Kin (Helga Finnsdottir) by Kristjansson Snorri

Author:Kristjansson, Snorri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical mystery, TBR
Publisher: Quercus Editions Ltd

Chapter 11

Guilty

Helga sat in the midst of her extended family, but she felt utterly alone. Around her, shovels cut rhythmically into the ground, slicing the turf – like a blade through skin. She took a deep breath and tried to remember how the smell of grass used to make her happy. She wanted to let her mind drift, lulled by the repetitive motions, but in the company of her family it was proving hard. To her left Bjorn was working at a steady pace, shoulders rising and falling with shovel-strokes that could easily lop the head off a man, shifting heaps of soil up onto the bank, out of the growing shape of the longship. Sitting by the side, Runa and Thyri busied themselves weaving bark into panels and shapes to furnish the grave. The whole family was working around her to create Karl’s final resting place. Whenever a task finished, Hildigunnur was there to snap out new orders. She never raised her voice, but there was not a moment’s respite anywhere.

‘Get to it, Helga. Come on.’

She blinked at her mother’s voice and resumed spinning the ropes. They felt rough in her hands. Helga imagined what they would look like lashed around bent and curved branches, holding together a cage clad with bark to form a shell just like Hildigunnur had described. She pictured it, upside down over Karl’s body as it lay on the deck of the boat, protecting him from the soil raining down from above, getting him ready to sail to the world of the dead. As he hadn’t died in battle he wouldn’t go to Valhalla, but Unnthor had decided that his son should be buried like a rich man and a landowner, in the field of prayer, within sight of the stone table and the oak, so that was that. Helga stole a glance over at them and shuddered. She had only seen her father preside over a handful of ceremonies, but even he looked oddly powerless and human standing next to the stone and the oak. Even now, on a pleasant summer afternoon, they radiated menace like ill-tempered bulls.

The gods don’t care about us. Looking at the tree, she was filled with a terrifying certainty. We are summer breeze and sunlight. They are the tree and the stone.

The hole was deep enough to reach up to the middle of Bjorn’s thigh. Behind him Aslak was compressing the sides with a broad plank, strengthening the inner walls so they would withstand the waves of seas beyond this world.

The hole was taking shape and finding form before her eyes, thanks to Bjorn’s work and Aslak’s hands. As the woven panels of bark were finished, Jorunn jumped down into the grave and laid them out in the unmistakable shape of a longship. Above them all stood Unnthor, now a silent taskmaster, hand on the haft of his axe. He stared at them, unmoving and unblinking, daring any one of them to shirk their duties.

No one did.

When the sun started descending towards the horizon, the ship was ready.

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