PEER’S BREATH SMOKED as he followed Kwimu and Ottar back to the wigwams. They’d been checking the traps around the beaver dam, and found two fine fat beavers, which had rashly triggered the deadfalls.
How quickly summer vanished! In a few brief weeks, since he’d been here, the trees had burned themselves up in a bonfire of colour – red, purple, gold. Now all that was left was bare black branches, and dark green firs, and bluish spruce. A powdering of snow had fallen, and Peer was glad of the warm moosehide wrap, as big as a blanket, which Nukumij had given him.
The still water above the beaver dam was already half frozen – thin shelves of ice spreading out from the edges. As they walked away, Kwimu said something that made Ottar laugh.
“Beavers build lodges and live in families like the People. Kwimu says if they were a tiny bit cleverer, they’d stick out their heads and talk to us. Then we’d have to stop hunting them.”
When Ottar had finished translating, Kwimu grinned at Peer. Peer grinned back. It had been a long time since he’d had a friend of his own age, and you couldn’t help liking Kwimu. With his long black hair, and strong, regular features, he was as handsome in his way as Harald Silkenhair, but there the comparison ended. Kwimu always had a smile ready, or a helping hand. Ottar adored him.
Peer was glad to be of use at last. The day he’d staggered out of the woods, he’d just managed to explain to Ottar that he wasn’t an enemy, that Harald Silkenhair had driven him out. Then he’d collapsed, and lain ill for days. He remembered waking from dark dreams to see the fire flicker, smelling the strong green smell of broken fir branches. Crying out, struggling against the grip of hands, before realising that they meant only to poultice his arm, or tilt him up to pour odd-tasting drinks down his throat. Listening to human voices flowing over him like water. Then one night he’d woken to the sound of a light, shifting rattle, followed by the thud of a stick on a bark drum. Close by, someone began an intricate, flowing song that died away at the end of each breath and began again with renewed strength: “Yah weh ah hah yay oh. Ah hah yay ah hay oh…”
It was Grandmother, Nukumij, singing a medicine song to cure him. Its ever-changing rhythm seemed to bring back his spirit from where it was wandering. Soon he was sitting up and learning about the people who had helped him.
There was Grandmother, of course – so tiny she seemed almost lost in her voluminous deerskin robes, but whose skilful hands were always busy and whose bright eyes saw everything. There was Kwimu’s father, Sinumkw, so stern and stately that Peer was nervous of him – until he smiled, when he looked just like Kwimu. There was Kwimu’s quiet mother, and Plawej, a sweet-faced young woman with a plump, black-eyed baby, whose husband was away on a hunting trip. And Kwimu’s little sister, Jipjawej – too shy even to look at Peer till, remembering a trick that charmed the children at home, he carved her a small wooden whistle. The first time he blew on it, she jumped. Then she took it with a quick, delighted smile.
Ottar watched her tooting on it as though he rather wanted one himself. “I’ll show you how to make them,” said Peer. “So if Jipjawej loses hers, you can make her another.”
Ottar was no older than Sigurd. Cutting away at the whistle, he told Peer how he’d seen his father killed – how he’d climbed on the roof and hidden from the murderers – and watched them sail away, leaving him to die.
“And for nothing,” he said bitterly. “For an argument about some furs. Pa set the traps and did the work, and then Harald claimed half of them. He said Pa and Gunnar had agreed to go halves on everything.” His voice rose: “But that was a lie. Pa said they’d only agreed to share the expenses of setting out, and what we brought back was up to each of us. ‘Then you won’t give me the furs?’ Harald said. He sounded really nasty. Up till then I’d liked Harald. He looks such a hero, and he used to say things that made me laugh.” Ottar scowled and shivered.
“Next morning, while we were still getting up, we heard a dreadful yell from outside. I was eating breakfast and I nearly dropped the bowl. I didn’t know if it was a man or a wolf. Pa said, ‘What in thunder is that?’ And the door burst open. They all had swords and axes.” Ottar looked up with a tortured face. “How could they do it? They were supposed to be our friends.”
All too easily, Peer thought. Prime fox and beaverskins sold at home for several silver pennies apiece. No wonder Gunnar could afford to buy Harald that expensive sword.
“And now he’s back,” Ottar stated. He swallowed. “Do you think I ought to try and kill him?”
“No,” said Peer firmly.
“But it’s my duty, isn’t it? To avenge my father?”
“Do you really think your father would want you to fight Harald?” Peer asked, and Ottar thought about it. “No,” he admitted finally, looking relieved.
With Ottar’s help, Peer told the family about his ordeal in the woods. The creatures who’d fastened him down were known as the Spreaders, and Ottar said that they ate rotten flesh. Peer remembered the sweet, fly-ridden stink of the gully, and shuddered. On the other hand, the Thin Faces were known to help lost travellers. “And Grandmother says they don’t help bad people,” Ottar said with a grin. “So you must be all right.”
But when, shyly, Peer told them a little about the dream of the dragonhead, Grandmother’s eyes snapped with excitement. She plunged into a long speech, and Ottar did his best. Grandmother was trying to tell Peer that his father’s spirit had taken on the form of a jipijka’m. Peer got Ottar to say it again, and Grandmother nodded, repeating the word several times. So far as Ottar could explain, it was a sort of horned dragon, magical and dangerous, with powers to change and heal. “She says…” he stumbled, “the jipijka’m is your tioml. Your power, I think. Your strength.”
Grandmother’s whole face crinkled up into a smile, and she leaned forward and patted Peer’s hand. She said something else, nodding again. “Jipijka’m-kwis,” said Ottar. “That’s what she’ll call you. Dragon’s son.”
Dragon’s son. A thrill of pride ran right through him. Then he thought of the Nis, and laughed a little. Nithing the Seafarer! Peer Dragon’s Son! Peer Barelegs! What a difference a name could make.
It was snowing again, tiny white grains that swept across the ground without sticking. Peer transferred the beaver from one cld hand to the other, wishing he had mittens like Kwimu’s. Kwimu lifted an eyebrow and said something with a teasing smile.
“Kwimu’s asking about these girls that came on the ship with you,” Ottar reported, his face a mixture of embarrassment and disdain. “He says, are they your wives?”
“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 as he asked, and Ottar translated, “Is she pretty?”
“She’s very pretty,” said Peer.
But Ottar wriggled. “I’m going on ahead. I don’t want to talk about girls any more.” He ran off, throwing a stick for Loki.
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 on to 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 pale 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 – in about four years’ time. By then, she’ll probably have married Arne. She’ll think I’m dead.
The pale cones of the wigwams loomed against the trees, and village smells blew on the wind: smoke and fish-oil and all the salty litter of human living. If he shut his eyes it reminded him of Trollsvik.
Oh, to be home. To be walking up past the brook, where the water ran sleek over the little stones, knowing that Gudrun and Hilde and the twins were all safe in the farmhouse waiting for him, with supper 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 backwards and forwards. All the women were crying, even Grandmother. Someone’s died, Peer thought in horror. Not the baby? He looked, and saw Jipjawej hugging it, stiffly wrapped in its elaborate cradleboard, but alive all right. No, not the baby, then. So, who?
A dozen young men clustered at the far side of the fire, talking in angry, urgent voices. They saw Kwimu, grabbed him, and rattled off the 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 sounded shocked. “Kiunik, he’s married to Plawej. He’s been found dead with his friend Tia’m. Killed. I can’t believe it.”
“Killed? You mean, deliberately? But —”
Peer broke off. A voice rang out of the past, Tjørvi’s voice, rough with anger. Skraelings. Just a couple of young fellows, cooking over a camp fire.
Oh, no.
Ottar was still talking, “They’ve been away for weeks; Plawej was getting anxious. So their friends went looking for them…”
“Towards the sea?” Peer croaked. “Towards Serpent 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 he” – Peer’s mouth was dry – “did either of them have a big bearclaw 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 and blackened face. 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 severe face was carved with lines of authority, and, now, of sorrow and distrust. His black hair was 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 ever had.
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. So much else has happened since. I was shocked, but it happened to “Skraelings” and I hadn’t met any. I didn’t know Kiunik was missing. I’ve been ill.
He met Sinumkw’s 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 bearclaw necklace. Ottar translated. The young men murmured angrily. Sinumkw held Peer’s gaze, searching him for the truth. Peer faced him, sweating but steady. 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 centre of the wigwam, to the swept earth floor around the fire. He lifted his voice for everyone to hear, and went on speaking, more rapidly.
“He says, when he heard that the pale people had come back, he wasn’t sure what to do,” Ottar whispered. “He didn’t want to fight them, because there are not many of them, and they took Summer 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 that 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 to be eaten by animals. Muin and Kopit, who found them, could hardly recognise them. But they 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 honour. 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. 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 it over his face.
“War!” Ottar whispered. “Heh!” shouted Kwimu. He too dipped in his hand and dragged red fingers across his face.
“Heh!” shrieked Ottar.
Even Peer felt the surge of excitement. 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.
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, round and round. Stamp, step, round and round. Stamp…
What had Sinumkw said? We will pull down their houses and leave not one alive?
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 Tjørvi and Arne, 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 realised 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 rubbed his face, 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. She shook her head, and made an eloquent gesture, which 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 Tjørvi? 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 a bunch of slender bones covered in wrinkled brown skin. His own were pale in comparison, even after a summer out of doors, stained with red streaks. She squeezed gently 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! Ey!
Bones I break, singing. Heh! Ey!
Death I make, singing!”