Fargoer (8 page)

Vierra considered her point of approach for a moment. Below wind was obvious, otherwise, the summer breeze would carry her scent to the deer and expose her. She also had to be aware of boulders and small rocks, moving one of those would scare the whole herd away, scattering them everywhere in the forest. Slowly and carefully, she moved forward, one sneaky step at a time, toward the animals.

It was deer that Vierra had hunted with her mother on their last hunting trip as well. Even though Vierra had scared them away with her clumsiness, her mother had not been angry. She just laughed at her blundering. Maybe she had seen beforehand that she was together with her child for the last time.

Vierra angrily drove away the memory of her mother’s death. She wanted to remember her as she was when they hunted together: brave, beautiful, mysterious, standing on the top of a hill, looking in the distance. And it didn’t matter anymore--not when she had Vaaja and Vaalo. They filled the days of her life.

From between the trees, she saw one big and three small deer. From this small herd Vierra chose a fawn, which was scrabbling for withered grass in between the rocks near its mother, nostrils trembling keen on the wind. The fawn instinctively tried to stay near the safety of her mother, and Vierra waited for the moment that they would separate, even for a bit. She cocked an arrow on the bowstring and slowly, as in a dream, drew it back near her ear. So good was she with a bow that they didn’t allow her to participate in the winter camp shooting competitions. Sometimes Vierra even closed her eyes and shot instinctively. Often, she felt a close relationship with the arrow, like it was a part of herself, an extension of her hunting will. She had considered telling Eera about this but had decided not to bother the witch with a matter that only brought her joy and good hunting. Even the bows had to have their own spirits, and she just happened to be in their favor.

Her instincts brought her luck once again, and the arrow reached its goal unerringly. The young animal fell at the spot, and the rest of its kind escaped the hill, scattering with the speed of the wind. Vierra ran to her catch and turned the young animal’s neck with all her strength until she felt it give away under her knee. After that, she cut open the fawn’s neck artery. As the bright red blood flowed to the rocky ground, she spoke her words of thanks to Mielikki, the mistress of the forest.

Mielikki, mother of forest
Take this offering of blood
Dripping in your holy ground
Luck and game for me let flood

Mielikki please give me prey
Let not your servant starve
Bring your hunter broader pack
Let me thrive, my fortune carve

After the words had faded away, Vierra opened the deer’s stomach, took out its gall bladder, and poured the sour fluid on top of the blood that had soaked into the ground.

Tapio, ruler of the forest
Catcher of the strongest gall
Grant for me now the largest game
Fill my stock now for the fall

Now were the holy words said and the sacrifice given. Vierra lifted the carcass on her shoulders and started her journey back to the glade. In her mind she was rejoicing; rarely did a ritual hunt succeed this well. Plenty of time was left in the day for celebration, and fawn meat would join the trout in the fire.

Vierra went straight towards the glade. After a short trek, she arrived at a small opening in the forest that was covered in large rocks. Here and there between the rocks grew long patches of grass and a few withered trees, their fragile branches waving in the light wind. Black-gray adders were bathing on the rocks in the sun, hissing at each other. Vierra was already getting ready to go around the glade when she saw a movement across the opening. It was a small, hunchbacked man. His green clothes were like hanging lichen, covering his withered and skinny body. Astonishingly agile he was, though, jumping from rock to rock, and when he came closer, Vierra saw his crooked shoes hitting the rocks, and blue will o’ the wisps and sparks flew in the air. No adder would bite him, even though he ran over them as if mindless of them altogether. The man ran straight towards Vierra, crying from far away.

“Vierra, Vierra, why were you hasty and why did you not give the proper sacrifice to the Seita?”

“What Seita?” Vierra had always honored her ancestors’ holy places, even though her sacrifices and prayers were often directed to the new gods, as was the custom these days. She wondered how the man could know her name. She’d had no time to tell him, and she had never seen him before.

“The Seita who lives on the top of the hill. It was malicious and bitter even when I was floating helpless in my mother’s womb.”

“I saw no Seita,” Vierra defended herself. She was annoyed by this strange and truculent man, but she kept a polite tone towards her elder.

“You didn’t even try. Of Mielikki and Tapio only were you thinking, you wench, while drawing the gall bladder to Seita’s rocky side. They were the ones who took the gall from under Seita’s rocky nose. Those bastards are southern gods, of those who root the earth and bite hay. Pthew!” The old man drove out a long wad of spit from between his bony jaws. Vierra was dumbfounded by the outburst of this complete stranger. He walked closer while blabbering, causing Vierra to flinch and take a step back. He smelled bad, of stale urine, of unknown, deep earth and forest.

“Seita will have her revenge and so will I. Whose belt have you around you? My belt. Give it to me and bow before me for mercy, and I might forgive you.”

Vierra’s spirit flared up. Who did this man think he was? That kind of behavior went beyond all understanding, and even though he was older, it was inappropriate for a man to speak thus to a woman.

“The belt is not mine but my husband’s, so I cannot give it to you. And I am not responsible to you for my doings. My chieftain is a woman like was my mother and my mother’s mother. Go away and leave me alone.”

The man stared at Vierra along his large nose.

“We shall see about belts and mercy.” He let out a cackling laugh and started running surprisingly fast through the rocky glade, disappearing into the forest on the opposite side.

Vierra looked after him and tried to figure out what had just happened. After he vanished into the forest, Vierra continued her journey. Dark thoughts rose up from her mind, one after another, bothering her travel and making her instinctively speed up her step.

Blood

Vierra had seen longboats many times before. This one, however, burned itself into her mind forever as she caught sight of it from the hilltop. The proud-bowed vessel had been pulled to the shore of the festival glade, and Vierra felt a hollow, strangling feeling churning in the bottom of her stomach. Those wayfarers had many names: persecutors, the tall men, the bearded men, the iron men. Vikings. They came from the west shore of the sea with their long boats every spring, bringing iron, salt, cloth, and silver. They were interested in the furry coats of the animals that the Kainu hunted, as well as the fish that they dried. The Kainu were happy to trade but stayed cautiously in large groups and areas confined by the trading posts. Everyone, even Vikings, honored them, as they were signs for peace and trade, and slaying another man in their area would mean a curse for the villain and his family for seven generations. In other places, these men did not always pay, but reclaimed their purchase with axes, swords, and slaughter of the careless. Why they had come this far from the market places, Vierra did not know. Fear for her loved ones hurried her step toward the glade. Even though she moved as swiftly as she could, her hunter’s instinct forced her to also move silently and stealthily in the forest. If the persecutors noticed her, the hunter would immediately become the prey.

Vaaja, as a trader’s son, had had affairs with the Vikings in his earlier days. In springtime, he was in his game, in the marketplaces, and the Kainu soon sent him to negotiate in other places as well. Vaaja had explained that it was always best to do a fast trade and change the goods immediately after the deal had been closed. If the oppressors had time to drink too much of the beer that was served in the market, they became unpredictable and arrogant. Vaaja even knew bits and pieces of their language, and with this knowledge, the Kainu had made worthwhile deals for many years.

Soon, Vierra’s green eyes caught sight of the festival glade from the shade of the forest that surrounded it. The strangers were going back to their ship, and her frantic gaze moved over the clearing, combing the space for her husband and son. She noticed a vague tangle near the edge of the forest. She rushed toward it, crouched on the grass, and every step increased the despair and horror in her mind.

A big tangle there was, and a smaller one, both with more than one arrow sticking out of them. Vierra turned them over and her world collapsed. There was Vaaja, his yellow hair stained in blood. There would be no more stories from the southern lands. They had been eternally silenced by the persecutors’ arrows. There was Vaalo, the child’s gaze of his eyes broken. No more would laughter tinkle, no more would a small hand reach for his mother. No smile would come from that round face.

Vierra did not cry, she couldn’t. The blow was too heavy, the cut too deep. In her mind, she saw the face of the First Mother and remembered what she had said. Deviously, the words had started to come true. The Mother’s face disappeared, only to be replaced by a gray she wolf. The animal growled, and blood flowed from its exposed fangs. Only the anger was left, a dark, destructive anger towards everything. Anger and then death. And now it was fixed towards the murderers who were sneaking away. The child killers, the robbers, the cowards.

Vierra rose, the bow turned to her hand like a thought. It obeyed her order eagerly and sent arrow after arrow toward her enemies. Green eyes directed every one of them to their goal with an unerring accuracy. And every one of them bit deep into the flesh of the persecutors. Luckier ones took shelter from the deadly rain, behind the rocks of the beach. One of the men gave orders to the others, and they spread out to the glade, closing in on Vierra from behind their wooden shields, moving from one shelter to another, avoiding the arrows that brought them death. Vierra did not even try to hide, she just kept sending arrows on their way. Some hit the shields, but many times she managed to pass them and the wolf inside her was rewarded with a hoarse yell of pain. Finally, the arrows ran out, and Vierra descended to embrace her dead son for the last time. Off her lips came an old lullaby, which she had often used to lull her little son to sleep. The son who would now sleep forever.

The persecutors ran towards the singing woman, sensing that she wouldn’t be a danger to them anymore. Just before they reached Vierra, she drew her scramsax, letting out a primal yell. It was full of anger, despair, and disappointment. So ghastly was the yell that the approaching men stopped for a moment, as if hesitating. When the scream died away, Vierra thrust the blade deep into her stomach, expecting to soon see her son and husband on the river of the underworld. The hot, searing pain convulsed in her stomach but was extinguished by a blow of a club that struck her head, sending her consciousness into a bright sea of stars from which it fell into an impenetrable, all-engulfing darkness.

She smelled the fresh forest, heard the spring wind whizzing in her ears. Hints of hut smoke that went with the wind mixed with the smell of the forest.

“The forest of the Underworld,” escaped from Vierra’s lips, and she didn’t dare open her eyes.

“Yes, my child,” a voice boomed in her head. Vierra couldn’t tell the direction it was coming from, but with the same certainty she knew it was true she also knew that it belonged to the Seita, whom she had passed and ignored when she was hunting.

“Apologize for passing me by, sing a song in my honor, and I will let you go. Soon you’ll be with your husband and son. Can you already feel the smell of the smoke? There they are, cooking fish and waiting.”

Vierra was ready to answer on the same breath, to weave a song that would release her from the pain. When she opened her mouth, though, the voice didn’t do what she wanted. It was the voice of the wolf and it didn’t plead, but asked,

“What about the First Mother? I am not supposed to end like this.”

Friendship faded from the Seita’s voice, and its note froze Vierra’s blood.

“I will not be asked or denied! Beg for mercy, or do you want to return back to the cold world, broken? There, only endless suffering will await you. Soon you will finish off what you started with your knife, and come back to ask me for passage to your family. And I will laugh at you and send you to the cold Underworld of the men of iron, where gray spirits moan in endless despair. There, nobody will be your blood or know your songs. Beg and plead now when you still can.”

“You were the one that took my son and husband. Toward you I only feel hatred, and I promise that by my own hand I will never bring myself to you, now or never! When I finally come, you will apologize and bow before me.”

Vierra spat the words from her mouth with quick anger. They would haunt her for a long time in years to follow.