The barkeep served her the same food as the others, meat and mashed potatoes. Apparently, sauce wasn’t a thing here, at least judging by the barkeeps amused headshake as she asked for some. The meat seemed to be normal pork, lightly salted but sadly quite dry. The mashed potatoes somewhat remedied the lack of sauce. It was rich and creamy, and it tasted as if they had added some juice from the meat. It wasn’t guide Micheline material, but it was a hell of a lot better than anything she had eaten since the gap.
The ale was not pleasant. It was served lukewarm in a wooden mug and tasted pretty much like stale bread. Not that it stopped the girl from chugging it all down. It was hard to tell from where she sat, but she thought she caught the young barkeep glancing at her as she did so. At first she decided to ignore him, but once the ale was gone she was struck by how slowly time passed in an empty room once you removed all modern distractions. The silence rang in her ears and she caught herself picking dirt from her nails. This definitely wasn’t the rowdy break she had imagined. It was probably a lot livelier outside in the square, but she wasn’t too keen on the drama that awaited her there. Quite a few angry shouts from sore losers had nestled their way inside. The girl couldn’t blame them, by all rights she shouldn’t have won those matches. Not that she felt sorry for them, the only reason they wagered their money was because they counted on easily taking some from her. Fuck them.
“Do you mind some company?” Asked the barkeep, two mugs in hand.
“Sure”, said the girl, and reached out to grab one of them. “It’s your place anyway, isn’t it? She added.
The barkeep scoffed. “Nah, I just work here on weekdays, it’s quite easy money.”
The girl didn’t really have any comment on that, so she just nodded and drank deeply from her mug. She finished with a burp and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “Anyways, what’s your name?” She asked. She figured that if someone didn’t have the decency to introduce themselves you bloody well made them.
The barkeep brought down the mug from his face. His moustache was soaked in foam from the ale, but he routinely wiped it away with his arm. “Oh my, I must have forgotten to introduce myself”, he said, flashing a smile at her. “My name is Rune”.
She grabbed his hand in a greeting before she remembered that it wasn’t a normal thing to do here. Hanna withdrew her hand quickly, feeling like an idiot. Rune looked at her quizzically, but she didn’t bother with trying to explain her action. The palm of his hand was strong and covered in calluses. The rough and raspy feel of his skin lingered on her mind after their almost-handshake. He had a light-hearted and mischievous aura about him that was enhanced by the little she had seen of his personality. These were not the hands that she would expect from such a person. These were the hands of someone who had practiced something diligently for a long time, to a point where their body slowly began to deliver what was needed of it. “How did you know I would win?” asked the girl, pushing away the memory of his hand in hers.
“I didn’t, but I wanted to see if you could. Also, the cost of making the meals are less than a coin each so I wasn’t really risking anything” Rune answered. ”But keep that to yourself, will you?” He added after a slight pause.
The girl glared at him as she realized exactly how much he had cheated her on. Lucky for him the ale had begun to kick in and she wasn’t really in the mood for an argument. “Yeah, what I meant was, who told you I was stronger than normal?” the girl clarified.
“You hear a lot as a barkeeper” he said, trying to dodge the question. Although there was probably plenty of people gossiping after what happened with Muddy, it seemed unlikely that the rumours had gotten here before her. Even if she had gotten a little lost on the way over.
For a second the girl considered pressing him for an answer but decided against it. It didn’t really matter a lot and she had another topic in mind that she was a lot more interested in. “I guess you heard about what happened today,” she began. As Rune nodded with a smile she continued. “Afterwards, a lot of the kids were all sorts of agitated talked about a ghost or a ghoul. It kind of stuck on me, since one of the elders brought it up when I first got here.” Her question wasn’t really voiced out, but Rune would just have to manage.
“You haven’t heard about the ghost of the valley?” He asked her in return, with clear mockery in his tone. To his annoyance the girl ignored his jape and just stared at him. “It’s the very reason that this village is located on the windy slopes of the mountains rather than in the sheltered and cosy valley that is lying right next to it.”
Upon hearing the dramatic flair of his voice, the girl sighed inwardly. This was definitely going to take some time. She emptied her mug and watched his hands wave around as he spoke. “First, get me two more of these, will you?” She said and pushed her empty mug into his hand.
Apparently this village had been around for ages. No one knew when it was founded exactly, but more generations had been born here than people could remember. And for as long as this village had been here, people had been whispering about the ghost of the valley. As with all good legends it had thrived in the precarious state somewhere between credibility and complete bogus. No one could ever prove anything, but over the years more and more people claimed to have seen it. Of course, the sightings were always conveniently out of focus. Someone saw it in the corner of their eye, while another swears they saw it walking over the ridge by the horizon.
One of the few more detailed accounts was from a hunter more or less a generation ago. According to that one, the hunter had been sitting by the fire when a chill had run over her back. When she had turned around to make sure she was imagining things she had nearly died from the shock. She had claimed that an almost translucent being had stood there, not moving an inch, just blankly staring forward. The hunter had fled the scene, making the long trip back to the village in the middle of the night.
As was often the case, people weren’t shy to fill in the blanks in order to flesh out the story. For every time it was told by parents to scare kids into obedience, the ghost had grown more and more sinister. Eventually it had gotten to a point where most was convinced that the valley was cursed. By then only hunters ventured in and out of the valley, and the village had been forced to grow on the outside of the mountains.
Judging by the way he had told the story, Rune cared more for the dramatics of it than its actual content. Now he was pouting somewhat as the girl had completely failed to gasp and oh at the proper moments.
Before he had managed to finish his story, the girl had downed three more mugs of ale. She was at her favourite level of drunkenness, when you were undeniably really drunk, but still somehow managed to convince yourself that you were thinking straight. It had been a pretty shitty story. The way Rune had told it had helped somewhat, but if it wasn’t for the ale and the lack of other entertainment she would definitely have walked off. “So…” She said, and immediately felt a lot drunker when she tried to speak. “… how is that connected to me?”
“You don’t see it?” Rune asked incredulously. “A village on a mountain with only one entrance, where everyone knows everyone. And then a strange girl appears in the valley, approaching a hunter sitting by the fire. Also, the girl in question looks like she has been to hell and back. You can’t tell me that you don’t see the connection?”
The girl tried to think about it, but it proved quite hard as her head was spinning from the ale. She supposed that if they were absolutely sure that the only way into the valley was through the village, then it made a bit more sense. But only a bit. They still hadn’t accounted for the fact that she was obviously not translucent. Also, the ghost in question would be ancient, while she hadn’t yet turned 21. It was enough to explain why they made the connection, but it sure as hell wasn’t enough to convince her that she wasn’t human. The story in itself sounded like bullshit to her. Most people probably had felt exposed or scared in the middle of night and had begun imagining things. Once the legend had appeared that must have begun to colour exactly what they imagined that they saw. She told Rune as much, but he only smilingly shook his head.
“Then how do you explain your abnormal strength?” he asked.
“I don’t know”, was her response. “Look, you can tell me any crappy ghost story that you can think of, it still isn’t going to convince me that I’m not me, or that I’m not human.”
Rune looked like he would continue the argument, but apparently he decided to drop it. “One more ale?” He asked. His voice had a slight slur to it, no doubt caused by the alcohol. The girl snorted, he had only finished two mugs so far. Mr Moustache had proven to be an unexpectedly light drinker. That reminded her, wasn’t he still on his shift? When she asked him about it he grew pale and got a panicked look. The alehouse was still empty, but outside the remnants of the lunch rush had been stewing in the sun. The young man hurried outside with a slight sway to his step.
Hanna remained seated. The day still wasn’t late, but she was far too drunk to get anything constructive done. She kind of regretted drinking so early, but it had proven to be quite the capable distraction. Now that some time had passed, she didn’t feel as angry as before. She was still pissed off by the villagers’ hostility, but she guessed that she could somewhat understand them. They had pretty much been living in isolation since forever.
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Her thoughts were cut short by Rune’s voice from outside the building. “She is inside, in the corner”, he said. A short moment later two of the elders walked inside. It was the happy couple, but Hanna couldn’t remember their names. As they walked towards her it felt like when your parents were going to give you a talking to. They were both going for a look somewhere between neutral and stern, but just like last time the old man was sort of failing at it. It was heart-warming really, as if he just didn’t have enough anger in him.
“Do you mind if we sit down?” asked the old woman.
“It’s your village, isn’t it?” Hanna answered, and chuckled at the symmetry of it all.
The old woman looked confused by her chuckle. “Sure… more or less”, she said, apparently uncomfortable as she thought about it. “Are you drunk?” She added with a disapproving tone.
The girl shrugged. She wasn’t super proud of how she had taken shelter in alcohol just because things were a bit shitty, but who cares? They were not her parents, and it was not like they knew how it felt to have your whole world snatched away from you. Also, it might just be the added pressure from their parent-like attitude, but she wasn’t feeling nearly as drunk anymore.
The old woman leaned in towards her and stared into her eyes. “This is the last time you harm one of our villagers. Is that clear?” Her voice was filled with authority, but it also had an unmistakable finality to it.
The girl heard herself swallow hard and her mouth was dry. She wanted to complain about it being unfair, what with the stabbing and all. But it wasn’t as if she had the wound to prove what happened anyway. Besides, the tone of the old woman’s voice told her that she wasn’t going to change her mind, proof or not. “Yes”, she answered.
Once she had gotten her answer, the old woman’s aura became far more positive. It was hard to tell what was an act and what was natural, but she certainly used her voice and body language to dramatic effect. “Birgitta has informed me of her decision to personally train you. I have agreed to it, on the condition that you spend your afternoons with Gunnar.” The old woman pointed her thumb towards her husband.
The girl looked at him and he smiled at her in return. It wasn’t as if she had much of a choice in the matter, but the girl didn’t have a habit of agreeing to things without checking the fine print. “What for?” She asked.
“I’m sitting right here you know”, the old man said to his wife. She smiled apologetically to him but didn’t bother saying anything. The man let it go and turned towards the girl. “We will be talking mostly. And maybe some walking. We’ll see how it goes.” He finished with a happy smile but there was a hunger in his eyes.
The girl thought back to their earlier conversation about rifles and got a bad premonition. “Okay”, she said doubtfully. “When do we start?”
“This afternoon still has some hours in it”, said the man, sounding like a kid at Christmas. “Why don’t we start now?”
The old woman cut in. “Gunnar, the girl can barely talk, I’d be surprised if she even made it out of the building”. Her tone was somewhere between condescending and caring, which really pissed the girl off.
“Nonsense”, she said and stood up. To her surprise it actually wasn’t too bad, she didn’t even sway a little. She had been very drunk a short while ago, but now she just felt a bit tipsy. The girl reckoned that it might be related to the same phenomenon that made her strong. What was clear at least was that it had happened unnaturally fast. Maybe it was the last bits of alcohol in her system, but this discovery didn’t bother her at all. Compared to being freakishly strong and waking up in a new world, an efficient liver seemed quite manageable. “Are we going or not?” She said, making a point of only addressing the old man.
As the girl practically dragged the man out of the building, the old woman lingered for a while. She had a smug smile and seemed pleased with herself. The older the fiddle the sweeter the tune, she thought. Then she set after the young barkeep to give him a talking to regarding his little gambling stunt.
Once outside the building, the old man took the lead. The prospect of new technology had brought a hot passion to the man. This in turn gave him a measure of presence and drive that the girl hadn’t seen before. In her opinion it really did him good. Without missing a beat, he brought them zigzagging between the houses until they came to a small house and what looked like an area for blacksmithing. The old man opened the door without nocking and they both stepped inside. Pretty much all of the small house was covered in shelves, and the only area that wasn’t was occupied by a huge desk. There were candles everywhere, and plenty of burnt down stumps from used ones. Someone had obviously spent many late nights studying here.
“Ok, I’m ready”, the old man said. He was seated by the desk and had brought forward some rough paper as well as some ink and a quill. To the girl it looked like a scene straight out of Harry Potter. She couldn’t help but laugh a little.
“Ready for what?” She asked.
“For you to tell me of your technology”, he said with a hopeful voice, his quill already dipped in ink.
The girl thought about this. Had he imagined that she should just list everything she know? Where would they even start? “That is not going to work”, she said. It felt bad when she saw the disappointment in the old man’s face. His enthusiasm alone made her want to help him. But she also figured that it couldn’t hurt if she made herself a bit more important to the village. Thinking about the hustle by the alehouse and the incident with Muddy, she hadn’t made a great first impression. The girl wanted to come up with something concrete to teach them, but she barely knew anything about them. So, let’s start there, she thought. “Why don’t you give me a tour of the village, and we’ll see what comes up?”
She had moved around quite a lot in the village, but she hadn’t really gotten a good grasp of it yet. It turned out that being accompanied by someone with a normal sense of direction helped a lot. The village was bigger than it seemed. Most of it consisted of small, single family houses. The exception was a few utility buildings and a communal house for those who were too old to live at home but had yet to find a partner. As they talked about the communal house, the old man remembered that that was where the girl was supposed to live for now. It didn’t look like much of a change from the alehouse, so she didn’t really care. But she did her best to remember the location.
The economy of the village was a bit odd compared to what she was used to. The village owned all the buildings and had a say in all matters, but everyone owned the result of their work. If someone wanted to retire they decided who would replace them, but the village could step in at any point and overrule this. Taxation was on a different level depending on occupation but was generally only a few percent of a person’s income. It all was regulated by the fact that the village elders needed to keep everyone more or less happy. Since the village was small enough for single individuals to be heard, an unfair ruling could kick up a veritable shit-storm. The old man had a tired look as he said this.
Most parts of the village were located on the slopes of the mountain that surrounded the valley. It was a rather gentle slope, but it was still steep enough that the village had been built in a zigzag pattern. The creek that begun in the valley ran straight through it all. The village ended quite high up on the mountain, and only a thin road winded its way along the creek until it reached flat ground. It was hard to tell from where they stood, but the old man said that most of what the village ate was grown on the ground by the base of the mountain.
As inspiration struck her, the girl described what she knew about things that they could improve. An unexpected hurdle in this was that a lot of modern inventions was impossible to recreate here, since they needed electricity and specialised tools. This meant that what she ended up telling them was more or less ancient compared to what was normal before the gap. In most cases she could only describe the general idea of something, since she knew next to nothing about the specific details.
Not that the old man seemed to mind. His eyes were practically sparkling, and he seemed to soak up every word she said. When she had told him about modern housing he had immediately asked dozens of questions, until it became clear that what they needed before that was straight wooden planks. This in turn required a sawmill, which needed a waterwheel to operate. This proved to be a similar pattern as they walked around. Every final concept depended on a number of stuff that needed to be build first. It gave the girl a strange feeling when she realized that this afternoon’s conversation had probably hastened the village’s technological development by a couple of hundred years.
By the end of their walk it had begun to darken. The old man was so filled with enthusiasm that he seemed on the verge to run off and start working straight away. After discussing most of her ideas they had agreed to focus on just a few of them first. One of them was the sawmill, which would be using the creek to power it. When the old man had questioned what would happen to the village’s fresh water if they did, they had decided to also dig a well that would service the entire village. The last thing they had decided on was to try and build something a bit more stable than the current road. They would be needing stone for the well anyway, so they might as well try and strike while the iron was hot.
When they were done, the girl had headed straight for the alehouse. She could probably have moved to the communal house straight away if she wanted to, but she felt spent and also quite ready for some dinner. Her hunger grew as she walked, and she felt quite proud when she got there without barely getting lost at all. Once she stepped inside she found that it was really rowdy. Someone was playing some weird-sounding instrument, and there were people everywhere. As she made her way over to the bar she recognised a few of the people from lunch. They all glared darkly at her but none of them looked like they were actually going to do anything. She ignored them and pushed through the crowd that was drinking around the bar. To her disappointment she found that Rune wasn’t working at the moment. His replacement was an older man with a sizeable gut. He was completely bald, but he sported a moustache that bore a striking resemblance to the one Rune had. It put a smile on the girl as she mused over the possible reasons.
The stern voice of the old man put an end to her musings. “Are you going to stand there smiling or are you going to order?”
“I’m not sure if Rune told you but I have already paid for food and drinks, as well as a room”, she said. She was really hungry and since she also was completely broke she was really hoping their deal still held.
The barkeep looked her over for a second. “So, you are Hanna then?”, he said. “You don’t look that dangerous to me”, he added after a moment of consideration. The girl got pissed off when she heard this, since it meant that the rumours were still running wild. Some of her anger must have shown on her face, because the barkeep took offence. “Hey kid, cool it down or I’ll knock it out of you!” He said, and something in his voice made it seem like more of a promise than a threat.
You probably didn’t remain the barkeep of a Viking village unless you knew how to fight, the girl thought. She forced herself to smile to show how fucking calm and peaceful she was.
“That’s better”, he said. “The boy told me of your deal. I guess you will be wanting some dinner?”
The girl began nodding before he had finished his question. That made the man smile for the first time, which did wonders for his appearance. He suddenly looked more like a kind father and less like a surly old hog. The smile was short-lived, it was almost as if he made a conscious effort to hide it. “Take a seat and I’ll bring some over to you”, he said.
The girl was quick to comply.