I looked away, brushing off Iri’s shoulders, and brought the braids to lie down his back. He stood, taking the Riki armor vest from the table and fitting it over the fine tunic. He didn’t look at me as I reached up to buckle the sides, his eyes strained behind the strength painted on his face.
I tightened the straps around his thick torso, remembering. I did the same thing before battle five years ago, in the darkness of our father’s tent. Hours later, Iri was gone.
Once he was dressed, he picked up a round, flat black stone from the table and rubbed his thumb over its surface where worn letters were carved. He looked at it for a moment before tucking it into his vest.
“You did a good job on these.” Inge worked at Fiske’s armor. “They’re cleaner than they’ve been in years.”
Hearing her say it made me wish I hadn’t done it.
When they were dressed, Inge looked them over carefully, turning them each around and inspecting them.
Halvard still watched from the floor, his face sleepy. “When do I get to go fight?”
“Never.” Iri half-smiled.
In five years, he’d be old enough. But the young ones only finished off the fallen on the battlefield. It would be ten years before he was allowed on the front line.
Inge held out a folded length of cloth to me, tied with a strand of twine. “Here.”
I didn’t take it.
Her face twisted, confused. “It’s a dress.”
“For what?” I looked down at it.
“For Adalgildi.” Halvard stood, unfolding the length of it to show me. It was a plain black wool dress with long sleeves and a long, full skirt. Little white bone buttons ran up the front torso in a simple, neat line.
I swallowed, shaking my head. “No.”
“Well, you can’t wear that.” Inge’s eyes dropped down to my tunic, armor vest, and pants. The same clothes I went to battle in.
“I’m not going.”
The edge came into her voice. “I didn’t ask.”
I looked at Iri but he was looking at Fiske.
My stomach dropped, my mouth going dry. I couldn’t go to a Riki ceremony. Especially one honoring their warriors. Sigr wouldn’t like it.
“She’ll offend her god.” Iri spoke my thoughts aloud.
“All the dyrs go. You’ll have to serve. And you can’t go into the ritual house like that.”
I stepped back. “No.”
“Aska.” Fiske’s booming reproach cut into the room, his eyes fixed on me, and I flinched.
The others, too, were staring. Halvard’s mouth hung open. The blood drained from my face.
Fiske had his hands resting on his belt, his chest pulling beneath his fitted tunic. “You’re going to the ceremony. You’ll serve. You’ll wear the dress.”
I gritted my teeth, hearing the seething of my soul inside my head. Because I didn’t care if a collar hung around my neck. I wasn’t their dyr.
“And if I don’t?” I stared back at him, my nostrils flaring.
The cold, hard set of his eyes bore down on me with his answer: I’d be punished. By him. And if I wasn’t punished for deliberately disobeying, Inge would know something wasn’t right. All of the Riki would.
Behind him, Iri was looking at me, his eyes tight. Begging me to obey.
I twisted the dress in my sweaty hands and swallowed hard before I turned for the loft.
Inge watched me climb. “I told you,” she whispered. “She’s got fire in her blood, Fiske.”
I pulled my clothes off, throwing them onto my cot, and stepped into the dress. I hadn’t worn one since before the fighting season, when our clan sent off the warriors to battle. I clasped the buttons and tied the waist, cinching the fabric around my body. The neck was wide and open, letting the collar sit completely visible.
I looked down at it with a sneer. At least it was warm.
When I climbed back down the ladder with the length of the skirt gathered in my arms, Iri and Fiske were gone and Runa was rolling the cedar garlands into circles and piling them on top of each other. She smiled at me softly.
“Runa, do something with her hair,” Inge said, pushing past me to the loft.
Runa dropped the garlands and came to the table, waiting for me. I glared at her before I sat. When she touched me, the tension shot through my whole body. I closed my eyes, feeling her hands in my hair, pulling at it with hooked fingers to unravel the old, tangled braids. She brushed it out, taking the ends in her hands and pulling the comb through as I stared into the fire.
When she stopped moving, I looked back at her. She was staring at the strip of hair along the right side of my head that was shorn over my ear. “Is that how Aska women wear their hair?” she asked.
I reached up to rub my hand over it out of habit.
She mussed the strands until it was thick and wild on top and then she braided behind my left ear, taking it around the back of my head and then over my right shoulder. She was slow and precise, taking care to braid it correctly with thin, intricate strands. When she was finished, she tied the end and stood back to look at me.
She picked up the jar of kol from the table and opened it. “The Aska wear this, don’t they?”
I looked from the jar up to her, trying to figure out what she was doing. Why she was being kind. But her face didn’t betray her thoughts. She dipped her fingers into the jar and then ran them around my eyes, darkening the skin and then dragging her thumbs down the center of my cheeks in a line. Something about it made the twisting in my muscles let go a little. It felt familiar. I closed my eyes, remembering Myra in the dark of our tent, painting the kol onto my face. And then I opened them, the vision stinging too badly to hold in my mind.
Runa went back to her work on the garlands and I came to stand beside her, taking one into my hands and winding it up the way she had. Halvard shoved the door open, running in and then stopping short, his mouth falling open.
Inge came down the ladder, dressed in a dark purple dress.
“Look at her, Mama.” Halvard was still staring at me.
Behind him, Fiske and Iri came through the door and they, too, stopped to look at me, stiffening. I kept my eyes down, working at the garlands and trying to cool the red blooming over my face. Letting them dress me up for their feast was humiliating. And seeing them look at me like they liked it made me want to cut my own hands off.
Inge handed Fiske and Halvard baskets, pushing them out the door. Then she pointed to the others on the table. “Bring them up.”
Iri picked up a basket and handed it to me. “You look pretty.” The smile on his face made him look like a little boy.
I looked him up and down before my eyes met his, the anger inside of me coming back to life. “You look like a Riki.”
FOURTEEN
I stood at the entrance of the ritual house in the falling snow, holding the basket piled high with yarrow. The huge archway was a detailed carving of the mountain, the trees etched into it in slanted patterns and the face of Thora, mouth full of fire. Her wide, piercing eyes stared down at me, her teeth bared. In each outstretched hand, she held the head of a bear.
The walls were constructed of huge tree trunks, much bigger than the trees that surrounded the village. Through the doorway, a blazing fire burned in the center of the chamber and elk antlers holding candlesticks hung down from the ceiling. The heat poured out the door, warming the back of me as clusters of snowflakes clung to my dress. Out in the distance, a storm moved toward Fela, carrying a heavier snowfall within its dark clouds. One that would seal me into the village for the winter.
Another dyr held a basket of yarrow on the other side of the archway. Her eyes stayed on the ground, her body perfectly still. She wore a gray wool dress similar to mine, her hair braided back tightly. The collar around her neck was smoothed from years of wear and her blank, empty face said the same thing.
The Riki made their way up the incline in the snow, and my gaze flitted to the forest. A horde of my enemies was moving toward me, weapons strapped to their bodies and I stood there holding a basket of flowers. What was to stop one of them from throwing me on the fire?