Chapter 15
ERANN
‘Shouldn’t you be reading, young Erann?’ Anya looked up from the hare she was skinning and pinned Erann with a knowing look.
‘I am reading,’ he protested. He twisted on his father’s high stool, trying to get comfortable, the pile of scripts laid out in front of him on the large wooden family table.
‘You’re daydreaming.’ Anya scoffed. She’d been the family’s servant for longer than Erann could remember. She often seemed to understand what he was thinking before he did herself. ‘How many more scripts do you have to get through then?’
‘I don’t know.’ Erann flicked through the pages. ‘Quite a few.’
Anya tutted but threw him a small peat cake to nibble on and winked. ‘To keep your strength up.’
‘They’re so boring,’ Erann whined.
‘Don’t let your father hear you,’ Ingun said softly, but she was smiling.
She sat on the other side of the table by the massive hearth nursing his new baby brother, born earlier that day, when the candles had been fresh.
Now they were about halfway down their length, the only way to tell how long each day was at this time of the rotation.
At Ingun’s feet, Erann’s sister, Aras, happily played with her little doll, which she’d been given in anticipation of the new baby’s arrival.
Even to his eyes, his mother was beautiful. She had luxurious auburn hair, lying unbound over their one high-backed wooden chair. Her eyes flashed a smile at him, more than aware he should be reading, but too content to chastise him.
His sister was small and petite, a perfect miniature of his mother, apart from her stormy blue eyes.
She played quietly at her mother’s feet, whispering to her doll.
He was jealous his sister could play dollies while he had to read the scripts.
The entries were so monotonous he couldn’t imagine there was anything contained within them that needed to be known.
A gust of wind ran through the room, guttering the candles but not extinguishing them. Erann jumped up to hold all the scripts down. That would be his father, bringing new bags of peat to be laid to dry inside the many compartments beside the hearth.
Erann hastily restacked the scripts on the table and rushed to help.
Ramon was dragging bags through the exterior door at the end of the tunnel.
Erann glanced outside as he joined him, only to be met with snow and the same impenetrable dark that had been their constant companion for more days than he cared to remember.
He shivered as the deep cold of the outside wrapped itself around him because he only wore his indoor clothes.
His father pushed the outer door shut against the force of the swirling wind and wedged the large bolt of wood into place to keep the outer door shut against its onslaught.
Quickly, Erann handed him the rags used to block the door frame to ensure no stray gusts of wind penetrated the steading.
Only when that was done did Ramon turn to him with a smile.
‘Thanks for your help, Erann. That wind’s much stronger than yesterday, a sign we’re still a long way from the Dawning of the Long Day. More’s the pity. Here you go, you can go and sort that bag of peat for me while I check on your mother.’
Erann dragged one of the sacks towards the hearth over the shining wooden floorboards, buffed to such a sheen it was almost easy to pull the heavy sack.
Ramon dumped the other two bags inside the inner door, turning to bar it against the wind and driving snow. It wasn’t as firmly closed as the outer door, for the latrines were in the small entrance tunnel, but it was worth the effort of barring the door closed until such time as they were needed.
His father removed the layers of wolf and hare fur wrapping him tightly and hung them near the hearth to warm and dry.
Erann reached the hearth and stood for a moment, enjoying the heat.
The hearth was one of the largest he’d ever seen, but no matter how high they piled the peat, the heat never reached every corner of their steading.
The area by the door was always colder, and so were the sleeping quarters in the loft.
Although his father assured him that the heat from the hearth rose to warm the sleeping loft, Erann wasn’t at all convinced, especially when it came time to change his underclothes during the coldest days of the Long Night.
The hearth filled the entire wall along the middle of the steading with the living quarters on one side and the animals housed on the other, cut off from the living quarters by a thick turf and wooden wall, only accessible by going outside.
They also benefited from the heat. The animals were lucky because they had heavy coats that grew in for each Long Night, and didn’t need the heat from the hearth as he did.
Erann was glad his family didn’t have to live with the stink of the animals like some did.
Erann bent and opened the bottom drawer of the hearth, the warmest drawer of all.
It was where all new peat retrieved from storage was placed.
He pulled out the peat that had been put there previously, before replacing it.
By the time he’d finished, he was hot, and sweat trickled down his back.
He opened another of the cupboards by the side of the roaring fire and began putting the ready-to-burn fuel in there.
It was easier to reach when it was time to replenish the fire.
As he finished, he turned to look at his father, who was now gazing fondly at the small bundle in his mother’s arms. His father was a huge man, with powerful, muscled arms and a hard stomach from rotations of the heavy labouring on the steading.
He had deep brown hair reaching his shoulders and bright green eyes, which mirrored Erann’s own.
His face was covered by a large auburn beard and moustache. His voice and laugh were deep and booming, and Erann knew he was doing his best to be quiet and gentle around his new son, Hakon.
Not wishing to disturb his father, Erann went back to the door to fetch one of the other bags and put its contents to dry. He bent to drag the bag, but it was too heavy. Although Erann strained, he was unable to move it. He turned to see his father standing behind him, smiling.
‘I think it’ll be a bit heavy for you. Even I struggled to bring it in. Come on, I’m neglecting my chores, and so are you. I’ll take over. You can get on with your reading.’
Erann tried to stifle a groan and failed.
‘I know it’s boring. Believe me. I remember being your age and thinking it was the worst punishment imaginable. I’ll tell you what, you sit down and I’ll put this away and then try and find something more exciting.’
With that, his father effortlessly picked up the bag of peat, his forearms tensing as he slung it over his back. Erann returned to the table and once more sorted through the stack of scripts to find the one he’d been reading. With a guilty pang, he realised they were no longer in order.
But before he could fix them, his father flopped heavily onto the small stool next to him. The cold outside had reddened his cheeks, so every available surface was either covered in red or the auburn of his beard and moustache. Erann suppressed a grin. He looked remarkably like a summer fox.
‘Oh, Erann, how many times do I have to tell you to keep these in the correct order?’ his father complained.
‘Sorry, but they got a bit disturbed when you opened the door,’ he answered with a rueful grin. His father wasn’t cruel, but sometimes he was more likely to chastise than see the humour in a situation.
‘Never mind, son, I can sort them out soon enough, although it’d be good if I didn’t have to every time you read them. I’m glad you only have one pile out; otherwise, it’d take half a day. I agree that all that son of son stuff can be a bit much at your age.’
‘Maybe a little.’ Erann laughed.
‘Here you go, this one’s quite interesting, I promise.
’ His father handed him a smallish piece of script.
The scripts were all an assortment of shapes and sizes, some tied together with strips of hide, while others were simply one piece, carefully rolled to preserve the contents.
This was one of those scripts, and it was so small it was almost impossible to flatten without fear of cracking the old page.
‘If you can read it before supper, you can stop until tomorrow. Agreed?’ His father offered him a stern glance. Erann nodded too eagerly. But his father was already flicking through his small brown journal Erann often admired, and he didn’t see.
He’d asked about the journal before. His father’s reply had been less than forthcoming.
‘I’ll tell you when it’s time. Now promise me you’ll never touch it.
’ The caution hadn’t stopped him from opening the journal one day when his father had left it on the wooden table.
He’d closed it before reading anything, but he still remembered the smooth, creamy pages and the soft and biddable leather cover.
Erann read the script as promised, the words easy to decipher, for once.
This was told to me by Swein, son of Olaf, who witnessed this event for himself.
We left our homeland in the early days of spring, and after many days at sea during which we experienced storms and lost many of our ships, we came ashore here.
The land was fertile and uninhabited, and life was excellent for many rotations until the Arrival of the drekki.
It was decided that we would stay. They were not happy with our decision and left us to our fate.
This was written in the twenty-fifth Rotation after our coming here.
Erann blinked and read the script again.
The Arrival of the drekki? He’d never heard of that.
What did the word even mean? And who wasn’t happy?
He turned to ask his father about it, but Ramon had disappeared.
Erann heard his creaking footsteps above in the small loft area that served as their sleeping quarters.