10
Winter’s dark crept closer until Svolvaen huddled snowbound, the world having shrunk to silence and the crunch of white underfoot. Thankfully, our provisions were stored and smoked and pickled. Our fires protected us from the frosted world beyond.
Gunnolf and Olaf spent many hours at a game in which counters moved about the board. I asked Helka to teach me but she asserted it was a pastime for which she’d never had the patience. She paced the room more even than Eirik, lifting the skins at the small openings beneath the roof, a frustrated captive gazing through the ever-falling snow.
I visited Astrid when I could, each time adapting my salve, changing the proportions of my ingredients, adding a dash of something new. I’d dried plentiful amounts of what I found useful, to aid me in my remedies. Nevertheless, though I arrested the spread of Ylva’s sores, they refused to heal.
Feeling an itch over my skin, I’d wonder if the blight had come upon me. As the weeks passed, I thanked the gods, old and new, that my flesh remained unblemished.
It was a cold, clear night as I pushed through the wind to reach Astrid’s hut. The snow had crusted hard and I was grateful for my goat-skin cloak to wrap about me, my boots of rabbit fur, laced to the knee. The harshness of the weather kept Svolvaen’s residents inside their homes, and perhaps it was for the best. I remained convinced that others were afflicted but had no means of knowing the extent of the hidden disease.
As soon as I entered, I saw that my fears had not been unfounded. There were four others before Astrid’s hearth: three children and their mother, each marked by the same sore as Ylva bore on her cheek. I wondered how many weeks their affliction had been festering, for the wounds glistened wet.
“Thank goodness you’ve come.” Astrid left the cauldron she’d been stirring, helping me remove my cloak. “We’ve been waiting, hoping you’d make it out today.”
“There’s no need to explain. I can see why I’m needed.” I returned Astrid’s hug of welcome. “And Ylva?”
“She’s much the same; no worse.”
Ylva appeared from behind a curtain separating their latrine. Looking from her cheek to that of the woman by the fire, I saw how far my remedy had helped. Ylva’s beauty was marred but she suffered no fever; the sore was red but gave no discharge.
“The others: on your shoulder and neck, on your back?”
Ylva lowered her eyes, uncomfortable to speak of them. “They still trouble me but the salve is soothing; it helps—at least for a time.”
“This is Torhilde.” Astrid introduced the woman by the fire.
I nodded, giving her and the little ones a smile of encouragement. “You did the right thing, coming here; I’ll try to help.”
Her face was wan as she looked up. “My husband won’t have us under his roof.” She pulled the smallest child onto her lap and turned from me, looking into the flames. “Not like this.”
I placed my hand on her forehead and felt the fever there. The children, too, were listless, their skin clammy.
“They can stay here, of course,” said Astrid. “When they’re better, he’ll have them back.” She rested her hand upon the woman’s shoulder.
I bit back what I wanted to say: that no man who abandoned his wife and children in illness deserved to have them return. It was not for me to judge how others lived, and I had no marriage of my own to hold as an example. Despite my doubts about her husband, I sought to reassure her.
“I’m sure he only fears contagion. If he too were to fall ill, how would he continue to provide for his family?”
I concentrated on the matter in hand. “Astrid, you remember what we did before, for Ylva?”
She nodded. “I’ve the hot water ready and put comfrey leaves in to steep.”
We set about cleaning each sore upon the children’s bodies, applying the salve I’d brought with me for Ylva. It pained me to see the ugly marks which tainted their young skin but I comforted myself that they’d soon have some ease. We undressed Torhilde last and I was horrified; seeing the extent of her suffering, it surprised me less that her husband had turned her from their home.
At last, all was done and I promised to soon return. Knowing Astrid couldn’t feed so many without depriving herself, I resolved to bring some jars from our own store. It seemed to me that the longhouse was provisioned to endure three winters; none would miss what I took. Eirik, in any case, wouldn’t refuse my request.
I took my leave and headed back, into the night, to those who awaited my return.
* * *
“Sing for us, my love.”
I entered to see Gunnolf placing Asta’s lute in her arms. He lifted her hair back from her shoulders, that her fingers might find the strings of the instrument more easily.
“What would you have me play?” she asked, her eyes lit by his touch. “I fear you know all by heart.”
“Whatever pleases you, wife.” Gunnolf dropped a kiss upon her forehead.
