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Written and Illustrated
by R.N. Roveleh
(Instagram: @helevorn_bor)
The locals of Hálogaland [1] called the lake Himinnvatn, Sky Water. And this was because, on sunny windless days like this one, the sky mirrored inside it, framed by the blue peaks of the Seven Sisters in the distance.
Rannveig stepped on the pebbly shore until her toes sank into the water. It was cool and bright. The sun and the light breeze pleasantly fell upon her shoulders and calves, but her dress still shielded her body against nature’s gentle caress. She was planning to go in, of course. Just not yet. It wasn’t because of the cold; she and her friends had bathed in Himinnvatn even in winter when it was frozen over, carving a hole in the ice and diving in to test their mettle. But this time, it simply felt like she needed more getting used to.
Helgi and Lars, on the other hand, had no such qualms. Sprinting towards the pebbly banks of the lake, the boys dropped their clothes one by one: off flew shirts in the bushes, belts in the dirt, trousers on the rocks; shoes, however, they had none to begin with. In the blink of an eye, the two were dipping to their knees into the cool and clear water, stark-naked, splashing and squealing like little children.
Both Lars and Helgi were eighteen now –an age when people around them were already married and had children– but acting their age was something these boys seemed to passionately avoid, most of all when they were together. There was energy in their every fibre, the kind of honest cheer that children unabashedly display when all the world around them is new and exciting and they seem to never tire of discovering it. Separately, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the Helgi and Lars; simple peasant boys taking life as it comes, no questions asked. But, together, they came alive.
The sunny water glittered against their skins, its trickles and splashes mingling with cries of joy in a soothing tune. A popular game around those parts involved wrestlers fighting to keep their opponent underwater the longest; Helgi and Lars had already taken to it, because they missed no chance to exercise their fighting prowess.
Rannveig started working her copper curls into a plait. And quietly watching their mirth she wondered, not without a grain of jealousy, how the two boys had managed to preserve that naivety in spite of... life. Of life which so delighted in changing everything.
Svanhild had already doffed her clothes as well, to follow the boys’ example, and was now running down to the lake with arms spread wide, howling. She joined in the wrestling, like a valkyrja [1] charging into battle. She was a worthy opponent to these two, especially to the lanky Helgi who was now struggling to remain on his feet.
Svanhild always felt comfortable in her body, often joking about how hopefully her parents had named her Svan, swan, although time had proven that Svín, swine, would have been a more accurate description. With her blunt humour and self-deprecating jokes, everyone enjoyed Svanhild’s company. In spite of her apparent vanity, Rannveig had never felt as confident; in the mirror, every detail had to be in place, and out there, any joke at her expense was forbidden. She was to be taken seriously at all times, respected and admired, her strive for perfection rewarded.
But, despite the nonchalance with which she removed her clothes and wrestled now with the boys, Svanhild was by far the most innocent and chaste of the group. She was soon to marry a family friend who was as old as her father. The girl could remember him playing tafl [2] with her father ever since she was a little child, and she’d never regarded him as more than her father’s comrade. Picturing him as husband, with all the intimacy it involved, made the vivacious girl shy and tongue-tied around him.
What a nightmare, Rannveig thought, to be forced into marriage with an old man! She liked her men handsome and charming and full of life, a radiating hero who turned heads, not some wrinkled and flabby greybeard who thinks himself deserving of the attentions of a young beauty. In Svanhild’s stead, she would’ve screamed and cried and begged Jarl Skjar —her uncle and guardian — to not give her away like that! But Svanhild always saw the best in people. She would shrug: “Don’t be mean, he’s just old. It’s not his fault. We’ll all get there if we’re lucky.” And a joke was always lined up to mask serious subjects: “I doubt he’ll let me wrestle naked men after the wedding, so let’s make the most of it now!”
“Hey, Rannveig,” Gertha’s voice came from behind her. “Aren’t you going in?”
Gertha, the fifth in their little group, was Helgi’s younger sister and Rannveig’s best friend. She was picking up the boys’ and Svanhild’s clothes from where they had been carelessly discarded, folding them neatly in the grass.
“I need to do my hair up first. You know how it gets when it’s wet.”
“You made a mess of it,” she tittered. “Here, let me do it.”
The girl took hold of Rannveig’s plait with gentle hands, unbraided it and started working it up again, with the aid of a bone comb she carried in her purse.
Her wheat-blonde hair was worked into an orderly crown around her head, sown with leather thread to keep it in place for days. It was only Gertha’s talents that managed to tame Rannveig’s messy curls into creative hairdos that roused admiration at social gatherings. In Gertha’s hands, her hair would be neat and ready.
Always careful, almost motherly, she would clean up after everyone, ask them what they wanted and how they were feeling. Unlike Svanhild, who ranged from taking everything as a joke and falling silent when the discussion turned too serious, Gertha was always supportive and considerate. She was Rannveig’s confidante and knew her every little secret. And Rannveig knew Gertha’s secrets too. Or so she always believed.
These here were her lifelong friends, and they had always played and slept and bathed together devoid of any unclean thoughts, as if they were siblings. They used to have no secrets, nothing to hide from each other and the world. But now it felt different. Was she the only one thinking about it?
Gertha knew of every thought which had crossed Rannveig’s mind –sad or hopeful, fantasy or belief or outlooks upon the world- and the two girls would chat time away while spinning or embroidering together. She knew of every boy who ever inflamed Rannveig’s imagination, stringing gossip and jokes and what-ifs together like beads upon a strand, making her uncle’s great hall ring with their giggles. “What about you?” Rannveig would ask. Gertha’s answers had turned more sparing with time, until all she would say was: “Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’m not pretentious, you know that. I can get along with anyone. Besides, your stories are always more interesting.” But there was an all-knowing look in her honey-brown eyes, as if there was more to her than she let on.
Even Helgi and Lars were different. Last summer, they had been on their first raid. Under the leadership of Yngvar Eindriði they had plundered a monastery in Northumbria, and happy though they were before departure — honoured to be among Yngvar’s chosen- the boys had returned changed.
Rannveig had spent her childhood feeding herself on the illusion that she, too, would one day raid with Yngvar, training with the boys with this very thought in mind; but when summer came, Uncle Skjar was unyielding. So she had to live off the stories of the others.
“How was it? Tell me everything!” Rannveig badgered them.
“Glorious! Yngvar appointed us to climb the walls that night and open the gate for everyone — us of all people!” their answer came, along with other such stories full of excitement.
They were drawn to Aidan, the young monk who was now in Jarl Skjar’s employ, at first with the fascination and curiosity of one trying to poke an exotic animal and then, as the novelty passed, they went out of their way to befriend him, though he wasn’t an easy person to get close to. Aidan was living proof that their adventure had been real, with all that it entailed, so they handled him with utmost care. But Rannveig could see that even now — whenever someone mentioned the Englishmen who had lost their lives or asked if they had ever hurt anyone — Helgi and Lars would exchange glances and their smiles would fade for a while.
“It’s been a year since we last went swimming together, all five of us, but last summer feels so far away,” Rannveig commented.
“You don’t expect time to stand still, now, do you?” smiled Gertha, almost chiding.
“You’re a disgrace!” Lars booed Helgi, who had just lost the wrestling match against Svanhild and was coughing and blowing water off his nose. He slapped a leafy twig against the boy’s buttocks: “Get outta here, get that prune outta my face!”
“I’ll show you prune,” Helgi reacted promptly, darting to snatch the twig out of his hands. “Gimme that!”
With yelps and bounces and laughter, they chased each other along the bank and all the way to the pier.
“Want it? Go fetch, then! Here, boy, here!” Lars whistled and chucked the twig away. It landed where the lake turned deeper, prompting Helgi to vault after it into the crystal pool, barking.
Lars followed him in with a splash. “That’s a good puppy,” he lauded.
Brushing the curls from the boy’s face and removing the little branch from the grip of his teeth, he kissed his lips dripping wet. Their yelps and noise died out for long moments in each other’s arms.
They did that often. Never in front of strangers, but more and more often in their little circle of friends. The first time Rannveig had seen Lars and Helgi kiss, they seemed to do it in jest, ostentatiously aware of their audience. But now it seemed to come natural to them, so much that they forgot they were not alone. They never put it in words, but nor did the girls ever ask.
It had first happened a couple of years back. Jarl Skjar’s usual guests were gathered at a feast in the great hall, the young people circled upon the fur carpet on Rannveig’s chamber floor, huddled over cups of mead, sheltered from the looks of grown-ups. What began as a word game turned into a drinking game, and then into a series of tipsy truths and dares. Svanhild and Lars had been dared to kiss, which happened with squeals and feigned disgust into the laughs of the audience.
“But Helgi, I won’t kiss!” the girl exclaimed. “He looks too much like Gertha — it would be like kissing my best friend!”
“What’s wrong with kissing your best friend?” Helgi asked, chuckling, reaching out to Lars on all four over the mead cups, cheeks glowing redder than usual.
Lars hesitated a moment, but accepted without further persuasion. And, in the girls’ cheerful prompts, their lips had met in a heavy and noisy kiss. Not just a peck on the lips, but two, something which Rannveig had found slightly unusual. She knew little about kissing, since neither she nor the girls had experienced it, but the boys’ kiss had made her ponder. It was timid, playful, aware of the eyes upon them, but not foreign; most certainly not their first.
“I don’t mind it either,” Gertha had whispered at Rannveig’s side, suddenly closing the gap between them.
She leaned in, smiling sweetly, putting her apple aside to rest her hand on Rannveig’s knee. And, before Rannveig knew it, that smile pressed on her lips and melted into a kiss.
That soft mouth, its taste of apples, the tenderness of the touch of Gertha’s fingers on her cheek… Rannveig found it strange, that unusual display of affection, but not unpleasant. Not unpleasant at all. It retained the thrill of that sense of discovery of yourself and of that someone in your embrace, but it was… comforting. Nothing like those wild kisses she would later share with Asvald, frantic, blood-tingling, dangerous, torn between disquieting arousal and the fear of abandonment in his embrace. No. In Gertha’s arms she was comfortable –for there was no one she trusted more than her childhood friend, no one in the world who knew her better.
It never happened again. They never mentioned it, nor did they ever feel the need to repeat it. But, many times, Rannveig returned in her mind to that moment — her first kiss — to understand where it had stemmed from.
And, somehow, it was only now — perhaps prompted by Helgi and Lars’s cheerful banter — that the answer came to her: she wanted to be kissed and embraced and held, but without the doubts and disquiet that came with such a connection with the opposite sex. She longed for it, she would have dreams when she was asleep and fantasies when she was alone, so fervid that, in these flights of fancy, there was little she wouldn’t do. But reality and fancy were different worlds. Reality was cluttered with notions such as reputation and duty, like a storm cloud looming above. In this world,maidenhood was like a currency, each moment of pleasure — soured by the fear of unwanted complications, each step outside the acceptable taking her into a perilous realm of betrayed expectations. And all these weights set upon her natural desire in order to stifle any willingness to materialise it.
But, with Helgi and Lars, she could tell it was something else. It was more than this. It was more than what she had experienced with Gertha. There was something in the way they looked at each other. Fondly, keenly, eagerly. With a tenderness that would not find its way even between the closest of friends. It was how Rannveig had always wanted to be looked upon, it was what she dreamed — in her boldest fantasies — that she would see in the eyes of the man she loved. Seeing Helgi and Lars like this awoke in her this longing, hope and despondence altogether. She and Gertha had kissed as teenagers looking for love; maybe Lars and Helgi had found it.
Rannveig was never intimidated by men. She had grown up among them, with an uncle who yielded to her little whims, servants who did her bidding, high-ranking retainers who respected her as mistress of the house, close friends she could be herself around, and admirers always within reach. To the awe of her more demure friends, she made an art out of flirting with ease and grace, always within the bounds of propriety but bold enough to have men swarm around her. But stolen glances and smiles and teasing remarks were not love.
If love was that binding feeling Helgi and Lars shared, then Rannveig didn’t know it. What she felt for Asvald –the closest to a lover she had ever had- was nothing of the sort. It was thrill and curiosity and lust, but never friendship, never comfort. Not one she would spend a lifetime with.
There was one man she longed for, one man she had dreamed of ever since her conscience as a young woman had bloomed: Yngvar Eindriði. The majestic, wise, bold, radiant Yngvar, a drengr [3] like those of the legends that had nourished her youth.
In her fantasies, Yngvar would fall in love with her cleverness and bravery, she would fight in battles alongside him, he would win the throne of Norway and she would be his queen. But the day when Yngvar asked for her hand in marriage had not come. He was a solitary man, distant and proud, but love sometimes comes over time; or so she had always been told. She could love him in that way. Could he?
She had met someone else, too, where she expected the least. It was someone who had grown on her, unawares, the more she discovered layers upon layers of his individuality. He was a slave, but there was nobility in his demeanor telling of the tragedy that befell him. He was haunted by it, she could tell, but he bore the burden with dignity. This man was Aidan, the young Englishman with pensive amber eyes.
In place of the initial distrust and caution of their interactions, Aidan and her sometimes found themselves caught up in long conversations dotted with private jokes that only they understood and little confessions they shared with few other people. Those were moments she looked forward to.
Gertha eyed her suspiciously, the shade of a giggle blooming on her lips. “Fine, keep your secrets. We both know you’ll tell me later anyway.”
Maybe she would. Then, again, maybe she wouldn’t. Some things can’t be put into words. Perhaps her moments with Aidan were best enjoyed alone.
“There, you’re all set!” Gertha declared. She turned Rannveig’s chin to inspect her hairdo from all sides. From the crown of her head to the tips of her curls, her hair was now caught in a tight braid woven through with a ribbon.
“Come on, you two, what are you doing? We’ve circled this lake three times over, waiting for you to make yourself pretty,” Svanhild yelled, hands cupped in front of her mouth. “What are you preparing for, Oðinn’s descent on earth? Yarn off!”
She and the boys were coming out of the water with viny hair and goosebumps from the breeze.
“No offence, Rannveig,” Helgi joined in the teasing, “I know you see a princess when you look in the mirror. But, no matter how pretty you make yourself, in my eyes you’re still that chubby little git who’d go into a frenzy whenever something didn’t go her way!”
Rannveig burst into laughter. “Shut up and make way! I’ll show you how it’s done.”
She removed her dress and, in the rhythmical cheers of Rannveig,Rannveig! Rannveig!, she charged forward on the pier and dived into the cool water. Gertha followed suit. The other three did not allow themselves much time to rest and dry before they jumped back in, and soon the air was filled with shrieks of excitement and laughter.
Footnotes:
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[1] The northernmost district in medieval Norway (Old Norse)
[2] Valkyrie (Old Norse)
[3] Strategy board game in medieval Scandinavia.
[4] brave, honourable man; hero (Old Norse)
R. N. Roveleh is a writer of prose, artist and doctor in medieval literature.
She is the author of "Lucky Wolf”, a historical novel published in 2021 and set in 10th century Scandinavia, and of a serialised anthology of short-stories published on Tapas.io, entitled "Tales from the North”.
Though her prose explores both historical and contemporary settings, the link between them is the examination of human nature and social behaviours.
As she is, on the side, an enthusiastic artist, the fiction Roveleh publishes (online and otherwise) is illustrated in acrylics and watercolours.
Apart from pursuing her passion for literature, art and academic writing, Roveleh is also a podcaster (specialised in analysing fiction) and language teacher.
You can follow R.N.'s works on Instagram: @helevorn_bor, Twitter: @NRoveleh and Tapas : RobRoveleh.