Historical Setting: An unknown time in a cold land
Back into the woods, I’m searching for more firewood. I find lots of tracks in the snow, and here is that pit trap for large beasts. Fresh blood tells of a beast that was killed here and taken away on a sled – maybe it was the sled I already know too well. The tracks in the snow indicate the place where the work was done, drawing a very large animal up from this hole using ropes and chain. And maybe I know that same chain, intimately. This close edge of forest is already picked clean of fallen logs and to find firewood without an ax I will have to walk deeper into the wood.
This oak and ash forest does go deep. The hardwood is heavy, but I know it burns long and hot for winter fires. When I have a few bundles collected, I gather them into a pack and trek back over my own tracks.
By the light of this second day here I see what goes on in this little house of Smiðr. He is an artist — a carver of wood. He has a steady hand and a whetstone always sharpening the blades. He has a focus and intensity; he sees nothing around him. His worktable faces a thick glass window so he can seize every second of sunlight even in the sparse hours of a winter’s day.
He seems not to notice Marian who goes about the tasks of a thrall, fetching water, stirring the fire, soaking the beans for supper, sweeping up the wood shavings on the hardened dirt of floor. For such a young girl – a child yet — she takes these chores on herself without orders.
I commend her and offer to be helpful. She tells me there has been no bathing in this house since she has been here and maybe even before that. I kind of guessed as much from the human stench. She says she sometimes meets other thralls of these houses at the fresh creek where they fetch water. In the winter, the luxury of bathing is done with a wood half barrel which is shared from one house to the next and filled with water heated with a kettle on the fires.
It requires lots of lifting and pouring hot water – she could use the shared half barrel if someone were to help lift it.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 