Wolf Winter (35 page)

“Dorotea!” Maija said.

“It would be my pleasure,” the priest said to her daughter and bowed. He wasn’t making fun of her, she thought. His smile was tender.

He rang the bell on the wall. There were footsteps, and a plump woman entered.

“Could we please have dessert,” the priest said. “I have guests.”

The housekeeper had brought rice porridge and nuts, apples, and gingerbread cookies. Dorotea talked and ate and asked for a napkin to take some food home to her sister. Then she fell asleep in her chair.

The priest and Maija sat in silence and watched the fire.
I should go,
she thought.
I must wake Dorotea up so we can leave. Frederika will worry. Daniel and Anna will talk.
But she remained where she was. Just a little bit longer.

“I am glad you came,” he said.

In the light of the fire his eyes were a kind blue. Suddenly she too wanted to give him something.

“The parishioners like you,” she said.

He began to laugh. She made a stern face, but then she joined him. What a thing to say.

The priest rose and covered her daughter with a blanket. He sat down again.

“Christmas,” he said. “Christmas and then another year.”

“Yes. It gives you hope.”

“Hope? Myself, I always feel trepidation.”

That surprised her.

“It is clean. It is new,” she said. “A chance to start over.”

“Precisely. One has to start it all over.”

She saw what he meant.

“I didn’t think priests felt trepidation,” she said.

“Do you really think they are so different from you?”

Yes,
she thought.
No,
she thought. How strange. She looked him over. He had narrowed his eyes toward the flames and was supporting his chin in his hand. Solitude at a time like Christmas was setting yourself up for melancholy, she thought and was about to say it. But she liked him for his frailty.

“Some people on Blackåsen are blaming the Lapps for Eriksson’s death,” she said. “I am worried I made it worse. I spoke with Fearless. I just wanted to warn him, but perhaps some things are best just left.”

She surprised herself.
It’s because he’s a priest,
she thought. There is this urge to confess, to tell him everything.

“Nils wants a village,” she added.

The priest glanced at her. “He talked to me too. He said you all wanted it for the sake of ensuring calm, but, I think, he probably just sees a chance to be in charge.”

Most likely, she thought. If only he didn’t do it by encouraging fear. We are newcomers, the priest and I. We don’t understand why the others are so fearful.

“Is there a record of Elin’s hearing?” she asked.

“I haven’t come across one, but we can talk to the old priest’s widow. She was here at the time.”

She nodded.

“The King is requesting twenty men for the army from our parish this spring,” the priest said.

Twenty people. And why was he telling her? It was a while before she dared look at him.

“I know there is no choice.” The priest was still staring into the fire. He shrugged and looked tired and gray.

“There’s been war for a long time,” she said.

He shrugged again.

“The kings did not always decide everything,” she said. “There was a time when they listened to the people.”

Their eyes caught, and neither of them moved for a long time. The skin underneath his eyes was thin. He had tiny wrinkles at the inner corners.

“We’re on dangerous grounds,” he said with a quiet voice.

She found it was difficult to breathe.

“It’s time for me to go,” she said and rose.

“I’ll carry her home for you.”

He lifted Dorotea up with his hands under her arms and arranged her so that her head leaned toward his shoulder and wrapped his arms around her.

Maija took her scarf, covered her daughter, and tucked the edges in toward the priest’s chest. She saw his coat and lifted it from the back of the chair and hung it over his shoulders. She avoided meeting his eyes.

Outside, in wisps of unearthly greens and blues, Northern lights twirled around the stars. At places they seemed to hang down to the earth, like fairies’ curtains.

“What did my daughter give you?” she asked, and added, “You don’t have to answer.”

“Feathers,” he said. “She said it was wings for the bird for whom the hawk’s plumage was too heavy.”

Maija loved so much she hurt.
What on this earth did I do to deserve this child?
she thought.

As they came close to the house, Maija saw that Daniel had lit large tar torches by the four corners. They would burn the whole night long and, supposedly, keep them safe from evil. She didn’t scoff or get annoyed. She didn’t mind at all.

The crowd of people was folding away, creating a path for him to pass. The priest thought of Moses in the Red Sea. It could be lonely being a priest. He’d told Maija he’d meet her at the market. It would be better if people thought they had just bumped into each other, was what he’d thought. Why would he even be thinking about that?

He noticed her before she saw him, pausing by one of the stands, pointing at something, her hair glowing white in the darkness. Before he could catch it, his heart soared in his chest and then he felt a pang of pain. He stopped. He should go back home. But if he didn’t keep his word, she’d probably come and find him.

“Good morning, priest,” the merchant said, but looked at Maija, eyes gleaming.

Maija didn’t acknowledge the priest’s arrival.

“The carpet,” she said and pointed.

“This one?” The merchant turned and lifted it up with both hands. Sunshine and shiny cream, flickering orange in the light of the torches. The merchant unfolded it but didn’t offer it for her to feel.
She might be attractive, but in the merchant’s mind she was only a peasant,
the priest thought, and felt a stitch of anger.

“It is valuable?” Maija asked.

The tradesman licked his lips. “It comes from the trade routes of the East. Trust me, you cannot afford it.”

“Then I guess you are charging too much for your trinkets,” Maija said and winked.

The merchant raised his hand and touched his heart. He was laughing.

Maija turned to the priest. She sparkled with cold.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

He walked ahead of her. He lengthened his steps, forcing her to hurry to keep up.
Good,
he thought.
That should show her.
Show her what?
He didn’t understand himself. They reached the vicarage at the side of the square opposite the church. He entered without knocking. A maid met them in the hallway. The priest handed her his fur. Maija shook her head.

“I’ll tell her you are here,” the maid said and showed them into one of the rooms.

Maija was looking around. The priest tried to see what she saw. The tall, iron-framed windows that stretched to the ceiling. The long brown silk curtains. The walls, stone, chalked crispy white. The two chairs by the fire, the settle, the small wooden table.

“Sofia is the widow of the former priest,” he said.

Maija glanced at him.

The door opened. Sofia smiled when she saw him, and then there was no more than a flutter, but it was there: a hesitation as she noticed Maija. Her dress hissed as she walked to stand by his side. Her blonde hair curled by her ears and fell in a thick torrent down her shoulders. The skin on the hand that touched his arm glowed, its nails pale and short. There was a summery smell of roses.

“I am Sofia,” she said to Maija.

“Maija.” Maija nodded. Her mouth was knotted. This time the priest knew what she was not looking at: her own gray jumper, frayed at the sleeves, the rough skin on the back of her hands, her black, thick woolen skirt, her stitched leather shoes.

Maija untied her scarf with one hand and pulled it off her head.

Sofia’s hand was still holding onto his sleeve. It took all his willpower not to shake it off.

“Maija is from Blackåsen,” the priest said. “We came to ask you to tell us more about Elin’s hearing.”

“Why?”

“Just to be certain it didn’t have anything to do with her husband’s death.”

“Aha.” Sofia removed her hand. The priest exhaled. She walked away to open the door and say something to the maid, then returned to her guests. “Please sit down,” she said and pointed to the fire.

Sofia took a seat on the settle. The priest sat down in one of the armchairs. Sofia gave him a quick glance, then spread her dress wider. Maija sat down at the edge of the other chair.

“Elin’s enquiry …” Sofia said. She put her hands in her lap. “What would you like to know?”

The priest shrugged. “How it arose, what happened … all of it.”

“Hm,” Sofia said and looked to the roof as if gathering her thoughts. “Well, Elin always kept to herself, held herself apart. I don’t think any one of us really knew her. I had heard she used herbs and read over wounds, but …” Sofia shrugged. “She was first accused by a settler from Blackåsen. She helped to deliver his calf. They didn’t see eye to eye about something, and two days later the calf died.”

A calf was valuable, the priest thought. It would have been hard to accept that it had just died.

“From there, it escalated. One of the night man’s sons said he’d seen Elin talk to her horse. He said the horse bent down for her to mount it. She was seen walking on water down by the Poor’s Bridge …”

Oh God. The priest had heard similar stories a hundred times.

“There was no stopping things. Every day there were new accusations. It was like people had waited for the opportunity of having someone to blame.”

“Who was the settler?” Maija asked.

“What?”

“The settler whose calf died?”

“His name was Eronen. He is long gone now.”

Maija exhaled and her face lightened.

Sofia looked at her and raised her brows.

“That explains things,” Maija said. “Eronen is our uncle. He didn’t tell us this. Didn’t think we’d go through with trading our homestead for his if we knew there had been any problems, most likely. I am surprised he dared to accuse Eriksson’s wife. How did Eriksson take it?”

“He stormed into my husband’s office and demanded he annul the hearing. Luckily, Karl-Erik … the bishop … had already arrived, otherwise I don’t know what Eriksson would have done.

“It was the strangest thing,” Sofia continued. “The hearing went on for three days. It was very frightening. The first two days, as soon as anyone spoke against Elin, Eriksson counter-accused them. … It was stated that Lisbet could identify sorceresses by seeing some sort of light, and she was adamant Elin was one of them. People told stories of all the things Elin had done. … Yet on the morning of the third day the bishop said what he’d heard was not enough to order a trial. He was closing the hearing down. And that’s when Eriksson stood up and insisted the trial go ahead. He said he wanted Elin exonerated rather than always having suspicion surrounding her.”

“Really?” the priest asked. “He was taking a big risk.”

“How did people react?” Maija asked.

“We were all stunned. Elin just stared at her husband.”

“And the bishop?” the priest asked.

“At first he turned white. He stumbled on his words. But from then on, the hearing was like a battle between the two of them, Eriksson arguing for a trial, the bishop against.”

“How did it end?” Maija asked.

“In the afternoon Eriksson stood up and said that he had just ensured they looked into the issue properly. He said he didn’t want to have Elin go through the ordeal again.” Sofia shook her head. “The nerve. I would say he had become bored and wanted to go home.”

“And the bishop accepted that?”

“He immediately declared the hearing closed.”

The bishop had been relieved that it was over, the priest thought.

“Was Lisbet sick before this hearing?” Maija asked.

Sofia frowned. “I don’t think she was.”