The Witches of Vardo, page 10
‘Please, no, Fru Rhodius,’ she said, aghast.
‘You must do as I say,’ I insisted – my revenge upon Helwig for telling the governor I was a midwife and possessed herbal and healing remedies.
I picked up my medicine chest, and Helwig, carrying the stiff bundle, followed me out of the bedchamber and down the stairs of the castle. We passed not a soul and it could have been night, although it was impossible to tell for the light was relentless without.
We crossed the fortress courtyard. The governor had not told me where to bury the babe, but the ground was as hard as rock.
‘Where should we bring it?’ Helwig asked. ‘Fru Rhodius, I want rid of it.’
‘We need a means by which to dig a hole,’ I told her, wishing there had been an opportunity to baptise the babe before it had perished. The poor lost soul surely belonged in a Christian burial ground. But I was learning that the governor’s ways were cruel and strange.
I could think of no other person who might have a tool for our task than Bailiff Lockhert. I walked to the gatehouse and banged on the door. It was opened by the hulking figure of the man himself, who glowered down at me.
‘The governor has requested we bury the babe lost to him and Fru Orning, but we have no means to dig—’ I said in a rush.
‘Give it to me.’ The bailiff butted in, his countenance expressing no reaction. ‘The Governor came and told me witches cursed his son.’
‘But what will you do?’ I heard myself ask, for I didn’t like to pass over this lost soul to the gruesome bailiff.
‘It was not baptised. Best ’tis burnt so the Devil can’t possess its soul.’
Helwig gave a little hiccup of distress but handed the dead babe over all the same. Lockhert took hold as if it were a lump of turf, nothing more.
I pivoted towards the door in my clunky pattens, for I wished no more of the sorry matter.
‘Are you to help us hunt the witches now, Fru Anna?’ Lockhert called out to me as I walked away, a jeering note in his voice. ‘You had better not let the governor down!’
I collapsed on my bed, lugging the cold skins over my worn-out bones, and kicking my muddied slippers off. I was still in my chemise stained with Fru Orning’s blood, but I was too tired to remove it. Though when I tried to sleep I could not, for my heart was beating rapidly, and thoughts whirled in my mind.
I had made promises to the governor I was worried I could not keep.
Chapter 12
Ingeborg
Reverend Jacobsen preached with new fervour after the dancing on the Eve of St Hans. The fleeting summer faded, while the rain and wind swept in from the west, drenching their village in bleak grey light, washing across the bog, and whistling through the scrawny birch woods.
On rare days of dry, Ingeborg gathered the last flares of colour in the woods, under her feet a pale path of light as she wandered through the trees. She brought them into the dim cottage: the heathers upon the marsh, purple and green above the black earth; leaves of gold falling from the birch trees and spinning to the ground.
Ingeborg had given up hunting in the woods. Her snares were always tampered with. In their place, however, would always be a gift: a lidded dish full of blueberries, a small pot of creamy butter, bunches of herbs and root tubers, clusters of earthy mushrooms, or fronds of seaweed, roasted and salty. Her annoyance had turned to wonder how this girl, Maren Olufsdatter, could conjure such delicious nourishment from foraging in their bleak terrain.
On Sundays, all the village women wore what best they had. Wool skirts and bodices in faded dyes. Their linens cream or beige from wear, as were the kerchiefs around their shoulders, aprons, and coifs to cover their hair. Not one curl of hair allowed to stray. A challenge always for Kirsten, whose red mop refused to submit to the confinement.
All the fisherfolk were scrubbed clean with cold well water as they shuffled, stiff and uncomfortable, with ruddy faces, into the tiny kirk. Everyone crammed into the standing space. All their smells mixing, making Ingeborg feel queasy as Reverend Jacobsen’s voice droned on. The only way she could stop herself from running out of the stuffy kirk, was to let her mind drift. As though she could separate her thought from her body.
It was a nice feeling then, to float over the whole mass of the village and watch them. Her neighbours trying to hide their boredom and yawns. She would float over Merchant Brasche, and his son Heinrich, his wife and their children in the front pews of the church. Marvel at their straight backs, and their dignified concentration. Even the children sat upright and composed. But maybe it was easier to sit still in your own pew, with soft cushions to kneel upon. She lingered over them, taking in the finery of Fru Brasche’s silk bodice embroidered in the deepest blue of the northern spring skies. How well it would look upon her mother. Fru Brasche was rapt, absorbing every word Reverend Jacobsen said, her mouth whispering prayers, while her husband Heinrich, with restless eyes, looked more like a horse about to bolt. Clouds of misery emanated from the couple.
Reverend Jacobsen preached, framed by his grand altarpiece with its carvings, little pillars and twisting vines. Behind him a large oil painting of the same Brasche family – the old merchant and his wife, along with their two sons, one of them Heinrich, and two daughters. All of them dressed in austere black, with large white ruffs, their hands clasped in prayer. At the front of the painting were three swaddled babies, the infants that had not survived. These painted Brasches gazed back at the congregation in judgement.
Ingeborg floated back to her body, squashed in next to her mother and her sister. Now she listened to what the reverend was telling them, set to the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks outside the tiny kirk.
‘The Devil may appear to you at first as a man,’ he warned them, ‘but if you look closely you will know it is the Evil One, for he may have claws for hands, or strange staring eyes like a cow. And always’ – he raised his finger, pointing at the villagers – ‘he will be dressed in black from head to toe.’
Was not Reverend Jacobsen himself dressed all in black? Apart from the stiff white ruff attached so tightly around his neck his flesh bulged over its edge, red and angry. But the rest of him was layer after layer of black. So much cloth, it was hard to make out the shape of his rotund body beneath.
‘The Devil will make promises to you of wealth, but he does not have the power to give you these things. Do not believe it. He wishes to make you his servant. The Evil One directs you to wreak destruction and death upon your own husbands, brothers and sons.’
Ah, of course, Reverend Jacobsen was warning the women. For soon, their husbands would be leaving for the winter fishing grounds and gone for months. The dark weeks were the time of temptation.
The reverend took a step forward, sweeping his hand as if to bless the whole congregation. ‘There are many devils,’ he said in a dramatic hush. ‘Each witch serves her own demon, whom she gives herself to.’
Ingeborg couldn’t see Fru Brasche’s face now, but she noticed the tilt of her head, imagined the fervent expression on her face. What the reverend meant was very bad women had sex with the Devil and then they became witches.
An unwelcome image surfaced in her mind. Her mother and Heinrich Brasche together in his cowshed on Midsummer’s Eve. She glanced down at Kirsten fidgeting next to her. Was she remembering the same? But her little sister didn’t appear to be listening to the reverend. Instead, she was twirling a loose thread of her apron around her little finger, tugging it so it might fray.
Ingeborg looked at her mother. She was so very beautiful – such a danger for a young widow. There was the slender line of her neck, with tiny tufts of gold hair visible at the nape of her coif. Her unblemished skin so soft upon her cheek, unlike the wrinkles of Fru Brasche.
Her mother was standing very still, and she was rapt too. But when Ingeborg followed her mother’s gaze it was not directed at Reverend Jacobsen.
She was staring quite openly at the back of Heinrich Brasche’s head.
There were the thick chestnut locks of the young gentleman; his straight back, unworn by hauling nets and gruelling labour. So tall, unweighted by the worries of feeding his family. Was he the Devil sitting among them even?
‘To practise their dark magic, these foul women will call for their devil’s apostle or their familiar,’ Reverend Jacobsen continued.
Hadn’t Maren Olufsdatter told Ingeborg and Kirsten her mother had two familiars – a black crow and a big elk? Ingeborg licked her lips. They were so dry and, more than anything, she wanted a drink of water. The kirk felt suffocating. What had Maren said? The only way to protect ourselves is to make them afraid of us.
They had claimed Maren’s mother had sat atop a barrel floating on the ocean, arms raised, striking jagged white lightning into the wild sea, black hair as hissing snakes in the winter storm.
Was this how to make them afraid, with stories of witchcraft and weather magic?
Reverend Jacobsen had finished his sermon. They were all kneeling. The cold floor of the kirk, hard upon her knees and all the villagers huddled together. Someone farted, and Kirsten giggled next to her.
Ingeborg felt the urge to laugh too. She pressed her hands together and closed her eyes. Gave Kirsten a pinch to stop her giggles. They had been told laughter, and pleasure, belonged to the Devil.
‘Protect my mother from the Evil One and his temptation of pleasure,’ she whispered.
The Devil was dancing in her head. He had the same thick brown hair and hazelnut eyes as Heinrich Brasche. Kicking his legs in a little jig, hands on his hips and taking her mother’s hand, her red-gold hair flying free like a flag of abandon. The Devil and her mother spinning and spinning. Dancing so wild not a soul could break them.
The last Sunday in August was golden with a soft breeze slipping in from the west. A rare flourishing of warmth before the cold east wind began to blow. The villagers streamed out of the church, gasping in the sweet air and light as if taking their first breaths of life.
When they got home, Ingeborg and Kirsten pulled off their confining coifs and shook out their hair.
‘Let’s collect the last of the blueberries,’ Ingeborg suggested.
Kirsten clapped her hands in delight. ‘Can I bring Zacharias?’
‘No, silly billy, she’ll get in the way.’
‘She’s a very good lambkins, better than a dog.’
‘She might get snatched by a fox,’ Ingeborg warned. ‘You don’t want to lose Zacharias, do you?’
‘Don’t encourage your sister in her affections for the lamb,’ their mother said in a cold voice. ‘Kirsten, you know well the lamb is our livestock. One day it will be slaughtered for its flesh.’
Kirsten’s face clouded but she said nothing, knowing their mother would slap her for insolence if she responded.
‘Mother, will you come with us to collect berries in the woods?’ Ingeborg suggested, while Kirsten tugged on her skirt, hissing, ‘No!’
Ingeborg wanted to keep her mother close by and away from the merchant’s son.
But Zigri Sigvaldsdatter shook her head. She had already shaken out her blue ribbon and was twisting it in her hair. ‘No, girls, I have other business to attend to,’ she said.
‘Mother, remember Reverend Jacobsen’s words this morning,’ Ingeborg warned in a low voice.
Her mother looked startled, her pale cheeks at once rosy. ‘What are you implying, Ingeborg?’
There was a heavy, difficult silence. The words dried up in Ingeborg’s throat. She wanted to shout at her mother. Don’t go dallying in Heinrich Brasche’s cowshed because someone else will see you, just like we did! But her mother’s expression was resolute. She had tasted something she clearly craved more of, and Ingeborg knew all her warnings would only result in a slap across her own face.
She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders, picking up one of the baskets, and handing the other to Kirsten.
How Ingeborg treasured their scant woods. She had heard there was not one tree on the island of Vardø where the governor of Finnmark dwelled. How could those who lived there bear it? She adored her trees, thin and spindly as they were.
She and Kirsten ran among the birch and pine. Many leaves had already fallen, but of course the spruce was still thick, and she inhaled the clearing scent of pine. Let her fears about her mother and Heinrich Brasche fade.
As they approached the bushes of blueberries, they saw another figure with a basket on her arm, bending down and collecting the plump, dusky berries.
‘Maren Olufsdatter!’ Kirsten called out.
Maren spun around.
‘Greetings, Iversdatter girls,’ she welcomed them. ‘The land is rich!’
Maren’s flurries of crow-black hair fell all the way to her waist. She was as tall as Ingeborg’s father had been, narrow-hipped, and long-legged as a colt.
Maren led them into an enclave within the woods, the ground carpeted with blueberry shrubs.
‘My Sámi friend, Zare, showed me this place,’ she said, licking the tips of her fingers already blue from berry juice. ‘He’s the son of the Sámi woman, Elli, who was arrested with my mother.’
‘Did she die as your mother did?’ Ingeborg asked.
‘No, she escaped the fortress!’ Maren exclaimed. ‘Elli still lives.’
They ate and they picked, until their lips were mauve, and their bellies ached.
After a while, Kirsten sat down heavily in the undergrowth, clasping her tummy. ‘I am sick,’ she said, groaning.
‘Chew on this and all will be well again.’ Maren handed Kirsten a sprig of mint.
Maren plonked her brimming basket down and stretched out on the ground next to Kirsten. Her arms and legs were splayed in an unseemly manner and Ingeborg could see the dark skin of her legs under her bunched-up skirts. ‘Let’s rest for a little while,’ she declared, and Kirsten, delighted to be escaping berry-collecting duties, lay down next to her.
‘Kirsten, the ground could be damp. Get up at once,’ Ingeborg protested.
‘Oh, but it’s not,’ Maren said, sitting up. ‘Take a rest, Ingeborg. You work so hard all the time.’
Ingeborg gingerly sat down. She expected the earth to be cold and hard, but it felt softer than their birch branch beds. Moreover, she could feel warmth within the ground, and it was comforting.
‘Would you like to hear a story?’ Maren said, producing some green leaves and knotwood stems out of her skirt pockets.
‘Oh, yes,’ Kirsten said, taking the succulent green stem Maren gave her and chewing on it as if she were a small woodland creature.
‘Well, I shall begin then,’ Maren said, looking pleased to have an audience. ‘There was once a girl walking through the woods in the south of Norway where the hazel trees grow. She was cracking nuts she had gathered from one of these trees.’ Maren looked at Ingeborg with her bewitching green eyes. Unbidden, Ingeborg felt her cheeks bloom red. She wondered had Maren ever seen or tasted a hazelnut? Did her father the pirate bring them to her? ‘This girl – shall we say her name is Freyja, named after the goddess of love and war?’
‘Hush,’ Ingeborg admonished Maren. ‘It’s dangerous to speak of the old religion.’
‘Who is to hear us?’ Maren countered, as she selected the longest, juiciest knotwood stem and offered it to Ingeborg.
Unable to resist, Ingeborg began sucking the juice out of the stem while Maren continued to speak.
‘Freyja found a worm inside one of the nuts, and was about to cast the nut aside, when she came upon the Devil. She knew he was the Devil because he had a big black hat upon his head, and claws for hands.’
Kirsten clasped her own hands, eyes shining with intrigue.
‘“Is it true what everyone says about you?” Freyja asked the Devil. “That you can change to whatever size you wish? As big as a mountain and as tiny as a worm?”’
Maren dropped her voice. ‘“Of course, I can!” said the Devil, proudly.’ She grinned at Kirsten before continuing. ‘“Well then,” said Freyja. “I’d like to see you squeeze through the wormhole in my hazelnut.” And she opened her palm to show it to the Devil, with the small brown nut with the tiny wormhole in its shell.
‘The Devil laughed with amusement at her challenge. He took his hat off and placed it carefully by the roots of a tree. He clapped his hands three times and turned into a tiny worm on the girl’s outstretched hand. Then he slunk into the hole in the nut.’
‘Oh, how can the big Devil fit into the little hole?’ Kirsten interrupted.
‘He can be any size he wishes, like he said!’ Maren replied.
Ingeborg shook her head. She should stop Maren filling her sister’s head with such nonsense, but she hadn’t seen Kirsten so happy in such a long time. Besides, there was a part of her that was enjoying the moment too: filling her head with the voices of the characters and watching Maren.
Maren was a poor fisher girl like the rest of them, and yet when she narrated her story Ingeborg could see the old Norse Goddess Freyja within her – in the dewy dark softness of her eyes, and the bite of her over lip. Love and War.
‘Freyja picked up a twig and stuck it in the hole of the nut. Then she collected the Devil’s grand hat and placed it upon her head.’ Maren mimed placing an imaginary hat upon her head. ‘“Now,” she thought, “I have the Devil in the palm of my hand.” She felt quite clever as she carried on through the woods with the Devil’s hat upon her.’
Kirsten rested her head in Ingeborg’s lap, her red curls scattered upon her white apron. Ingeborg twirled her sister’s hair around her fingers as if they were gold rings, all the while the two of them watching Maren.
‘After a while, Freyja came out of the trees and went down the hill into the village. She thought, “I would like to teach this pompous Devil a lesson or two,” so she went to the smithy who was working outside his forge.’
Maren jumped up and tipped an imaginary hat, pretending to be Freyja.
‘“Please, Master Smithy,” she asked him in her politest voice, “can you smash this nut for me?” and Freyja took the Devil’s hazelnut out of her pocket.’
