’t treat me fairly, like they didn’t treat poor, dead Virk fair,” Breca said, his face screwed up in anger.

“Aye, that’s a deep-thought point for one so young,” Thorkel said through a mouthful of flatbread and skyr. “If you can walk away from a fight and keep your head and your honour, do so. Virk spoiled for a fight, and he won, you’re right. But picking a fight with your jarl’s nephew was not a deep-cunning choice. If Virk had held his tongue, or spoke with more respect and less anger, he would most likely still be breathing.”

“Did he have good teeth?” Vesli squeaked.

They all stared at the little tennúr.

“The dead do not need their teeth,” Vesli shrugged, looking at the floor, a ripple in her paper-thin wings.

Thorkel laughed.

“If I were a grown warrior, I would have helped Virk,” Breca said quietly. He looked at Thorkel. “I want to learn sword craft.”

“I prefer an axe,” Thorkel said.

“Axes are for splitting wood,” Breca grumbled.

“They are just as good as swords at splitting skulls,” Thorkel said, quiet for a long moment, then he shrugged. “Probably better. A weapon is just hard, sharp steel. A tool, nothing more, only as good as the one holding it.”

“I want to be good with a sword,” Breca said stubbornly.

Thorkel shared a look with Orka and blew out a long breath.

Orka leaned back in her chair, crossing her feet and eating as Thorkel spoke on, talking to Breca about honour, about peaceful living. She knew he had the right of it, though part of her had agreed with Breca when she had been stood back in the hazel square, looking at Virk’s lifeless body. He should be avenged, and by rights his sons should do the deed. But they were too young and unskilled in weapons craft, and too fiery to go about it in a way that they may live to look back on and savour the deed.

It is a dark world, and dark deeds rule it, drag us down a white-foamed river we cannot resist. An image of Guðvarr, the honourless weasel lying in the hazel square, eyes blank and staring, an axe in his skull…

She blinked and shook her head, realising the road her thoughts were taking her down and not liking it. Thorkel’s voice seeped into her, deep and reassuring, calming her, like a fire pushing back the darkness that churned and coiled in her veins. Her eyelids drooped, sleep dragging at them.

A hand touched her foot and Orka jolted awake. She jumped, reaching for her seax at her belt, then saw Thorkel’s face smiling at her.

“You were snoring loud as a bear,” he said.

“Huh, and you are a fine one to talk about that,” she said, sitting up in her chair.

The fire still flickered, Breca and Vesli sitting beneath the table. Breca was carving at a lump of wood with his knife while he chatted with the tennúr.

“Time to snore in a soft bed, I’m thinking,” Thorkel said to her.

“Aye,” Orka grunted, rising and stretching.

They all set to their night-time chores. Breca collected the empty plates and cook-pan, and he loaded his small cart and pulled it out of the chamber, taking it to the stream to wash. Vesli fluttered her wings and perched upon the pile of plates and pans, and Orka and Thorkel followed them out into the darkness.

Each of them lit a torch and carried it with them, Breca giving his to Vesli to hold. Thorkel went to the gates, to check the bolts and locks, and then to make his customary patrol of the stockade wall. Orka strode for the barn, placed her torch in an iron sconce riveted to the barn’s gate, then proceeded to check on their pony. She spent some time mucking out his stable, filling his hayrack. When she finished, she gave him a handful of oats from a hemp sack and scratched his head while he chewed.

When Orka left, taking the guttering torch from the barn door, she saw the others had all finished their chores. She crossed the open courtyard and stepped into the hall. The fire still flickered in its hearth-ring, burning low, illuminating the room in ripples of amber and shadow. Breca was already in his cot, tucked under a woollen blanket and Vesli was curled on the floor beside him. Orka squatted down beside her son and just watched him a moment: his face pale and still, chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. Around his neck a wooden pendant hung by a leather thong. A sword, small but well carved with a three-lobed pommel and a curved crossguard. Orka snorted a laugh.

He is stubborn. He wants to learn sword craft, and this will be our reminder, every day. Thorkel must have drilled a hole in it and found some leather.

She reached out and stroked his hair and Breca opened his eyes, large and serious.

“I feel sad for Mord and Lif, Mama,” he said sleepily.

“I know you do,” Orka said. “And I’m glad that you do. It tells me that you have a big heart.”

“How are they going to live without their papa?”

“Well, if they can control their anger and not get themselves killed in a holmganga, then they won’t starve. Virk has taught them well; they have a fisher boat and a trade. That is what we try to do, as parents. Teach our children how to survive when we are gone.”

“I don’t ever want you or Papa to go,” Breca said. He blinked, eyes bright with sudden tears.

It is inevitable. Death comes for us all, Orka thought, though she did not speak her mind. She could already imagine Thorkel giving her his thundercloud frown.

“What were your mama and papa like?” Breca asked her.

“I hardly remember,” Orka said. “I have stray images of them, like leaves floating in a pool. My mother’s smile, combing her red hair.” Her screams. The back of my father’s hand…

“How old were you, when they died?”

“Ten, eleven winters?”

“If you die, I’ll never forget you,” Breca said, eyes wide and dark.

“I wanted to forget them,” Orka shrugged. “I am glad that you do not feel the same way.”

“Mama, were you…” Breca faltered, looking away.

“What?” Orka said. “A question is better out than in.”

“When we took Asgrim and Idrun’s bodies to Fellur, that man, Guðvarr, he said you were shaking, said that you were scared of him…”

“Aye, he did,” Orka said, remembering the little weasel standing on the steps of Jarl Sigrún’s mead hall, snot dripping from his nose. “What of it?”

“Were you… scared?” Breca asked her.

Orka remembered the feelings that had swept through her, memories of blood and death, a cold rage spreading through her limbs, making her blood tingle and her muscles twitch. It had been a fear, of sorts. Not of Guðvarr, but of what she might have done to him.

“I was,” Orka said.

Breca’s mouth dropped.

“Fear is no bad thing,” Orka said. “How can you be brave if you do not feel fear?”

“I don’t understand,” Breca said, frowning.

“Courage is being scared of a task and doing it anyway.”

Breca’s brow knotted as he thought on that, and then he slowly smiled. His eyes shifted focus and he scowled and sat up in bed, reaching over Orka’s shoulder.

“What is it?” Orka said, turning.

Breca stood in his cot, standing on his tiptoes, trying to reach a spiderweb in the crook of the beam. A moth was stuck in it, wings flapping, and a bloated spider had emerged from its lair, standing on a vibrating thread.

“Leave it, Breca. It is nature’s way. This is a red world of tooth and claw. The bird eats the mouse, the cat eats the bird, the wolf eats the cat, and so on. You cannot change this.”

“Ah, but, Mama, look how frightened that moth is,” Breca said, jumping now, but still not able to reach the web. “To see your death approaching with fangs like that, to be poisoned but still alive while your life is sucked from you. Surely that is no good death?”

Orka shrugged. He had a point.

The spider began to scurry along the thread towards the frantic moth.

“And if you were caught in a snare, or I, and someone could help us,” Breca said, “but instead turned their backs and walked away, what would you have to say about that?” He jumped higher, managed to touch the web and the scuttling spider froze.

If someone left you to die, I would throttle the life from them. I would stab them and gut them and…

Orka shook her head.

“There is too much room in that thought-cage of yours,” Orka grunted, but she stood and swiped at the web, knocking the moth free. It fell on to the floor, spun in a circle to shake off the last of the web that clung to it, then it was free and flying away.

Breca smiled at her, as if he had won a battle.

“Go to sleep,” Orka said, leaning over and tucking Breca back into his cot, kissing his cheek. He wrapped an arm around her and squeezed her tight, then settled back into his mattress of straw and down. Orka stood and padded to the back of the hall. As she stepped through the door into the chamber beyond, she looked back. Breca was curled in his bed, woollen blanket pulled up tight to his chin. Beside him she saw the glint of Vesli’s eyes in the firelight, watching her. She closed the door.

Moonlight threaded through shuttered windows, silvering her bedchamber, the bulk of Thorkel a snoring lump in their bed. Quickly she took off her boots and woollen socks, unbuckled her belt and laid it on a wide chest at the foot of their bed, pulled her wool tunic and linen undertunic over her head, climbed out of her breeches and slipped into bed beside Thorkel. He reached out a big hand and touched her hip.

“Now, do you want to be telling me what’s troubling you?” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep.

Orka sucked in a deep breath, felt the wyrm in her belly uncoil.

“Sigrún’s new thrall,” she breathed.

A silence. Thorkel rolled over, facing her. His eyes gleamed in the moonlight.

“Aye. She is Úlfhéðnar,” he said.

“She tasted your blood. I saw her lick it from her seax.” Orka’s fingers found the wound, a thin line across his ribs, scabbed now. It had not been deep.

“You do not know that. It could have been Virk’s blood. And anyway, she is Úlfhéðnar, not a Hundur. It would mean nothing to her.”

“The Tainted are interbred now, you know that. She could be both.”

A long sigh from Thorkel.

“We should leave this place,” Orka said. “Now, before it is too late. Move far from here, away from petty jarls and their petty squabbles, away from Helka and Störr and their war of greed.”

“But this is our home. We have built it with our hands, our blood and sweat.”

“No, this is my home,” Orka said, placing her palm over Thorkel’s chest. “You and Breca are my home. Wherever we are together, that is home to me.”

They lay in silence awhile, Orka’s palm on Thorkel’s chest, fingers threaded through his wiry hair, his hand upon her hip.

“Heya, you are right,” Thorkel said, breaking the silence.

Orka felt a wash of relief. She had been expecting a hard fight.

“Good,” she said. “I’ll go to the Ash Tree in the morning, speak to the Froa.”

“Aye, in the morning,” Thorkel said. “But now…” His hand moved from her hip, tracing the dip of her waist, higher.

Orka found his lips in the darkness.

Orka slipped out of the bedchamber and closed the door on Thorkel’s sleeping form. She found an empty bowl on the table and spat into it, then pulled her seax from her belt and pricked a red spot on the heel of her hand, letting it drip into the bowl and mixing it with her spit.

That should keep Spert from mutiny, or ending his own life through hunger.

She padded through their hall, glancing at Breca, just a dark shadow curled on his cot. Vesli stirred but did not wake. At the doorway she paused and selected a spear from their rack, thick-shafted ash with a leather cover over the long blade. She glanced up at Thorkel’s long-axe that hung over the doorway, then stepped outside. All was darkness, moonglow fading with the coming of dawn.

“Spert,” Orka whispered as she strode to the stream and jabbed her spear butt under the creature’s rock. A ripple and splash.

“Mistress?” Spert mumbled as he emerged from the water.

Orka squatted beside him. “I have a task to complete, but should be back before midday. Watch over the steading until I return.”

“Yes, mistress,” Spert said. He paused, his antennae twitching. “Hungry,” he muttered. “Midday is a long time. Will you leave Spert to starve and die, like before?”

“You didn’t die,” Orka snapped. “More’s the pity.” She drew in a deep breath. “Breca will warm your porridge as soon as he wakes. He will be out with your breakfast soon enough,” she said, then stood and made her way to the gate, threw her spear over the timber wall and then leaped and grabbed its rim, heaved herself up and over and dropped down on to soft earth. She didn’t want to leave the steading with the gate unlocked.

Reaching for her spear she set off, heading south-east, crossing the open space around their steading and slipping beneath the trees. It was dark as pitch, but Orka knew the way. A fox’s trail wound its way upward through the trees, and she reached a high ridge as the sun clawed its way over the edge of the world, a glow gilding over the treetops of a valley that fell away before her a molten red.

She made her way down the ridge, using her spear butt as a staff, and as the ground began to level the sun had reared over the hills. The murmur of a river grew louder. Usually when she reached this point, she felt a change deep inside her, like the relief that comes with a long-held exhalation, but not now. Instead the tendrils of dread that had faded last night were back, twisting and coiling in her veins.

The trees about her thinned, fractured beams of light breaking through, and then she was stepping out into a meadow, a river running through it. Before the meadow was a gentle hillock, and upon it an ash tree.

Orka stumbled to a stop, just stood and stared, mouth open, her spear hanging limp in her hand.

The Ash Tree had been destroyed. A hacked, blackened stump stood on the hillock, the trunk of the tree lying splintered across the ground.

“No,” Orka whispered. She broke into a run, eyes scanning the meadow. “Froa,” she called, though she knew it was useless. Froa was the spirit of the Ash Tree, a creature of wood and bark and sap, and her life was bound to the ash tree she was born from and guarded. Then she saw her: a shape on the slope of the hillock, lying beside the fallen trunk. Orka ran to her, skidded to a standstill and looked down at a figure in the grass: a tall woman like a statue carved from wood, taller than Orka, of indeterminable age, hair coiling around her body as long as her waist, thick with leaves and twigs. Her eyes were wide and bulging, arms stretched out towards the fallen trunk, mouth open and fixed in a scream of agony.

The last time Orka had seen her, Froa had laughed and danced and offered Orka a hand of friendship. Orka stared down at the corpse. Froa’s body had been chopped and hacked, splintered; here and there were blackened patches where she had been burned.

“Froa, what have they done?” Orka breathed as she dropped to her knees.

Froa, spirit of the Ash Tree, guardian of the forest, born of a seed from Oskutreð, the great tree that had stood at the heart of Vigrið, the Battle-Plain, as the gods-fall had raged. Orka reached out and stroked Froa’s face. It was cold and hard.

“I wanted to give our thanks for your protection while we have lived within your forest, and ask your advice, of where we could go; a place where one of your kin still dwell.”

Froa’s frozen death-scream stared back at her.

Ach, who, or what, has done this? Who would dare? And who has this power?

Froa were powerful vaesen, their spirits bound to their tree of ash. They lived and died with it, so this Froa would have fought savagely to save the tree. Orka stood and walked to the stump of the ash tree. It had been hacked with many axes, and burned, too, bark black and blistered in great patches. Looking at the ground she could see great swathes of earth had been upturned, roots of the tree visible where it had lashed its assailants, and there were dark patches in the grass. Orka crouched, touched one with her fingertips. The blood was dark and congealed, almost black.

She stood, searched the area, found more patches of blood.

Many did this, and some died, or were grievously injured. They took their dead with them.

The dread that had been lurking in her veins surged.

Whoever did this, are they the ones who murdered Asgrim and Idrun, and stole Harek?

A sound on the breeze, faint and ethereal, coming from the west, beyond the ridge Orka had climbed to get here.

Screaming.