Eidi took a deep breath as Ravnar’s dark head disappeared from sight around the bend of the road. Now at last she was all alone in the big world, without anyone from home in Crow Cove. And before long she would be even farther away. Kotka had come to tend the sheep while Rossan took his wool to the autumn market.
Rossan had so much wool that Eidi wouldn’t be able to spin it all into yarn even if she worked the entire winter. So although she was here now, Rossan still intended to make the trip and sell some of the wool, and she was to go with him.
They would follow the little track that ran by Rossan’s house, across the heath and up over the gray range of hills that could just be glimpsed far away. Beyond that lay Eastern Harbor, a big seaport town, where you could get a good price for your wares. Trading ships put in there from faraway places, eager to buy and sell.
That was where Kotka lived with his mother, Rossan’s sister Lesna, and they could stay with her during the market season.
Fortunately they had Lesna’s horse, which Kotka had ridden over. It couldn’t carry them both, but at least it could carry the wool, so they wouldn’t have to lug it on their own backs.
Big bales of wool were brought down from the loft and tied to the horse’s back, together with a blanket for each of them, because the nights could be cold in the hills. Finally they strapped their haversack on top and started on their journey.
The track wound in and out between willow scrub and bogholes. These were almost indiscernible, their surfaces green with moss and tussocks.
“Mind you, don’t step off the path,” warned Rossan.
So Eidi trudged carefully along behind him and the horse.
“Once you fall in there,” he went on, “no one can get you out again. You just get sucked down, like Myna’s sheep did.”
“And Doup and Ravnar’s mother,” Eidi added.
“Oh yes,” said Rossan over his shoulder. “That was a sad thing, to die like that.”
Rossan sighed again. After a little while he went on: “But Frid and your mother have each other now, and they’ve even got a new little boy. So everyone’s happy, aren’t they?”
“Not me,” said Eidi.
“Goodness me,” said Rossan mildly. “So you reckon there were too many chicks in the nest, do you?”
Eidi nodded.
“I think you’d better make up your mind to love him. Otherwise he’ll get to be like a stone in your shoe that you can’t shake out, just a constant annoyance.”
Eidi didn’t answer. She didn’t want to hear any more.
Day by day they climbed higher. Now the bogs were few and far between. Heather, gorse and bog myrtle, scrub oak and willow flanked the path on either side. Shallow creeks trickled among the stones and formed small, clear pools, where black bugs skimmed across the surface on long, thin legs.
At last they reached the top of the ridge. Here the wind from the west, north, and east had worn away all the vegetation, so the rock face lay scrubbed and bare. Only a few tufts of grass survived in south-facing crevices and dells. Boulders jutted up like the backs of big gray animals resting on little green paws.
They’d had good weather so far, but up here a cold wind was on the prowl. It made Eidi dig out her head scarf and wrap her shawl tighter around her. Rossan’s breathing grew labored.
“It’s a good thing it’ll soon be downhill the rest of the way,” he said after a while, as they rested and warmed themselves in a south-facing stony dell.
The sun was going down. It would be a cold night.
“Maybe we should camp here,” said Rossan. “There’s a lot of heat from the sun in this rock. It won’t turn cold in one night.”
Eidi looked at him. “Yes, let’s do that,” she said. He seemed tired.
The country was spread out at their feet, an erratic pattern of brown and gray, green and blue, with here and there a little white block of a house, to remind them that there were still other people in the world.
They unloaded the wool, blankets, and haversacks from the horse. The wind was too strong to let them light a fire, so they made do with a supper of cold mutton and a couple of onions that they had roasted in their skins in the embers of last night’s fire.
Mountain ranges of clouds formed on the horizon. The sun sank behind them. Darkness fell, and the wind rose. It found a crack to howl in and, as if egged on by the sound of its own voice, blew more and more wildly.
“Better tether the horse,” said Rossan.
They usually let the horse go free, so he could graze in the early mornings before they set out.
As Eidi got to her feet, a raindrop struck her face, and in the next breath the rain came beating down. With the rain came darkness. She couldn’t see a thing. The wind blew in sudden gusts from all quarters, and she could hardly keep her balance. Then came a flash of lightning that lit up the terrain near and far, and she caught a glimpse of the horse, standing on the rocky overhang right above their heads.
A clap of thunder rent the air, and the horse’s hooves scrambled across the stony ground. Then came an alarming scraping sound and the clatter of falling rocks. The next flash of lightning showed her Rossan stretched out on the ground with a bleeding wound over one eye. She reached him just as the thunder crashed over them.
“Rossan!” she called, but he didn’t answer.
She fumbled for the water flask to wash the wound, but the next lightning flash showed her there was no need for that. The rain was washing the blood from his forehead in a steady trickle onto the ground.
A blanket, she thought, and groped along the rock face for their belongings. She found a blanket, brought it back, and covered him with it, but before long she realized that it wouldn’t be enough to keep him warm in this ice-cold rain. It was already soaking wet.
Then she thought of the wool. The raw, oily wool that could keep a sheep warm and safe through the rainiest winter. She got hold of a bale and dragged it over to Rossan’s unconscious form. But there was still the wind. How could she keep the wind from tearing the wool away?
Then she had an idea. She spread the blanket out as far as it would go, weighting down the edges with heavy stones as she went. She left a loose corner at the top and began to stuff wool in under the blanket. She used the whole bale, and when she was through, Rossan’s little potbelly swelled the blanket like an enormous paunch. He was packed in wool from his toes right up to his ears. She even stuffed wool in his knitted cap and pulled it down over his forehead, right to the edge of the wound.
At last she crept in between the packed-in wool and the blanket, wrapped in her scarf, her shawl, and the other blanket, and fell into an exhausted sleep next to Rossan while the rain lashed the bare rocks and the thunder drew away into the distance.