A Bone to Pick by Gina McMurchy-Barber

Author:Gina McMurchy-Barber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2015-10-29T04:00:00+00:00

“Aunt Gudrid, come quickly,” Sigrid shouts from the doorway.

“What is it, girl? I’m boiling wool. What do you want?”

“It’s Uncle’s knarr — it’s sailing into the bay. Come quickly. The men have returned from their Viking.”

Gudrid throws the pail of water onto the fire. While it hisses and sends up a cloud of steam, she snaps up her little boy. “Come, Snorri, Fader is home.”

News spreads quickly around the settlement, and everyone drops what they are doing to rush down to the shoreline. As the small band of Norsemen row their faering to shore, the settlers shout joyous greetings.

“Thank the gods, you have come home safely!” cries Gudrid.

Once he is on the shore, Thorfinn wraps his arms around his wife and laughs heartily. “And who do we have here?” he says as he scoops up his son. “Be this Snorri?” The child squirms and whines to be let down.

“Welcome, Uncle Thorfinn,” Sigrid ventures shyly. “Snorri makes shy for a very short time. It won’t last.”

Her uncle’s chest heaves. “There you are, my girl.” Then he steps back to look more carefully. “You seem matured since last I saw you. You’re growing up on me. You look more like a woman than a maiden.”

Sigrid’s face turns crimson. “A shield maiden perhaps?”

Uncle Thorfinn laughs again, this time deep in the belly. “Are you still on about all that, my girl? I hoped you would be thinking of womanly things by now.” He ruffles her hair and draws her in for a hug.

That night the house is filled with a warm glow from the fire and much merriment. Sigrid wishes there was fresh meat roasting on the spit instead of another pot of fish stew gurgling away in the cauldron. But no one else seems to mind. Instead everyone is intent on hearing about the men’s adventures. But every story seems to take hours — for each man must tell it from his own experience.

“Everyone knows that a tale is but half told when only one person tells it,” whispers Aunt Gudrid when Sigrid moans at hearing the same thing over and over.

When there is a lull in the conversation, Gudrid says, “Thorfinn, my husband, you have proved that he who has travelled far knows the ways of the world. Tell us what spirit governs the men you met. Were the skraelings you encountered as savage as the ones in this place?”

Uncle Thorfinn drags out a satchel and opens the string. Inside is some kind of vegetable. A ripple of murmurs spreads throughout the house as he sets them one at a time on the table. They are pale, like his wife’s skin, and shaped like a bell. He takes his sword and slices through the thick outer shell. Inside, the hard flesh is bright orange and there is a pocket of seeds.

“We have no name for it, but the skraelings from the south grow them in abundance and call them askutasquash. They can be eaten raw, but I prefer them cooked. When we departed, they heaped bags upon us as a farewell gift.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.