Bjorn took charge of their mounts while Rika and
Al-Amin climbed the winding staircase to the third floor.
“I’m back, Helge,” Rika called out when she reentered her suite. There was no answer. She pulled the
bourka
over her head. “Helge?”
A muffled moan came from the old woman’s small chamber. Rika dashed toward the sound with Al-Amin
at her heels. Helge lay abed, her face ashen, her lips a
rictus of pain around blue-tinged gums.
“What’s wrong?” Rika dropped to her knees by her friend’s bed.
“Little Elf,” she breathed. “I feel myself going, so I do. It’s sorry I am to leave you, lamb.”
“But you were fine this morning—”
“Ja,
I was. I felt that well myself, so I nipped down
to the bathhouse for a quick soak.” Helge’s tongue
flicked out to wet her dry lips. “When I came back to
the apartment, someone had left us a tray of sweetmeats, and you know I don’t hold with most of this
foreign food, but I do dearly love those sweetmeats.”
She rolled her eyes toward Al-Amin. “Best you throw
the rest of them out.”
“Helge, what are you saying?”
The old woman’s thin frame was wracked by a convulsion and she couldn’t speak.
“She’s saying my lady has an enemy within the
house,” Al-Amin said woodenly. “The food was poisoned. I will see to it immediately.”
Before he could turn to go, Helge reached out a clawed hand and grabbed his wrist. “Watch her for me,” she rasped.
The eunuch nodded solemnly. “Depend upon it.”
Rika’s throat constricted. “Oh, Helge.” She dissolved in sobs.
“There now. Little Elf, don’t take on so,” her voice was
thin, already disembodied. “I was there when you
opened your eyes, so I was. Now you’re here to close
mine. It’s fitting.”
“What will I do without you?” Rika realized how
she’d come to depend on Helge, even to enjoy her chattering and scolding. It had been nice to have someone to fuss over her, someone to
mother
her. Magnus had been wonderful, but Rika had never known a woman’s gentle care till Helge came to fret over
and coddle her. And now, the old woman was dying
because Rika had attracted a deadly foe. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.” Rika buried her face on Helge’s
bony chest.
“Hush, child.” Helge laid a thin hand on
Rika’s head. “
I’ll
not have you thinking that. But if you
would make an old woman happy, there is something you could do for me.”
Rika raised up to look into Helge’s pale eyes.
“Forgive your father, lamb.” Her chest tremored with a suppressed spasm. “Not because he deserves it, even though he does. The punishment that man has laid on himself over the years was far more than you
could dish out for him, so it was. Forgive him for
yourself.”
“Helge, I—”
“Don’t let the root of bitterness take hold of your
heart, Little Elf.” Her voice drifted to a mere whisper. “It’s stronger than Yggdrasil once it takes a firm hold and it’ll only tear you apart piece by piece, like a root rips through rock.”
“I’ll try.” Rika forced the words out.
“That’ll do, lamb.” Helge breathed deeply, pulling
Rika close to her heart again. The old woman
patted Rika’s hair in slow, feather-light strokes. Then
Helge rested her bony hand on Rika’s head. “
Ja,
that’ll do.”
Her old friend fell silent and it took Rika a moment
to realize that Helge’s chest no longer rose and fell.
Tears pushed at her eyes, stinging, demanding to be re
leased. There seemed not to be any air in the small
room. Rika gasped, then collapsed in ragged sobs and
wept for Helge.
After she cried herself out, she felt Al-Amin’s hand on her shoulder. Her gut churned and her ears burn. Grief turned to anger. “Who has done this thing?”
“I shall try to find out, but it will be difficult, for such
a one who could lay a trap of this kind is also capable
of covering all trace of blame.” Al-Amin sounded weary.
“Once I tell Farouk-Azziz, he will be furious,” she
said with surety. “It was someone in this house, you
said. The hospitality of Farouk’s household has been
compromised. He’ll force the truth from them.”
“He would try, and no doubt someone would con
fess to the crime, but I promise you, my lady, it would
not be the guilty party. Such things are arranged for a price and the family of the confessor would reap the
benefits, but we would be no wiser and you no safer.”
The eunuch leaned down and covered Helge’s body
with a fine linen sheet.
“Then what can we do?”
“Do? We do nothing, my lady,” Al-Amin said. “Your
safety now lies in subterfuge. The death of an old
woman will cause little comment and the killer will wonder whether the poison went astray, but he or she
will not know for certain. By not raising an outcry, we will not put them on alert. They will think themselves safe to try again and, trust me, they will assuredly try
again.”
“So far, you give me no comfort,” Rika said, wiping her eyes with an end of the sheet.
“But
we
will be on alert, my lady,” Al-Amin said. “You will eat nothing that I myself have not prepared
for you. I will accompany you at
all
times.” He gnawed
his bottom lip for a moment, then gazed at her with a
directness that unnerved her. “There will be no more
late-night baths.”
Panic flooded through her. Al-Amin knew. But when
she met his eyes, they were an unreadable blank slate.
“Agreed,” she said.
“In this household, you may trust myself and the
master. I know you have
little
to do with him, but I’m
sure your father, Torvald, would see to your safety as
well.” Al-Amin ticked the names off on his fingers.
Then his features drew up into a grimace of distaste. “I
suppose we may also rely on the Norse barbarian and his
friend, that little Roman priest.”
“I’m sure we can,” Rika agreed.
“All others are suspect,” Al-Amin said. “Please be
guided by me in this, my lady. I would see you safe
and, to my mind, only one thing will accomplish
it.”
“What is that?”
“You must leave this house, my mistress,” he said
sadly. “You must return to the North. I believe it is in your mind to do this thing, is it not?”
“You know me well, Al-Amin.”
The eunuch sighed. “Then I will help you, my lady. I have but one request.”
“By now, you know that I can deny you very little.”
Al-Amin rubbed his hands together quickly. “I have always heard that the North is very, very cold, and undoubtedly no pistachios will grow there, but when you
go,” he smiled at her sadly, “please take me with you.”
Rika threw her arms around Al-Amin’s neck. “Of
course you will come and we will buy you new clothes,
very warm clothes. Perhaps you will learn to love
hazelnuts just as much as pistachios.”
Overwhelmed by her display, he let himself pat her
back stiffly. “And now, my lady, we must see to Lady
Helge’s final resting. Shall I arrange for her to be in
terred in one of the mausoleums or would you prefer
she be buried outside the city gates?”
“That is not the way of the Norse people. We do not leave our loved ones under the ground to become food
for worms,” Rika said. “Neither do we keep them in
stone boxes to molder and decay. We send them to
Paradise on the wind with dignity and with fire.”
“My lady?”
“Send for Torvald,” she said decisively. “I need to speak with ... my father.”
Compromises had to be made. In accordance with Farouk
’s customs, Helge’s funeral was a rushed affair. In the North, her body would have been interred in the
cold, black earth for ten days while graveclothes were
fashioned and suitable belongings assembled. In a frigid climate, the old woman’s body would darken, but not decay, in that short length of time.
But Islam decreed a quick disposition of a dead body, so Helge would be sent off in the clothes she
died in. Rika conceded that the rich
silk
was certainly
fine enough. In Sognefjord, a soul boat would have
been specially constructed to bear Helge’s remains to
her reward, but Rika had to settle for Torvald purchasing a small coracle from a boatwright in the Harbor of
Theodosius.
“Your devotion to a servant is striking,” Farouk-Azziz said, as he walked beside Rika in the small pro
cession. His tone told her he also found her devotion
unnecessary. Ahead of them, Bjorn, Torvald, Al-Amin
and the priest bore the slight burden of Helge’s corpse
on a flat slab of wood as they marched slowly toward
the harbor. In their other hands, they each carried a
lighted torch.
“She was more than a servant. She was my friend.” Rika clutched the armful of
evergreen branches closer to her, inhaling the fresh clean scent. It cleared her head. In the face of death, the living always took refuge in enhanced delight of the senses.
She was grateful for the way the
bourka
shielded
her from the stares of the curious. She’d heard the ca
cophonous wailing of paid mourners, trailing caskets
in funeral processions through the city. It seemed false
to her. Her grief was private and not the subject of public display.
The
bourka
also allowed her to gage Farouk’s expres
sions unremarked. The Arab was clearly ill at ease. She
knew he considered this ritual thoroughly pagan. Mus
lims, Christians, and Jews alike all held burning a body
abhorrent. Nonetheless, a crowd of onlookers fell in behind her to see this unusual and, to their minds,
spectacularly barbaric custom.
When they reached the Harbor of Theodosius, they
walked to the farthest point on the spit of land where
the small boat was secured. Bjorn and Torvald gently
settled Helge into the swaying craft.
“We have no
godi,”
Torvald whispered.
“I will serve,” Rika said, pulling off her
bourka.
Farouk-Azziz started to object, but she silenced him
with a look. “It is necessary. We have
no Norse priest, so a skald will have to do.”
Rika bowed her head, recalling the rite to her mind. In that moment, she realized that she truly no longer
believed in the gods of Asgard. They were pale stories,
alternately amusing and terrifying tales fit for nothing
more than warming a hall on a cold winter’s eve. But
Helge had believed, so Rika would declaim the rite
with all the passion of the faithful. It was the last good thing she could do for her friend.
“In our time of grief, we call upon the gods.” Rika
lifted her arms skyward. “Hear, All-Father Odin. Give
ear to us, Thor the Thunderer, and spurn not our tears,
Freya, Lady of Asgard! We ask you to receive the soul
of this Helge, one whom we have loved.” Her voice
crackled with emotion. “She shall be sorely missed.”
Rika put a curled fist to her forehead, her right breast and then her left in the prescribed gesture to in
voke the trio of deities. She felt hollow as she did it.
“She who is worthy shall return to her
own people. Helge is
the worthiest of the worthy. May her soul find peace
and joy and the best of company in the Shining Lands. This we pray. So mote it be!”
“So mote it be,” Bjorn and Torvald murmured in unison.
Rika slipped the amber hammer over her head and
knelt to tie the leather straps around the dead woman’s neck. It seemed fitting that the little amber talisman should venture into the next world with Helge. “Take
this hammer of Thor, beloved one. May thy soul be so
protected wherever thou travel.”
When she stood, she saw Torvald’s lips press into a tight line, but he nodded his head in agreement. He
stooped to slip a golden coin of Miklagard into Helge’s
cold hand as Rika continued.
“Take this coin, beloved one. May it give thee good fortune and safe passage to the Hall of Lights
.” As Rika declaimed the rite, she gave an ever
green bough to each member of the party assembled.
Only Farouk refused to take one, his furrowed brow making it clear that he wanted nothing to do with this
incomprehensible ritual. She supposed she could have spoken the rite in Greek instead of Norse, but she was
doing this for Helge, not for him.