Kama. Terese Brasen

In the convent, Mother had learned the ‘meaning of obedience,’ but to her true husband, she showed no allegiance or obedience. All she did was scream and complain. She wanted Kama to be as weak and unhappy as her, kneeling every day on hard floors, mumbling prayers to a dead warrior, who hung up high on a stone cross.

      “You're the shrew,” Kama said. Mother stood still. The semidarkness hid her face, but Kama could see tears on her cheeks. Kama had launched that arrow intentionally. She saw the situation clearly. Although Mother wrapped herself in godliness, what she really wanted was Father’s attention. To do that, she was willing to trick him. It didn’t matter who she hurt.

      “That may be true,” Mother said. She closed the curtain to her bed closet. The wooden rings dragged along the rod. Kama stood and left the townhouse for the barn and her horse Thor. Normally, she would brush his mane, pump water and bring it to him, but tonight, she didn’t even light a lantern. She sat in the dank, uncomfortable space. Thor snorted. Moonlight eased in over the low door.

      3

      The next day, Katerine watched a crow as it landed in the shutter. She saw its beady eyes. It had come to warn her. God had seen too much sin. Naked men and women lusting after each other. The snow had come early. It would continue to fall. She imagined Kama in the forest. There are eyes like bright flames between the trees. The stares flare up and consume the woods. Kama cannot run fast enough. The passage to Hedeby was fraught with such danger. Katerine could see what others couldn’t. Her knife sliced through the onion. Cut marks marred the wooden board. Her mind would not be still. In her thoughts, she saw Sigtrygg and heard his words: Nothing has changed.

      In the spring, the melting snow would flood all of Kiev. She understood the crow’s glance. She saw the waters rising. It washes through the streets. It pours in through shutters. It drowns the citizens of Kiev and silences their cries.

      Katerine remembered the words again. Nothing has changed. His words yanked at her. Every thought ran back to him and his insistence. If nothing changed, she was doomed. She would go hungry again. Sleep under benches. Dress in rags. Beg for scraps. The black bird peered inside. Its feathers were very blue in the light. Why could nothing change? Katerine hacked the onion into tiny pieces. She kept seeing his face. She watched his mouth open and close. The words fell out. Nothing has changed. What did he mean? So much had changed. But not for the better. He had switched from bold Sigtrygg to cowardly Sigtrygg—Sigtrygg son of Astrid the Dane. He had changed and now he couldn’t change back, he said.

      The crow’s eyes met her own. Whose spirit had taken the shape of a bird and was now inspecting her situation? What was it saying? She didn’t need to ask. I will do as you say, she told the bird. She would stop the evil that blustered into Kiev and brought with it lust and danger. She threw the onions in the bubbling cauldron. Next she would chop the herbs. First she shook each dried bunch over the pot, letting loose leaves fall into the broth. Then she worked fast, moving the sharp metal over stems until they became powdery pieces. She scooped the herbs up with the side of the blade and tossed them into the stew.

      She needed to sit for a while. Sigtrygg found the flavors of Constantinople irresistible. Only she could recreate them. She closed her eyes. Now was the time. The crow cawed. She couldn’t wait for summer and Astrid. The real danger was now.

      SLAUGHTER MONTH KIEV 934 CE

      Kama opened Mother’s silver box. Flat glass decorated the lid. Lines of gold connected the orange, blue, green and red pieces. Hinges held the lid open. Inside was a glass mirror and small cups of colored powder, red creamy paint, charcoal sticks and brushes. All seemed new and almost untouched.

      Everyone was preparing for the long cold ahead. Animals were sacrificed every day. The ice had closed in. Father would wait now in Kiev until the river melted. Every day Mother brewed her concoction. She blended yellow and crimson powders into a bittersweet broth with almonds and figs and chickens. She tried to lure Father back with the irresistible broth. Every day she sent Kama to the Big House with a jar for Father. Kama hated these errands. Often he was still in bed, and she would leave the container outside the chamber, and then pick up yesterday’s jar, knowing that this could go on and on all winter.

      She always debated what to wear. Should she dress in finery, just to prove she was Kama, Sigtrygg’s daughter, and had the judgment and grace to be a princess? Would arriving in a lavish dress demonstrate how absurd and out of place Father’s demands were here, where there were no kings and queens, just hunters who lived in huts? Father referred to the Norse people as ‘those who eat with their hands,’ contrasting the Vikings with the east where forks were the norm. He wanted Kama to learn refinements, not fall into this crude, sub-standard way of living, but this was all Kama really knew, and she had difficulty understanding the nuances that characterized “refinement.”

      Today Kama had decided on a temple ring. Would he behave better with witnesses around or would he bash her about publicly? If Father were still asleep when she arrived, she would wait and present herself as a tribe’s woman. She would stand up to him and say, You can’t tell me how to behave. I’ll decide who I am. She had gathered a collection of temple rings and planned to show off a new one every day. Now she was shading her lids with blue, drawing thin dark circles around her eyes, smearing red on her lips and rubbing color into her cheeks. When she was done, she would carefully place one of her newly purchased temple rings over her forehead. She would complete the costume by adding a fur-trimmed vest stitched with pictures of birds and wolves.

      Kama prepared. Mother’s aromatic stew bubbled. Kama sat at Mother’s sewing table and used the small vanity lid to scrutinize her work. She braided her hair, partitioning it into sections, twisting each into a circle and pinning it in place. She wished she had asked for help from one of the tribe’s women who knew this old and characteristic way of parting and arranging. She completed the plan inside the bed closet. There she pulled on knitted stockings and then a dress that was actually two parts, a bottom that hooked at the waist, and a top that tucked in.

      Mother had paced all morning, singing, although a little out of tune. The high notes seemed too sharp and the tempo erratic.

      Finally, Mother called, “Can you come now?”

      When Kama stepped out of the closet, Mother was standing, holding the jar by its handle, ready to pass it on, so Kama could begin her errand to the Big House, but then everything was wrong, and Mother was shouting, “You can’t go out of the house like that!”

      “Like what?”

      “Like a slut,” Mother said, using the Norse word for mud and dirt.

      “You’re the slut,” Kama said. She yanked the stew from Mother and slammed the door behind her.

      Kama didn’t run, afraid to spill her delivery, but she was walking very quickly with long forceful steps, her thoughts preoccupied with the moment of glory when she would pronounce her defiance to Father. Then a small body slammed into her. The woman was running so fast, she couldn’t slow down.

      “You’re Kama?” she said. She had short hair and a body the size of a child’s, but she was a grown woman with worry in her eyes.

      “I’m Kama,” she answered, disappointed that even this stranger had recognized her.

      “You must come,” she said, pulling her arm and pointing toward the Big House. Kama didn’t ask, just followed, hurrying to keep up. The woman took Kama’s jar, showing she was a servant accustomed to taking care of other people’s chores. She led her to Father’s back room. On the bed lay Father, but he had become an old man, face was covered with red sores. A compress covered his forehead, a sign of fever. How many days had it been since Kama had seen him? How many days had she simply left the jar and returned home?

      “He will die,” the woman murmured, and Kama asked, “Who did this?” Men did not die from mysterious illnesses. Swords and axes took their lives.

      “No one did this,” the woman replied. Then Kama saw a dish on the floor. Father had clearly pushed it off his bed. Spilled broth had begun to dry. Stew. And in the corner nearby were two dead mice. Poison. The room smelled like Father,