Council

Book 2: The Helga Finnsdottir Mysteries

by Snorri Kristjansson

Genres: Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Noir

Synopsis

Helga Finnsdottir left her Viking-chieftain foster parents, but she stopped in Uppsala when she fell in love. Now she's established herself as a local healer and life is good – hairy northerners and southern Swedes alike descend on the town for a trade council. One delegation is headed by Helga’s own foster sister, who has her own agenda. But the last time Helga saw her foster sister, she was being cast out by their father for killing their brother. When one of the delegates is murdered, Helga's soon tagged as the lead suspect. She clears her name but that only leads suspicion to fall on to her man. Once again, Helga must solve a murder before the innocent pays with his head.

Release date: May 16, 2019

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

Chapter 1

Boy

The girl, seven winters of age, pressed her slight frame up against the wooden fence and peered past it in horrified fascination, caught between curiosity and fear.

‘What is she doing?’

The boy next to her rolled his eyes and made a face. ‘My father says something’s wrong in her head. She thinks she’s an animal.’ Everyone knew Mad Ida was just that: mad. Gone. Away with the trolls and the fairies.

The girl didn’t even spare him a glance. ‘It looks pretty uncomfortable.’

The clucking grew louder.

‘Probably is. Beaks are much better for pecking with. Won’t last long, though.’

‘Why not?’

His voice had the hard-earned wisdom of all of his nine winters. ‘She’s scaring the hens and Auntie won’t have it.’

The girl opened her mouth to speak, but a woman’s loud voice drowned whatever she’d started to say.

‘Shoo! Shoo! Get out!’ The formidable woman who came striding from behind a nearby shack barrelled past the children and stormed into the chicken pen. She stopped and stood in front of the scrawny figure, not much bigger than a child, who was flapping her arms within oversized, scrappy clothing and squawking back at her. ‘Ida, get out!’

The woman called Ida squawked angrily at the intruder and squeezed all her features into the middle of her face, as if she could form a beak through willpower alone. She pecked once in Auntie’s direction, then flapped away, scattering chickens as she went.

The big woman groaned with frustration. ‘Get OUT, Ida! You’re scaring my animals!’ Happily ignoring her, Ida just kept flapping around the yard, jerking her head this way and that in her poor imitation of the chickens’ walk. But the chickens clearly weren’t impressed; every time she tried to get close, they moved off in a flurry of feathers to another corner.

Snorting like an angry bull, Auntie stormed off, slamming the gate shut after her.

‘Where is she going?’ the girl whispered, shrinking back.

‘She’s probably gone to fetch—’ He stopped as voices drifted towards them from the direction in which Auntie had disappeared.

One was loud and rapid, the other slow and rumbling. The first voice spoke a lot more than the second.

Auntie rounded the corner again, this time with a big, broad man in tow.

‘Is that your uncle?’

‘Absolutely,’ the boy said with no small satisfaction. ‘He sailed with Greybeard, you know.’

‘Wow,’ the girl said. ‘Who’s that?’

The boy caught his breath. ‘You don’t even know who Greybeard is?’

‘Is he the man who came two days ago to ask about the council?’

The boy was indignant. ‘No! That was just some dumb traveller. And he wasn’t even old. Greybeard is the scariest raider there ever was! He sailed to the Southern lands where they have people with ash-black skin and he took all their gold – everyone knows he was the biggest, meanest—’ He stopped. His audience of one had lost interest, because Auntie and Uncle were now in the pen with Ida.

‘You go right and I’ll try to shoo her to you,’ Auntie said, and this time she stepped gently towards Ida and almost cooing, said, ‘Ida, we’re going to go into the house and have some stew. Would you like some stew?’

‘SQUAWK!’

‘I don’t think she wants stew,’ the girl whispered.

Inside the chicken pen, the chase was on: Auntie dashed, Uncle shuffled – and Ida darted with surprising speed between the two, squawking madly as she went. Twenty chickens getting underfoot did not help the pursuers’ cause.

After a couple of rounds Uncle roared in frustration, ‘Enough of this!’ The big man spread his arms and approached Ida, slowly but deliberately. ‘Out!’ he ordered firmly.

Ida stopped, looked at him and blinked. ‘Squawk,’ she said, reproachfully as the farmer caught and embraced her, none too kindly. The girl on the fence shifted out of the way as the big man lumbered out, carrying the old woman, and made for the longhouse.

‘Nils!’ Auntie shouted after him, hurrying to keep up, ‘don’t—!’

‘If she wants to be a chicken—’ the farmer shouted over his shoulder.

‘What’s he going to do?’ the girl whispered, shaking.

‘NO!’ Auntie was running now.

The boy and the girl watched them disappear into the barn but they could still hear the shouted argument, interspersed with increasingly frightened squawking.

The girl’s brow furrowed and she pursed her lips. ‘They’re really angry.’

‘Look,’ the boy hissed suddenly, staring over her shoulder and pointing at the path leading down to the farm. ‘In the woods—’

‘What is it?’ The girl turned.

‘A rider!’

Sure enough, where the trees thinned out they could see a figure on a horse making its way towards them at a leisurely pace.

*

Nils scowled. ‘I will have no more of this.’

‘You can’t just snap her neck!’ Hertha was standing in front of the rust-stained block, broad forearms crossed, scowling back at her husband. Ida was squirming in his arms, her head twisting backwards and forwards, but with less and less fervour; she’d noticed the well-worn axe resting by his feet.

‘She’ll be the end of us—’

‘No, she won’t – look at her . . . what could she do to us?’

‘She’ll open the gates and let out the cows,’ Nils snapped. ‘Or she’ll decide she’s a fox and eat the chickens. Or she’ll vanish off into the woods with the children and drive you crazy trying to find her. The gods don’t like her, Hertha.’ He inched closer to the block.

Hertha’s scowl turned to a sneer. ‘“The gods don’t like her” – listen to yourself! Just because my mother’s sister is a little strange, you want to end her life? What’s next, Nils? Do I have to send the girl home to her own farm just because she might say something wrong?’ The big woman mimed a troll snapping a neck. ‘And don’t you dare think about picking up that axe.’

‘You’re twisting my words,’ Nils snarled. ‘And anyway, you know I’m right. She can’t stay here.’

‘Anyone home?’

The voice from the other side of the barn door was followed by a very polite knock on the wall. Hertha’s eyes widened and Nils strengthened his grip on Ida’s neck.

‘Is that—?’

‘Yes, it’s me.’

Hertha smiled suddenly. ‘Oh, but you can pick a moment, girl.’

A young woman stepped around the corner and smiled at the assembled group, then swiftly slapped her cheek and looked at the flattened sting-fly in her palm. A satisfied grin lit her face. ‘Got him! This bastard’s been buzzing around my head ever since I passed the pond.’ She wiped the corpse off on the leather pouch tied to her belt next to bags of various sizes. ‘Hello, Nils!’ Smiling at the big Viking, she reached back to re-tie the rider’s knot in her black hair.

‘Well met, Helga,’ Nils muttered, looking at his fidgeting captive with a hint of embarrassment.

‘And hello to you, Ida.’ The old woman muttered something, shaking her head this way and that.

Helga looked at Nils, smiled and raised her eyebrows a fraction. ‘Can I—?’

As if he’d suddenly realised he was holding a burning log, Nils let go of Ida and almost pushed her towards the tall young woman. ‘Of course,’ he stammered. ‘I was never – I – anything you could—’

‘You’ve done the right thing.’ Helga held Nils’ eye and after a few moments his heart stopped pounding and his shoulders lowered.

‘She will be fine.’ Helga’s voice was calm as she reached out slowly to the old woman. Ida’s frantic head movements slowed as Helga talked to her in a low, rhythmic voice, the words only half-heard by the interested onlookers. She clasped the old woman’s bony shoulders before stroking her arms, the movements deliberate, firm, moving her hands down to the wrists, then holding the fingers. She let go and rested the back of her hand on Ida’s forehead, swept her fingers down the cheek to the chin, then repeated the action on her other cheek. Finally, tipping Ida’s head upwards, she looked into the old woman’s eyes. ‘Hertha?’ she said softly without taking her attention off Ida.

‘Yes?’ The big farmwife snapped to attention. Behind her, her husband watched intently but silently.

‘Do you have any daisies nearby?

Glancing at Nils and smiling nervously, Hertha said, ‘Yes indeed. Whole field of ’em, out by the treeline.’

‘Very good,’ Helga muttered, almost as if she was talking to herself, stroking Ida’s arm again, not losing contact with her for a moment. ‘Very good indeed. Perhaps we should have some tea?’

*

The sun had not moved far at all when the children came sprinting back, each with their small bag full of daisies. ‘Thank you.’ Helga beamed at them. ‘You are fantastic workers.’

‘Thank you,’ the girl said solemnly, proffering the bag.

The boy muttered something and looked at his feet.

‘And fantastic workers get paid for their efforts,’ Helga said, mirroring the girl’s serious voice. Reaching into one of the small pouches by her hip, she pulled out two amber-coloured pebbles. ‘I think you might like this. And I have a very special request, which I could only ask of someone really trustworthy, like you two are: would you take care of Grundle for me?’

Their eyes widened and the boy put his hand forward, eager and nervous. The girl, after a quick glance at him, followed his lead. As Helga handed over the payment, she murmured, ‘I am sure you have many things you need to do.’ The children didn’t need to be told twice; she’d barely finished speaking before they were bolting off to see to her horse.

Helga turned to Hertha and Nils. ‘Honey sweets with a little bit of dried ground beet. Good for busy bees. Now for Ida. You know how daisy tea calms the mind?’

Hertha crossed her arms. ‘We’ve tried that.’

‘I would expect nothing less of you and Nils,’ Helga said. ‘For most, that would have been perfectly effective.’

‘What do you mean, “most”?’ There was hesitation in Nils’ voice; he still wasn’t sure he wanted to be involved in this discussion, but the young woman wasn’t giving him much choice.

She looked at them briefly before turning her attention back to Ida, who was almost drowsing in her arms. ‘You are very lucky: Ida has been touched by the gods. She will bring great fortune to your farm if you show them the respect they are owed.’

‘How?’ Hertha’s arms remained crossed and at her belligerent tone, Ida’s mutterings grew ever so slightly louder. Behind them, Nils tensed up again.

Helga’s smile was not remotely shaken. She pulled out a small but sharp-looking blade, a carving knife with a wicked point, and produced a tile from another of her bags. ‘The gods . . . well, sometimes they’re a little hard of hearing,’ she said conspiratorially. ‘And sometimes we need to shout in different ways. Pour the tea.’ The command in the young woman’s voice had Hertha moving before she’d quite decided whether she was going to.

It wasn’t long before she was back, clutching a rough-hewn tree-bowl filled with steaming tea.

The knife made a scritching sound as it lanced into the thumb-sized tile in Helga’s hand, quick, deft movements sending blink-thin slivers of wood drifting to the ground until a rune appeared. Gently, she reached out and took the bowl from Hertha, passing her the tile in return.

‘Is that – magic?’

Hertha shushed her husband, none too gently. ‘What do we do with it?’ she said, respect in her voice.

‘You keep it on you,’ Helga said, ‘and touch it when you are making the tea.’

‘I don’t know this one,’ Hertha said, turning it around in her fingers and studying the mark.

‘I would be surprised if you did. I learned it some years ago from my m— It came from a family I stayed with when I was younger.’

‘And this works?’ Nils said hopefully.

Helga looked him straight in the eye. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And if the gods change their minds and it stops working, you come and find me immediately. There are other things that we can do as well.’ She turned back to Hertha. ‘Meanwhile, set Ida to simple tasks, preferably with counting – things she can actually do – and make sure she eats her food. Four flowers to each bowl, like I did; when you’re down to one flower in a footprint you need to move on and find a new patch. If you run out, come and see me – I always have some dried at home.’

‘I usually put two in the bowl when she’s bad . . .’

Helga smiled. ‘I think she’s worth four, don’t you?’ She reached into her bag and produced a handful of the honey sweets. ‘I’ll leave these here to bribe your workforce.’ She winked at Hertha.

Ida shook her head forcefully, her breathing quickening. ‘Nnnaah!’ she muttered more loudly.

‘Now,’ Helga said, her voice still level but the words coming out more quickly, ‘you have the rune, and the gods are watching. What do you need to do?’

Hertha stiffened. ‘I, uh—’

A large, callused hand appeared and plucked the bowl out of Helga’s hands.

Nils kneeled down in front of the woman and spoke softly. ‘You are going to have some tea, Ida,’ he intoned, with the calm voice of someone who had dealt with skittish horses all his life. Ida’s eyes darted from him to Hertha, then back to the farmer. ‘There’s a good girl,’ he murmured softly, raising the bowl to Ida’s lips.

‘Nnnh!’ Ida shook her head.

‘No,’ the Viking said, unmoving, ‘drink.’ He tilted the bowl slightly, Ida’s head stayed still, then she tasted the tea with her tongue. Nils tilted the bowl again and this time the old woman’s lips started moving. Before long the bowl was drained.

‘Now what?’ Hertha asked.

‘Just wait.’ Helga smiled and reached for Ida’s hands, feeling with her thumbs past the old woman’s gnarled knuckles to the sinewy wrists. Her eyes closed slowly.

‘. . . hungry,’ Ida whispered.

‘No wonder,’ Helga said, opening her eyes.

Hertha stared at them both for a moment, then she disappeared through the door.

‘How are you feeling?’ Helga scanned the frail old woman as she talked. ‘Headache? How is your stomach?’

‘I just said I was hungry, stripling,’ came the tart reply.

‘Oho! She’s better,’ Nils said, a smile breaking out on his bearded face, as Hertha emerged from the longhouse with two fist-sized rolls of bread, a dollop of butter and some quartered plums on a plank.

‘Here,’ she all but barked, handing it over to Ida, ‘eat.’

Helga glanced over at Nils, who was looking at the two women with affection. ‘The shrews of Rowan Glade,’ he said. ‘Never a kind word to each other, no one more true.’

He smiled as Hertha fussed over her old aunt. ‘This is good,’ he told Helga, and grabbing a hand-axe, left the women to it.

The farmwife turned from her aunt and looked Helga up and down, almost as if sizing her up. ‘You know, for a Norsewoman you’re not bad.’

Helga grinned. ‘Thank you,’ she said, looking down. ‘I should be going. Just remember, send for me if you need anything, or if Ida gets bad again.’

‘I will.’

Overhead, swallows swooped and dived on the summer wind.

*

The horse moved slowly, gently picking its way down the shadow-striped path from Rowan Glade. The sun sent cascades of green light shafting through the leaves to the forest floor, which was still moist and fresh from the night’s rainfall. She drew in a deep breath, feeling like she was sensing nature with every fibre of her body.

Beneath her, the horse snorted.

‘I agree,’ Helga said. ‘It’s beautiful here.’

Content with the response, the horse tossed her mane and continued walking. The rocking motion and the warmth of the big body set Helga to thinking, and she felt a familiar, pleasant tingle rise in her cheeks. ‘Only one day now,’ she said softly to the horse, then hummed, ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.’ There was an ache running throughout her body, which was almost unbearable. Almost. In a sense, the wait was sometimes nearly as delicious; it reminded her of the joy and relief of quenching a hard thirst with cool spring water.

‘Right, girl,’ she said, ‘enough of this dallying. So where do we find our bounty?’

The horse tilted her head and looked sideways at her.

‘Oh, forgive me, your Highness. Of course I should not bother you with such mundane questions.’

Grundle pulled on the reins and Helga stroked her neck. ‘All right, then – if that’s what you want, we’ll go down that way.’ The horse stepped away from the broad path; the thick underbrush meant the going was harder, but the beast was right. Her prey was more likely to be found away from the beaten track.

She peered through the trees until she spotted a sun-dappled glade, the perfect spot. The henbell’s distinctive long stalks, drooping cross-hatched flowers and spiky leaves were nestling in the grass away from the pine trees. She dismounted, but she didn’t need to tell the mare to stay clear; Grundle was already moving a little way back as Helga picked her way towards the flowers with her knife in hand, breathing shallowly as she muttered the old rhyme,

Touch of death and odours fell

When you pick the dreaded Bell.

She tried to ignore the bitter taste to the air around the plants as she knelt down and wrapped a long rag around each hand before going further. Only then did she slice the first stalk in half, taking care not to get any of the sticky juice on her flesh. That was bagged, then a little digging yielded the root too. She quickly dealt with another two plants, then retreated thankfully, already starting to feel giddy and slow. If she’d stayed much longer she might have had to deal with hallucinations, even nausea too. But once dried and used carefully – a tiny portion of the leaves to calm and soothe; a shaving of the roots to help with sleep – henbell was invaluable for any healer.

‘If I’d fallen asleep, you’d have had to come and get me,’ Helga said to Grundle. She got a snort in reply as they ambled back into the forest.

When they came across a field of motherwort beside a stream, the stern voice of the woman she’d thought of as her mother for most of her life came back to her: Stop fussing and drink the tea, girl. The cramps had been so bad she’d been doubled over, clenching her teeth so hard she thought they would break, but instead of sympathy – not that Hildigunnur had ever been big on sympathy – she had been brusquely assured that she wasn’t dying, offered a clean rag and then the tea. The smell had been bitter and the first sip unpleasant on the tongue, but then Hildigunnur had made great show of stirring a generous dollop of honey into the bowl, a high treat.

The jagged spikes of pain had dulled immediately and while the soreness and the squeezing feeling had remained, it had been nowhere near as unbearable. Thinking back on it, she wondered if that had been the moment – that actual tangible result – which had made her love the idea of being a healer. A day later, the cramps and tearing pains had all but vanished; there was still the blood, but nothing that couldn’t be managed.

She smiled at the memory as she sliced off the first of a dozen plants and bundled it into an empty bag.

Riverside had been kind to her, and so had the woman who had adopted her; she could admit that now.

Grundle turned a corner and Helga drew her breath in at the sight of the sun hitting a clump of tall, bright pink spikes. She dismounted and stroked the rough leaves beneath the speckled bell-shaped flowers hanging in ordered rows around a firm stalk; it looked like someone had taken great pains to arrange them in a regular pattern. ‘So who do you think named them foxgloves?’ she asked the horse, who sensibly ignored her.

Out came her knife and she cut a handful of the rough, thick leaves just at the base of the plant. A little could make a racing heart beat a little slower, but you couldn’t use more than two leaves at a time. ‘Quick and slow and big and small is far more good than none at all,’ she muttered to herself, smiling wryly at the memory of being forced to repeat the words over and over and over until she was sick of them.

Memories of Riverside had softened now. The first year away from the place she’d always thought of as home, at least until her siblings had come back for a family reunion, had been difficult. First she’d stayed with Thyri, Bjorn’s widow, and their idiot son Volund, a nice boy even if he’d long lost the wits the gods gave him. He was going to be a huge bear of a man like his father and as long as instructions were clear and simple and repeated enough times, he’d be able to help Thyri on the farm. However, when winter broke and spring started carving paths through the snow, Helga had felt the need to move on. She had fonder memories of the next year; Groa, the Eastmen’s cranky old healer had pretended not to like her for the longest time, but Hildigunnur had taught her to read people and she could see clear as day that the old woman had enjoyed the company. When Helga had found out that gossip was the old woman’s favourite thing, all manner of life wisdom had been grudgingly dispensed in return for rumours and stories, thinly disguised as chiding.

Decide at night, do in the morning.

If you find good water, drink it.

Leave the boys alone.

Well – two out of three wasn’t bad. She blushed at the sudden images in her head, although funnily enough, it was her skin that remembered most of it: strong bodies under fur, the feel of hot flesh on flesh, the pull of taut muscles, the heat, the musk . . . There had been a little blood at first, but Hildigunnur had warned her about that too, and ensured she’d never forget the recipe for particularly strong juniper tea that was ‘good for decision-making’. No young woman who came to Riverside left without the makings and instructions on what kind of night to use it after. It was months after she’d joined the Eastmen that she suddenly recalled how often she’d seen her mother brewing juniper tea for herself; what she’d learned by then made her smirk at the memory – and then she’d wondered, in a way that made her feel sad and happy at the same time, whether she looked anything like Hildigunnur when she did.

But the woman she’d come to know as her mother had lied to her and deceived her and there could be no returning. With all mothers and daughters there had to be some evasion of truth, she knew that much – but there was a limit.

Too much foxglove stops the heart.

Grundle walked up to her and nudged her shoulder.

‘Yes, yes,’ she said, ‘I know. I’m getting moody in my old age.’ She looked into the horse’s long-lashed eyes. ‘So you want to get going, girl, do you? You want to go home.’ She rose stiffly and remembered, too late, as always, that too much time foraging always turned her knees to wood. ‘Well, so do I.’

She hauled herself a little gracelessly onto Grundle’s patient back and moments later they were heading home at a nicely paced walk.

The forest gave her all it could: rich scents, riotous bird song, surprise patches of blooming flowers. She smiled and allowed Grundle’s rhythmic motion to lull her half asleep, her thoughts idling like fish lazily circling in a pond. On occasion the sun would pierce the leaf cover, bathing her in bright light and a gentle warmth.

Life is good, she thought, feeling the herb bags bouncing gently against her hips, stuffed with the day’s bounty, and that in turn made her think again of what was to come when she got home and somewhere just under her navel there was a tingling and a tightening of muscles.

Life is good indeed.

*

The gaps between the tall trees gradually widened, letting in more sunlight, and what had been a beaten path more used by beasts than men was unmistakeably now a road. Helga could see familiar shapes in the woods now – a crooked branch, signs of a stag sharpening his horns – which she greeted like old friends.

I’m home. Even though three years was no time at all in the kingdom of King Eirik, as she was so often reminded, and even though the older ones still weren’t quite sure about her, on account of her coming from the west – most of them still called her ‘that Norsewoman’ or, she strongly suspected, ‘that Norse witch’ when she was far enough away – she still felt at home here.

And there it was: the first flash of bright light shining through the trees. She still wasn’t used to how the chains sparkled and twisted in the wind like living things, but she recalled how frightened she’d felt when she’d first seen the enormous hall. Back then Uppsala had felt so terrifyingly big and crowded, with people shoving and swearing at her at every turn. She’d managed to keep a brave face, that first day, until she knew she had to get away; she’d told her travelling companions she was going to tend to the horses and ran off to the stable, where she’d indulged herself in a short but heavy bout of tears, then worked on fighting back the rising fear and the throbbing headache. Her overwhelmed senses had been so crowded with sights and smells and the sheer weight of noise, all intermingling and overlapping.

It had taken a horse, nudging her from behind, gently reminding her that she was within reach of feed, to help her overcome that cold fright.

She reached down and patted Grundle’s flank. ‘That’s where we met, wasn’t it? You were my first friend.’ The horse snorted. ‘And even though I really wanted to, I didn’t run away.’ She could see more blue sky now, and ahead, fields of green and gold. ‘I didn’t,’ she repeated, more forcibly.

She relaxed in the saddle and allowed the horse to lead, thinking happily, I could fall asleep right now and wake up at home. Everything was alive around her. She drew a deep breath and cl. . .