kindling. When he kicked the embers, sparks flew.
“Nothing has changed,” he said.
He picked up his tunic and slid it on followed by his pants. “I can’t change anything,” he said. He was sitting on the side of the bed now. He stepped into one boot, then the other and began lacing them.
She closed her eyes. Her soul was falling. This time it would be forever. She would never hope again. He had tricked her one more time. He was the serpent in the garden. Lead us not into temptation. Because of him she was damned. What could she do? She couldn’t let him go. She noticed how cold the floor was. She didn’t decide to run. Her body began moving on its own accord. It hurled itself towards him. Her hands grabbed his shoulders. She was crying, “No. No. No. You cannot leave me again.”
He peeled away her grasping fingers. He pushed. She fell over sideways onto the mattress. She lay sobbing beside him. The blanket muffled her protests.
She was suddenly very tired. Something heavy possessed her. Perhaps she was just weary of her own hysterics. She stopped. She felt an unusual calm. It was like water poured on fire. She sat up. She turned and sat close beside him. She heard the stew bubble. The bed creaked as he adjusted his weight. Wood shifted in the fire pit. She wouldn’t scream at him. It never worked. The more words she threw at him, the faster he fled. When she yelled and cried, he couldn’t hear her. She needed a new way.
“She’s wild, you know,” Katerine said. He had probably come to see Kama. That was all. She had simply been a convenient distraction, since Kama wasn’t home. And soon Kama would be gone and there would be no reason to visit Katerine. No. She wouldn’t scream this time. Instead she would intervene in the decisions made against her. She would make Sigtrygg see that Kama wasn’t fit to be queen. Kama was a disappointment. Astrid would reject her.
“How wild?” Sigtrygg asked, turning towards her.
“Very,” Katerine said. She leaned against his arm. “Whatever she pleases she does.”
“What do you mean?” he said. He didn’t push her away. She had his attention. Finally he was listening to her.
“A big mistake,” she said. “That’s what you made leaving us here in Kiev. Why didn’t you think about that? A regular tribe’s girl. That’s what she’s become.” She leaned closer and continued. She talked about Inga and how Kama was gone all day—who knows where—and then about how she was dressing, walking around in her night shift. Kama wasn’t a princess. She had become just an ordinary girl. Think of how disappointed Astrid would be.
2
Far from the city gates, Kama sat guard outside a tent.
The forest was quiet. In the distance trees were falling. Woodcutters were swinging their axes and splitting the trunks. Each strike was loud like the beating of a drum. The sounds echoed through the emptiness. Kama counted five blows each time, then there was quiet for a moment before a new trunk fell to the ground.
The only smell was burning. To the east trails of smoke would rise, then dissipate.
Inga liked to boast about all the men who wanted to sample her, as though needing to prove again and again that she was flawless and should never have been abandoned by the river. “If I looked like most girls,” she would say, “I wouldn't take my clothes off either, but I don't have anything to be ashamed of. I'm proud of my body.”
Her first obsession had been Ole. Inga had wanted to say I love you. Kama remembered the two of them crossing the city. They had walked farther and farther from the market to the old town, where low-lying huts with v-shaped roofs were laid out without any plan or order. The houses had two levels, one at ground height, the other down below. Winds were already blowing, so families were living below, warmed by a fire pit burning in the center of the room. Across from Ole's, a wooden barn had been converted into a store. The door clanged behind them rousing the clerk. The store had a high ceiling and almost-bare wooden shelves. The man eyed Kama and Inga suspiciously. They didn't want to buy anything, just warm up, but there was no way of being inconspicuous—two strange girls from another neighborhood, girls who weren't about to buy flour or vegetables. They paid for black licorice, then left. They watched the crooked house across from where Ole lived. Clothes hung on the line. Smoke puffed from the roof opening, painting gray and white clouds on the icy blue sky. If Ole happened to look out the front door, he would see them both. He might even recognize them. Inga would throw a stone at Ole's door. When he answered, she would say, "I love you," then run away. Would Inga chicken out? Would Ole guess who it was? The excitement made Inga giddy. There were no small rocks to find, so Inga and Kama had gathered pinecones and threw them again and again against the door. The faint sound had rung through the empty house.
Inga’s latest obsession was a dark-haired Finn. They had skied north deep into the trees, and now Kama was sitting guard, while Inga lay naked on a fur rug inside the tent. The Finn spoke strange words that neither Inga nor Kama could understand. Nevertheless, the universal language of grunts and moans coming from him and Inga was easy to comprehend.
Later in the afternoon, when they began the trip home, Kama diverted them towards the smoke. Her curiosity was high after hours of waiting. She had traced the smell to a structure hidden among the trees. The walls were actually rough logs stacked on top of each other. Heat blasted from the building and melted a wide patch of snow around it.
Kama and Inga parked their skis and pulled open the door. The room was a sauna without any silence or serenity. Hammers beat against metal. Saws screeched and screamed as they cut. From the doorway, the room continued far past what the eye could see. Roof openings drew steam up from the stone hearths out into the open air. The dwarf-like men who scurried from worktable to furnace seemed unaccustomed to visitors. They weren’t about to bother with something as inconsequential as two town girls. The room smelled like flint. But here the heat wasn’t just a quick spark. It lingered. It had seeped into the wooden tables and benches. It had fused permanently into hair, skin and clothes. The oppressive temperature had marked these men forever, just as bending over worktables had permanently curved their backs.
“Let’s go,” Inga said, grabbing Kama’s arm.
“Wait,” Kama said, pulling free and moving into the room.
Charcoal filled a large, square, cup-shaped stone. A red-faced operator handled the bellows. The heart-shaped wooden boards were longer than he was tall. The little man panted as he opened and closed the instrument. It blasted air onto the burning charcoal. The hot coals melted the iron into pasty lumps. Other dwarves ladled the ore onto wheelbarrows and carted it to worktables. Deeper in the dark building, hammers would beat and shape it into swords, nails and hinges.
Kama wondered if she was glimpsing the underworld below Midgard. The worlds operated concurrently, although they rarely crossed over.
She followed the wheelbarrows. A shaft of light drew a straight line of white dust from the roof opening to a cluster of tables. Here the pounding was like the soft tingle of bells. Small hammers were flattening sheets of silver. Knives sliced thin strips. The metal was like buttery cookie dough. The silversmith lifted his head. His long beard was carrot-red like the curls that covered his skull. His hair started just above his eyebrows, leaving a very short forehead with room for just a few wrinkle lines. When he smiled, he revealed a perfectly shaped silver front tooth. He chose a temple ring from the pile on the table. His long fingernails were like jeweler’s tongs. They grabbed hold of the thin delicate string.
“Try,” he said.
He handed Kama the ring.
“You
