Of course, the second he saw anybody he knew he dropped my hand and told me to stay silent. I think he must be very popular here. Because we had stopped on several occasions to talk to different men dressed equally well and equipped with either a sword or some other dangerous weapon. But I couldn't help but notice how every woman who accompanied the man Sven talked to seem to quiver almost, and one such woman had laughed at something the man had said but coyly rested her hand on Sven's lower arm. She then looked at me, sneered and whispered something into his ear when her male counterpart had walked away.
I had noticed that upon meeting Sven here on the road, the women would cross their arms but with somewhat of a tender touch they would graze the length of their jaw. I thought on this event several times that I caught Sven watching this. He'd stiffen up and redirect his attention to the man and give a firm hand shake and presumably give an excuse as to why he had to leave. But each and every time they would walk away from him, his hand would resume holding mine. As if he hadn't just received an invitation to sex by a beautiful Nordic woman. He hadn't said a word to me after I witnessed that, I caught a glimpse of him throwing his eyes over his shoulder to look at me but for the most part, I just kept quiet.
We had left the house at mid-day, the day, bright and cheerful. Children ran from here to there and the village was lively. Sven lead me down a dirt path wide enough for two carts.
The road became increasingly more empty, a long house shrouded from the warming light of the sun by trees, stood alone. There were some sort of white wood chimes dangling from the tree branches. There was a soft breeze so they not so much chimed but made a rattly hollow sound. But the closer to the trees we got the clearer I could see the wind chimes. They weren't made of white wood, but of bone. This is were my palm began to tingle. A strange sweat came up on my skin. Slightly concerned I shift my weight.
I shook my head. This seer, this man whoever or whatever he is he seems to stray on the darker side of religion. The seer spoke of gods, presumably the pagan gods of Norge. What could this entire event mean? He spoke of fate, was it my god's intention for me to end up here, in this situation to fulfil the will of another God?
"Wait a second" Sven says. I stop dead in my tracks and slip my hand from his grasp waiting for another couple to confront us. I scan around, I had thought wrong, there is nobody here. My palm tingles stronger, the sensation growing.
"The seer represents the gods, he has lived as long as them, he knows ways of reading your future and can speak with the gods. Try not to get on his bad side" he explains to me about this ancient person, the carrier, the bridge between the worlds. How he can see the future if you ask the correct questions.
Sven goes to knock on the door, but before his knuckles hit the door it swings open. There is a heavy smell of burning herbs that hits me nose before anything else. The house is dimly light and the light is filtered though a sandy coloured screen. There is a large bed set in the middle of the room, with a table and chairs positioned in front of it. Piles of light linen black material and fur pelts covered everything.
A frightening object that made me visibly tense sat on a small table on the immediate left of the chair that a hunch figure sat upon. A tick slab of oak wood lay flat, it had burn marks scorched into it and across the top lay miscellaneously placed vertebrae and bone fragments. I felt a little queasy as the sight and I don't think Sven noticed.
"Guardian!" He said grandly. He pulled out a chair and sat down. I stood behind and glanced cautiously around the room. I felt unsettled here, uneasy as if anything could happen. The seer had continued the decoration of his home with bones, there was a sheep's skull sitting on the table. I stared into the sockets what the eye once were, I left myself drift off, until the very same voice with the very same words stormed my mind.
"Faith will take a different fate" the voice in the speakers Nordic tongue. I snapped my head up and look at the hooded figure. There is silence for a moment.
"So you have arrived" he says, he roughly grabs my hand that has been wrapped up. I protested by squeezing my fist shut. Sven gives me a questioning look. I know he's probably wondering if I have met the seer before, I have, but I'd rather get out of this house and not hang around to chat about pages gods.
"Open your hand, the gods will forgive you" he says. I refuse to open my hand because the closer I had gotten to him the Stronger the tingling in my palm got.
"I haven't done anything wrong!" I protested. The seer nodded and hummed.
"You should have come to me as soon as we met those few nights ago" he said. He flattens out my hand and unwraps the acting bandage. His black unevenly shaped nails picked at the cloth. The seer had pail skin, blemished By splotches of black shaped oddly, not like any naturally accruing health conditions.
"When did this come up?" He asks fascinated by my hand. I shook my head "today"
The seer looks not at me but at Sven.
"Really?" Elongating the syllable 're'.
His odd low deep and slow voice made me shiver and imagine a slithering snake.
"No it hasn't just come up today" Sven says defeatedly. I look at him confused, how would he know more about my body than me? "What?" I whisper under my breath.
"During the fever and cold sweats vine like veins enlarged and became discoloured along your back" he says almost apologetic. I had felt pain along my shoulders but not as bad as my hand.
"This is a sign" spoke the seer, he stands dropping my hand on the table palm up. "- a sign -from the gods" he shook his hands, his robe sleeves shaking around his withering, white/grey sagging skin.
"I can see it now" he says his voice picking up speed but then slowing as if something in his sight "What do you see great old one?" Sven asks his fists clenching on the table.
"I see blood, splattered across the grass and across foreign skin to the problem, I see a powerful warrior stepping through a dark doorway and ... Freyja" the seer whispers the name, one I've heard before. I cast a confused look between the two men. Sven seems withdrawn, he is muttering words under breath too fast for me to begin to understand. The seer's voice had trailed off. He shuck his fists and looked at me.
"Come here girl!" He demanded fiercely. He slides a bone handled blade from somewhere on his person and pushes it into the small fire. "Hand" he says and I shakily provide it. He takes it roughly. He beckons Sven forward. "Restrain her" he says.
"Wait! What are you going to do?!" I panicked. The seer retrieved the blade. The metal was roaring red. I tried backing away and shaking my hand away.
"No!! Please!!" I begged I whimpered as I saw him nearing the blade to my skin. My whimpering escalated to a full lunged scream. The heat of the blade burnt my skin and the blade slit the blemish so that a thick blood oozed from my hand. I whimpered as I clasped my hand.
"Warp it with this" the seer said handing Sven a thong of material. He did and I winced and the blood seeped though and Sven kept wrapping and soon it stopped.
"Fate has been dictated now, get out!" The seer said, he began muttering under his breath about something but soon his words I once understood returned to the Nordic language I didn't understand. Did he do that? Place some sort of spell, to make me understand Norse?