Kaari Utrio - Moonstone

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Kaari Utrio:
The spring of the moonstone

CHAPTER ONE
" Your wife's childlessness is not a matter only for the house of Roismala. The clan needs more children. You will provide them for the clan with the woman whom the clan decrees."

Kaukamo of Sahi spoke like a man who is not used to being gainsaid. His wife, Kyven, stood behind him, by his elbow. Her bedstraw-red dress glowed in the spring sunshine and the fringe of her white mantle fluttered in the gentle wind of Lake Liekovesi. Her weathered face was set in permanent folds of bitterness, a malevolent mask above her fine clothes.

"A house with two mistresses knows no peace," commented Pirjanti of Roismala. He tried to appear strong. But his voice was uncertain, a submissive sigh before the inevitable. A son-in-law of lower family and birth could not contradict the great man, without whose permission not even a boat could slip through the reeds of Lake Rautavesi. Kaukamo of Sahi, the great man of Sastamala, was of high birth, and looked it: tall and slim like his sister, Saura, fair-haired and green-eyed. Kaukamo was a powerful man, full of lofty favour toward his inferiors, prepared unstintingly to carry the responsibility of a chief toward lesser people. When Kaukamo read the law at the law-giving, the hills echoed and the people bowed down.

Pirjanti's eyes slid sideways to the mistress of Roismala. Kaukamo's sister was standing beside her brother, her face peaceful, polite and indifferent as if this talk of a barren woman did not concern her at all. His wife had long since accepted her childlessness. Her clan's demand was unimportant to Saura Goldclasp because she could not fulfil it.

His wife's exalted indifference made Pirjanti tremble. The feeling was a mixture of fear, admiration and irritation, and very familiar. It had characterised Pirjanti's attitude toward his wife from the beginning. After three years of marriage, Pirjanti had no idea of what Saura thought about anything, least of all the husband whom her brother had forced her to take as a man to her bed and as a master to her house.

The house of Roismala, on a headland in Lake Liekovesi, was a mansion protected by a palisade, a convenient resting place between the falls of Vammaskoski and Kaukolankoski, hospitable in the Häme fashion, and a trustworthy trading partner. The fortifications were low and not very solid. They were sufficient to frighten away those who, as they passed by, took it into their heads to try the defences of this prosperous house. In the event of a strong attack, Roismala would have to trust to the axes and swords of its men rather than the wooden palings.

The house was surrounded by strip fields. Behind them loomed the dark green belt of the forest. From the edge of the forest, a small river flowed across the fields to a sheltered bay, rich in fish, to the east of the mansion. A few cabins crouched by the side of the bay, dwellings of Roismala folk. Behind the bay, almost opposite, the waters of Lake Rautavesi forced its way down the Vammaskoski falls to Lake Liekovesi.

There were many villages of prosperous appearance on the shores of Lake Liekovesi. People liked to live close to the trading route: some of the travellers' silver always found its way off the road and into their pockets. The inhabitants of the upper Kokemäenjoki river were generally proud and prosperous folk. They thought themselves wiser and richer than other Häme people, and did not trouble to conceal it. Roismala was the most powerful of the houses of Lake Liekovesi, and it showed.

Pirjanti still sometimes found himself looking at the place in astonishment, almost unbelief, that he was the lord of this proud mansion. Greying thatched buildings surrounded the high-ridged hall. The green of early spring gleamed in the grasses and seed-leaves of the log walls. Green patches of grass began to show against the dusty brown ground.

There were large numbers of buildings, for people and animals and food and things. There were small cabins for the old women and the old men and for the humble serving folk. There was a large shelter-for horses and cattle, lambs and swine. There was one sauna for the people of the house, another for malting and a third for women in childbirth. There was a whole row of storehouses. The most valuable things, such as furs, were stored separately in a pillarstorehouses. It was like a kingdom, and by the grace of Kaukamo of Sahi Pirjanti was its lord.

Pirjanti was from Kärpänniemi, on the opposite shore of Lake Liekovesi. The house was nothing much, and neither were its inhabitants. The boy had been born in the midst of a great snowstorm, and had been named accordingly; his fine name had helped the young man gain entrance to the house of Sahi and the servants of Kaukamo. He should have been grateful for it, but Pirjanti did not like swaggering about with a sword; he had no desire to quarrel for no reason and was not comfortable among boasters and braggarts.

Nevertheless, Kaukamo liked the man: Pirjanti was a strong and trustworthy companion on Kaukamo's shield side in the endless skirmishes with the Nokia people. The lord of Sahi was too wise to consider Pirjanti a coward merely because he did not seek conflict.

When Pirjanti broke his sword in the course of defending his lord, Kaukamo gave him a gold-handled weapon from Gotland. And when Pirjanti protected the wounded Kaukamo with his own body, the lord of Sastamala gave him his sister and the house of Roismala.

Roismala and its mistress were a mark of favour worthy of a chief and, to Kaukamo's delight, provoked envy both along the Kokemäenjoki river and the great lakes of the upper river. The rumour of such a gift drew fit warriors to the house of Sahi. That winter, almost forty soldiers were fed at the table of Sahi, and Kaukamo knew that neither the house nor his sister had been given in vain.

Pirjanti was so astonished by the high widow and the handsome house that he almost refused the gift. Kaukamo's pleasure merely increased as Pirjanti attempted to withdraw.

"All my brothers are dead and so is my only brother-in-law. I will make of you a new brother-in-law. You will defend the clan and give Saura children. That my former brother-in-law Paaso was unable to do, although he was a great warrior. You may consider your fortune excellent, Pirjanti son of Pirtti."

Three years later it was clear that Saura Goldclasp would not bear children even if her brother were to arrange five husbands for her.

"Pitiable is the house whose lady is barren and whose lord is a coward."

Kyven's whisper was hardly louder than a thought. Kaukamo behaved as if nothing had been said; it was his way of avoiding a quarrel with his malevolent wife. Saura did not glance at her sister-in-law, merely turned aside slightly to indicate her contempt.

Pirjanti tingled with rancour. What Kyven said of Saura was true, but Saura cared nothing for her sister-in-law's poisonous tongue. What Kyven said of Pirjanti's cowardice was a lie, and he should not have cared anything for it. But Pirjanti was hurt by the lie. And because he was ashamed that he had taken offence, he was angry with his wife, whom even the truth did not offend.

The daughter of Sahi could afford to ignore her sister-in-law's pointed remarks. The lord of Roismala, a man raised to a great place from small beginnings, could not.

"There will not be two mistresses of this house. My sister is the mistress of Roismala," Kaukamo said stiffly. "That rank will not be divided. The concubine will be lowly by birth, a humble person."

"But not a slave," Saura Goldclasp spoke her first words since her greeting. "The children of a slave cannot inherit."

"A free woman," Kaukamo confirmed. "Kyven has chosen one of the women of Sahi."

"A maid's love-child," Kyven bleated. "Conceived in the forest; the father may have been a Lapp. She is nothing; she will be no competition for you, sister-in-law. But the free daughter of a free woman."

The visitors were standing in the yard at Roismala. Kaukamo and Kyven had arrived on horseback. There were six men with them - Kaukamo never travelled with a smaller escort, generally with more men. The country from Sahi to the lower river along the shores of Lakes Rautavesi and Liekovesi was relatively safe, the lands of the clan and those it protected. Foes did not easily dare come here, except in such large numbers that news of them travelled quickly.

The gate of the paling fence faced toward the shore. A flat shore stretched before the gate where boats and ships could be drawn up. On the shore were boat- and net-sheds, beams for drying nets, all the junk that fishermen need. Smoke rose into the sparkling spring sky from the bonfire the serving women of Roismala kept under a pot on the shore. The ice had just melted, and the house had embarked on a great washing of clothes. Roismala's great trading boat was still resting on its keel; Pirjanti was not a natural trader like his predecessor, Paaso. He eyed the boat doubtfully rather than proudly. Roismala traded regularly with a few of the merchants of the mouth of the Kokemäenjoki river, and welcomed occasional passersby. Boats carried information and things, both of them necessary to the great house.

The soldiers had dismounted and were standing at the gate awaiting an invitation into the house. In the midst of the men strutted a small woman, peeping around her and chattering incessantly. The woman was wearing a new dress, pale brown and still absolutely clean. Her rough, dark hair hung unbound like moss down her shoulders. Her face was broad, her cheekbones high, and in her dark eyes was the untamed mistrust of her Lapp father. The woman recalled the brown-topped, pale-stemmed bolete mushroom of the forest.

"Her?" Pirjanti indicated the woman with a gesture of his head.

"Her name's Silpa," Kyven said. "She can already cast a few spells. Perhaps she will be of some help in tending the cattle's ailments."

Pirjanti grimaced. They must have sought the ugliest matted-haired girl for a concubine for Pirjanti of kärpänniemi Presumably Kyven thought that it was not worth wasting a slim, fair woman on a farm-boy like Pirjanti. There were plenty of takers for them among Kaukamo's warriors.

"The woman will be no trouble to you, brother-in-law," Kaukamo said amiably. "After two or three boy children you can marry her to one of your men or send her back to Sahi. Saura will look after the children and they will inherit Roismala. This has been done before, after all."

Pirjanti wanted to refuse. His wife was the most beautiful and noblest woman of Sastamala. He did not want anything to do with this Lapp witch, who looked more like something that lived in the forest than an inhabitant of a great house. Pirjanti was irritated by Kaukamo's calm confidence that Pirjanti would obey him.

"Roismala needs defenders. The best warriors are the master's sons, they fight for their own."

Kaukamo's voice was matter-of-fact and reasonable. Pirjanti felt stupid and childish. Naturally Kaukamo, the law-giver of Sastamala, knew what was best for the clan. It was not Pirjanti's business to question his brother-in-law's decisions. Pirjanti was protected by the Sahi clan, and it was his duty to think first of the needs of the clan, and only then, if at all, of his own.