And he did. He looked back at me, his face hardening. “The Aska armor is a red leather with bronze metal. The Riki use brown leather and iron,” he answered.
Halvard slid down from the table and took the spoon from me to push the fish around in the pot that hung over the fire. “I promise not to kill you if I ever see you in battle.” He stopped stirring and looked up at me.
I stared at him, unable to help the smile pushing onto my lips. I tried to picture him on the battlefield and then wondered how long Halvard would live. In five years, he’d be old enough for the fighting season. But there was something soft about him. Something that wouldn’t hold up well in a fight. I wondered what I would do if I saw him there, on the other side.
The smile melted off my face and I swallowed.
I set the bowls on the table, taking my own and retreating to the stool in the corner. Iri picked up the fourth bowl, pouring it back into the pot. “Fiske isn’t here.”
“Where did he go?” Halvard looked disappointed.
Iri bent over his bowl to scoop a large bite into his mouth. “Checking the nets.”
My fingers tightened around my spoon, my heart skipping a beat. If Fiske was checking nets, there had to be a river nearby. And rivers ran down the mountain. Into the valley and on to the sea. If I could find the river, I could find home.
Inge came through the door and dropped a large crate on the floor before she went back outside. “Iri, I need you to help Kerling inside.”
He stood, going through the door and walking down the path to where a man with a long blond beard stood beside a pregnant woman. I realized she must have been the woman they spoke of, Gyda. His arm was draped over her shoulder and she leaned into him, keeping him balanced. Iri met them on the path, taking the man’s other arm, and they hobbled up to the door slowly.
“It’s good you’re out!” Inge smiled, standing to the side so that Iri and Kerling could get inside.
Kerling kept his eyes to the floor, his face twisted up in pain and sweat beading at his hairline. One pant leg was tied up to the knee, where the lower half of his leg was missing. I’d seen it before. Probably an axe or a fall that crushed the bones. It could have even been an infection.
The woman came through the door and stood behind Kerling. When her hands fell on his shoulders, he shrugged her off, scooting to the edge of the bench and lifting his amputated leg up to rest on the seat. Inge sat beside him, slowly untying the pant leg, and she pushed it back to reveal red, swollen skin, puckered together in zigzagging rows of stitching.
“Compress, Iri.” She leaned in closer to inspect the wound as Iri got to work, pulling the kettle from the fire and opening a large wooden box of herbs on the shelf.
“How are you feeling?” She looked up into Kerling’s face.
He met her eyes, gripping the sides of his leg with his fists. “Like half a man.”
Inge looked up to Gyda, whose face was cast to the floor. “I don’t know how you survived that wound. Thora has favored you.”
Kerling stared into the fire. “Or cursed me.”
Iri pulled the cloth from the bowl of steaming water, looking at Kerling. Beside him, Gyda looked at me. Her furious eyes were filled with tears, her teeth set on edge. I took the unfolded cloths from the other end of the table and sat beside the fire, folding them one at a time and setting them into my lap with Gyda’s stare still burning into me.
Iri dressed Kerling’s leg in a fresh bandage and helped him outside. When they were through the door, Inge put her hands on Gyda’s belly, pressing gently. “It will be soon.”
Gyda didn’t answer, but her face fell, the corners of her mouth turning down.
“I’ll be with you. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Inge smiled.
But that wasn’t true and if I knew it, then Gyda knew it too. A woman was as likely to die in childbirth as she was to die in battle. And Gyda looked as if she’d seen a fight before.
“He doesn’t want the baby anymore,” she whispered.
Inge sighed. “Why do you think that?”
Gyda’s hands went to the curve beneath her belly. “He doesn’t want anything anymore.”
Inge looked outside, to where Kerling and Iri were making their way back to the house across the path. Before she could speak, Gyda turned and left, following after them.
Inge stood at the door, watching her. The strain in her eyes reached down to the straight line of her mouth. Her fingers were coiled around each other. I’d seen it happen before in Hylli, the wounded losing their will to live. She probably had too.
Inge cleared her throat. “Have you crushed garlic before?” She rolled up the sleeves of her dress and closed the door.
“A little,” I answered. “For cooking.” I watched her pull an entire crate full of the little white bulbs from the shelf on the wall.
She set a large stone pestle and mortar on the table in front of me. “We’ll peel and crush them. Then we’ll bottle it all.” When she placed an iron knife on the table, my hand twitched at my side. “I’ll peel it, you crush it.” She smirked. She knew better than to give me a knife. “How many years are you, Eelyn?”
I tried to read her, but her eyes were on her work. It was the first time she’d said my name. I didn’t like it. “Seventeen.”
“Do you have family in Hylli? That’s where you’re from, right? Hylli?”
I nodded, studying her. How did she know where I was from? I know Iri didn’t tell her. “Only my father.”
She was quiet for a few minutes and when the sharp, acrid smell of the garlic began to fill the house, she stood and went to the door, propping it back open to let the air in.
“Did you know that Iri is Aska?” she asked, sitting back down.
I picked up a handful of the garlic cloves and set it into the pestle, trying to hear what she wasn’t saying. What was carefully buried beneath the words.
“He and Fiske nearly killed each other five years ago.”
My eyes snapped up from the table.
“It was the last fighting season. They were fighting and fell over the edge of a deep trench.”
I swallowed, blinking.
“Fiske broke a leg and an arm and Iri’s side was cut open from the blade of Fiske’s sword. My husband searched for Fiske for two days before he finally found him. He thought he was dead.” She sucked in a breath. “But he wanted to burn his body. So, he scaled down the wall of the trench and, when he reached him, he saw that Fiske was alive.” Her eyes lifted to mine. “So was the boy he’d been fighting. Just barely. And Fiske wouldn’t leave Iri behind. He begged his father to save his life.” She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Iri was so badly wounded that no one thought he would live.”
I tried to clear my eyes of the burn that was gathering there. “How did you save him?”
She set the knife down onto the table and looked at me. “They brought him in, and the cut was so deep that his organs were coming through the opening of the wound. I was sure he would die. But then he didn’t. Somehow, the skin and the muscle were cut but his organs and arteries remained intact. I stitched him up and it took a long time, but he healed. And as he healed, Fiske healed.”
“So, why isn’t he a dyr?” I asked. The sharp words crossed the table between us.
She paused again. “He was going to be. But he was so injured that we had to keep him here, in our home, and care for him day and night. And I’m not sure how it happened, but he became a part of our family. Fiske’s love for Iri became ours.” Her eyes shined again.
“So Iri is Riki now?”
She nodded. “He is. Iri left his past behind. It took time, but the Riki accepted him. The gods are funny that way.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, sometimes they make families in peculiar ways.” She stood, pulling more garlic from the crate. “Fjotra,” she said, under her breath.
“Fjotra is the blood bond. They aren’t brothers,” I corrected her.
“That’s munstr?nd fjotra. Sál fjotra is a bond between souls.”
I stared at her.