Bracelet of Bones by Kevin Crossley-Holland Read Free Book Online Page A

you,” Red Ottar replied. “That’s the trouble with you, Bergdis. You talk too much.”
    “I say no,” Bergdis repeated with a gleam in her eye.
    “To business,” said Red Ottar. “The girl’s following her father, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But loyalty and high hopes, they only get you so far.”
    “Without them,” said Solveig, “you get nowhere.”
    “Well?” he inquired.
    “Solveig,” she said, her voice strong and bright.
    Red Ottar smiled through his mustache and red-gold beard. “And trust,” he said. “That’s another stepping-stone. Loyalty and high hopes and trust, they’ll get you a long way, but not half as far as Miklagard.” Then the skipper gaveTurpin a crafty look. “So,” he said, “how come she matters so much to you?”
    Turpin lowered his eyes.
    “What’s she to you?” Red Ottar persisted.
    “She reminds me,” Turpin said, and he gave a very deep sigh. “And she’s to me what she must be to every man aboard.” Turpin gave the handsome young man a long, meaningful look. “I want your word and hand on it.”
    “We’re going to Kiev,” Red Ottar said briskly.
    “Kiev!” exclaimed Turpin.
    “There’s always a first time. More risk, but more money.”
    “Kiev,” Turpin explained to Solveig. “That’s south, far south. Beyond Ladoga. Beyond Novgorod.”
    “I know,” Solveig said. “Yaroslav’s the king there.”
    Red Ottar raised his eyebrows in surprise.
    “My father told me. It’s more than halfway to Miklagard.”
    “I’ll throw in extra skins, my friend,” offered Turpin.
    “You will, my friend,” replied Red Ottar in a dry voice. “You will! And we’ll throw her overboard if she doesn’t pull her weight.” He looked around his crew of traders. “Yes . . .” he said slowly. “No . . . I see some of you want her aboard and some do not. Some for the right reasons, some for the wrong ones.” The skipper turned back to Turpin. “All right!” he said. “We’ll decide tonight. Come back first thing.”

6

    S olveig sat up half the night, carving by the light of the fire. First she cut the teeth in the maple comb to honor her part of the bargain with the three traders, and then she turned to the walrus-tusk flute.
    Carving and looking forward . . .
    I don’t know what Red Ottar will decide, she thought. That big woman with the fish hands, she’s against me. Vigot is really handsome, but he knows that he is, and I don’t quite trust him. But what if they decide not to take me? What will I do then?
    Looking forward and looking back . . . I don’t feel bad about leaving Asta. She won’t mind that I’ve gone. But I feel sad when I think of her sitting at home without a man. Some people do things, but others, like Asta, have things done to them. That’s when despair darkens the doorstep.
    At dawn, Solveig gave the walrus-tusk flute to Turpin.
    “To play a dawn song to lighten your day,” she told him.
    Turpin frowned. “Who says I’m sad?”
    “I do.”
    Then Turpin gave Solveig a grave look and, after that, a bear hug. “May the gods guide you to your father,” he said.
    While it was still very early, Solveig and the fur traders walked back along the lakeshore past the granary and malt house to Red Ottar’s storehouse, and Solveig was carrying her small bundle of clothes, her reindeer skin, and her sack of bones.
    “All right,” announced Red Ottar. “We’ve decided to take you.”
    Solveig’s heart lurched.
    “Not,” he added, “that we all wanted to. Not by any means.”
    That big woman, thought Solveig. Who else?
    “But a crew’s a crew,” the skipper went on. “We all pull together.”
    “I’ll pull with you,” Solveig said.
    “You will,” Red Ottar replied. And then he turned to the big woman. “Bergdis,” he said with an upthrust of his head. “And you, Odindisa.”
    Slothi’s wife and Bergdis stepped forward and stood on either side of Solveig.
    “Behold!” exclaimed Red Ottar.