Павел Хюлле - Cold Sea Stories

‘Stay here,’ whispered Bjorn. ‘I’ll go on my own.’

Only after a few paces, as he came near to the forge, did he feel fear. The wind had dropped, the sea was silent, and there wasn’t a sound, not even the slightest noise to disturb the unnatural silence. Bjorn crossed himself, then hauled a chopping block up to the wall, stood on it and pressed his face to the little window. There he saw the stranger. With his back towards Bjorn, he was leaning over something that looked like a sheet of copper, a page from a missal, or a portable book-rest. Whatever the object lying on the anvil was, the source of light was emanating from there. He was astonished that it could produce so much brightness without blinding. Reaching a hand into the field of light, the stranger extracted something small and flat, which he then held between finger and thumb, and turned high above his head, like someone inspecting a captive dragonfly. This black flake, which looked like the symbols Bjorn had so often seen carved on the stones on Alvaret plain – symbols which the pastor from Ventlinge, and also the pastor from Mörbylånga said were demonic because they were pagan – this small black leaf the stranger was holding in his fingers began to move and shine, until finally, when the letter in that satanic script appeared to be white-hot, the stranger let go of it, allowing it to float to and fro, like a jay’s feather, straight into the field of light. This action, repeated over and over again, had something of a ritual about it, and although Bjorn had never heard of black masses, he felt the insane thumping of his heart, prompted by fear. One time a flaming letter went slightly off course and failed to come down like the previous ones, so to stop it from landing on the dirt floor, the stranger blew with all his might and uttered a phrase, which did not help, or at least not enough to guarantee it a safe landing, and so he had to cross to the other side of the anvil and quickly repeat the operation; at that moment Bjorn caught sight of his face, and it was terrible. He screamed, jumped off the block and ran home, certain the stranger would race after him to punish him. In panic he latched the door shut and started looking for the wooden crucifix he had found here many years ago, among the items left by the unknown owners. The cross was nowhere, but nevertheless he fell to his knees and prayed in his own words, ardently, opening his eyes every few seconds, only to see the devilish light still shining outside. He would certainly have waited it out until dawn, if not for a storm that came over the plateau, blowing a swift gale. Flashes of lightning, almost one after another, ripped the sky apart. Thunderbolts struck the rocks with such force that the entire island shook to its foundations. Bjorn threw his jerkin over his head, called the dog and without looking round at the forge, ran to the sheepfold. He calmed the sheep, walking from one to another. Finally, as streams of rain lashed down on the world and total darkness prevailed, he fell asleep. Next morning, as he drove the flock out to the nearby meadow, he noticed nothing suspicious in the farmyard. When at around noon the stranger failed to appear on the cliff top, with his heart in his mouth, Bjorn looked inside the forge. It was empty. The anvil was sitting in its place, coated as ever in a layer of dust. Nor did he find a single trace on the dirt floor or on the pieces of equipment abandoned long ago. What did he have for the steward now? What was he to report to him? That evening, once the flock was in the sheepfold, he went down to the bottom of the cliff and checked the spot where the sailors had buried the chest. He started to tremble when under the layer of turf he once again felt the lid of the box, which gaped empty as before. It was a sure sign that the stranger would return. But when, and what for, Bjorn had no idea. He merely sensed it had nothing to do with a conspiracy, because the forces that had appeared on the island would have had a thousand opportunities to commit a crime in a far simpler way. Yet he wanted to wipe out the evidence, so under cover of night he dug up the chest, chopped it to pieces, threw all the fittings into the sea, and set fire to the boards in a rocky niche, where a year earlier the animal pyre had burned; at last, to finish he filled in the hole under the pine trees. But it didn’t make his heart feel any lighter. Maybe only Jansen, who knew many old tales, could have heard him out, understood and given advice. But how was he to describe that terrible face? Wrinkled, the skin tanned almost black, with sparse locks of hair falling onto it, it looked as if dug out of the abyss. All this was too hard for Bjorn, and for the first time in many years, his loneliness lay on his shoulders like a huge burden. In the end he did not go to Ventlinge. He wrapped his shepherd’s odds and ends in a linen sheet, and although the grass on the Alvaret plains was not yet fully grown, at dawn he drove his flock from the farmyard, jamming broken yew twigs into the doors of his house and the sheepfold according to the old custom. He set off deep inland, hoping to encounter no evil before autumn.

The pasturelands here had no set borders, and if he had to move on, he chose a route where it was easy to move between sheltered spots. Devoid of trees, Alvaret offered some hollows which, though shallow, were numerous. Shielded from the wind and overgrown with juniper, they were the only places on the island unreached by the constant rumble of the sea. By day he heard the sheep bleating, the larks singing, and sometimes Harald barking. The dog quickly learned to hunt rabbits and they were never hungry by the campfire. At night Bjorn spent hours staring at the stars, and was sorry he didn’t know their names. Nevertheless, as every summer, he felt almost happy. Almost, because sometimes, against his own will, he thought about the stranger’s visit. These considerations led nowhere, and tormented Bjorn, but under their influence he did take certain precautionary measures. Even by day he avoided the large boulders standing in circles, which he knew to be even older than the oak trees at Ventlinge. Formerly, especially on moonlit nights, he liked to lie down in the very middle of a circle and gaze at the sky, feeling the ground breathing and the ring of stones safely encompassing him. He had never believed in elves or devils seizing people’s souls right here. Now he was afraid of these places, copiously scattered over the plain, and if one of the sheep happened to stray into a stone circle, Bjorn called the dog and told him to chase it out, while crossing himself as in church. But nothing evil happened. Bjorn wandered with his flock first to the north, then went back south again; once every five days Jansen and his helper tracked him down without difficulty, to take away the curds on a two-wheel cart and give him some clean milking pails. Usually as well as bread, they brought fresh news from Ventlinge. A fine Polish-bred steed had broken a leg beneath the King; the accident caused no harm, but the reiter officer had had to kill the horse with a shot in the ear. The wife of the pastor from Mörbylånga had happily given birth to a seventh daughter, which was celebrated by communal singing of psalms. The fishermen from Degerhamn had caught such a large cod that the entire village had had a sumptuous supper. Bjorn listened, nodded his head, and replied, but he was glad when they went away. Now, even if Jansen had come alone, without the helper, he would not have wanted to talk about that incident. It was left further and further behind him, and although the chopped-up, burned chest was a real and painful element in all this, the rest might be wished away – a delusion.

He headed north again, along the eastern edge of Alvaret, to the hollow where his favourite spring was located. As no saint had ever visited the island, it did not have its own name. Yet Bjorn knew that with the addition of mint leaves, its water had great power. It only took a few sips for his tired body to feel new strength. But he could not enjoy refreshment straight away. There at the dip in the rocks, master and dog stopped dead at the sight of a deer. The animal raised its mighty head and reluctantly stepped back a couple of paces from the spring. Harald barked, Bjorn called him to heel, and the stag, as if he were the rightful owner of this place, slowly moved onto a hillock, from where he looked round at the intruders once again, before disappearing among the juniper bushes. Bjorn was in no doubt: the animal could only have ended up in this part of the island if he had jumped the King’s wall, yet he had never heard of such a thing before. Unless the stag were older than the monarch’s whim and had spent his entire life at liberty, on this side of the wall, but in that case how old must he be? Bjorn remembered that when he was brought to the island, before becoming a shepherd, he had spent almost two years with the prisoners, finishing building the wall. But it was long enough ago for him to have lost track of time.