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Eighth Day of Christmas: Lieddi

I swing my eyelids open and can already feel my heart racing. Today, since Canute can’t fight my father for my hand he’ll be fighting me up and down the cheese barn thrice over. Oh it's so much fun around here, those lovely civilized women’s cooking, and a man who ain’t afraid to roughhouse with me. It’s like being a kid again but I’ll have to help Canute with the heavy lifting. I hear him strutting out of his room like a chief after a successful reindeer raid, I hear the fizzle of the tap, and the ahh, he always makes after his first sip of the cider. Oh he’d be so happy to meet me tribe if I ever decide to return, pa would love to wrestle him, I don’t even now who’d win!

I spring from my bed with clack as me hooves hit the floors and swing the door open, letting me fur breathe as I stand before Canute and Jan. “Allrighty Canute, ye got still sunset till I kiss the ceiling of the cheesebarn thrice and have me breast pressed against the floor thrice.” I politely inform.

“‘Afer dat, I’m yours, though I’ll still have you drag me to town for a baptism.” I finish.

Canute just turns to Jan with a look that could best be described as dismissive. “Lieddi, I’ll have it done before lunch.” He proclaims, no, boasts.

“Boy I ought-” I start.

Canute downs the rest of his cider and marches on over. I stand firm, but it ‘fore I know it I’m bracing against his arm as he hauls me on out the front door like a sack of turnips. Once out on the frozen snow I swing my hips and plant myself into the ground only to be lifted out with ease. This can’t be this easy for him. I have to make it harder.

Once he swings open the door to the cheesebarn I manage to get a grip in it and pry myself free of one his arms. He pulls on my legs hard enough to where I think I’m done with the drawn half of drawn and quartered. Fighting the pain I pull with all my might against the door to gain maybe a few inches against Canute who with a groan pulls back thrice as hard. My fingers begin to slip as I am pulled horizontal. First my pinkies slipping at the hoof-like tips, then the nailed tips of my ring fingers, after another tung I lose the grip in my index fingers and without much more effort the middle fingers are pulled free from the barn door. For a moment I feel as if I’m about to fall before Canute grabs me by the waist and begins to haul me up the first of the eight cheese shelves. I try to grab at the first but it's so slick from the butter cheese I slip, the second I can barely get a grip on merely slowing him down, the third I halt him.

I pull downwards not fearing the fall, slipping in his grip. I pull, straining every muscle in my body but it isn’t enough as a piece of blue cheese slips underneath my left hand and I’m yanked up another two levels by this cheese squirrel of a man. At the next, before I can take hold he swings me up to the top shelf, forcing me to tilt my head or have my snout sheared off. With a slam and a scamper I prepare to make my stand against the cheesemaker. I make the best attempt I can, kicking, pushing, shoving, and more but its no use, he snatches me by the waist and chin and has me kiss the dusty ceiling before flipping me upside down. C’mon I can do better than this. It’s probably ‘cause of that stupid cheese that slipped under my hand. The way down goes just as quickly, as the cheese makes being pulled down twice as easy than being pulled up and should I fight too hard I risk us both falling.

Damn.

I can’t even put up a meaningful fight on the way down. I just half tossed over the edge where I couldn’t even reach the shelves if I wanted to. On the oh so romantic carry down the stinking shelves. Though it gives me time to think. A man has three weaknesses, his joints, his head, and his crotch. If what mother said was true I’ll need him to strip, which knowing Canute will be really easy, mainly because he hates having to do laundry and needs an excuse to take a hot bath. So, I’ll suggest he strip to avoid getting the leftover cheese smudges on his tunic, and then see which area is most prone to attack. Grinning like a wicked, sleepy child who tricked their father into carrying them, I descend with my scheme complete.

“Hey Canute, I near enough slipped on some cheese residues, I know you hate cleaner yer’ clothes so why not ditch ‘em?” I ask ruefully.

“Good idea, it’s also make us more fair given I won’t have a half-inch of wool protectin’ me.” He concurs in that accent so common among southlanders.

He strips down, his furless but far from hairless body tight with the muscles used for the taxing work of moving cheese. Before I came here, I figured cheese was made like butter but had to be done in warmer climates, but apparently there’s another building closer to the stream that is used for “curding” “shaping” “pressing” and a few other steps I completely forgot. As he faces me in the nude I see my three targets: Well his joins don’t look any weaker than the rest of him, his head, like the head of all men, is far too thick to do anything too, and that leaves his groin. I try to remember what mother told me about that weakness.

“Be gentle, use the soft bits of your hand, lips, tongues, and be as gentle with it as you would lips. Get it to take the visage of a sausage and from there you’ll be able to take the reins of that man. Though, unlike horses, Lieddi you should only ever have but one man’s reins, and even then, you might have to share.” I hear my mother’s voice resonating in my head, no doubt the work of the gods.

“You ready to kiss the ceiling again Lieddi?” Canute asks smugly.

“You ain’t yet pressed me breast upon the planks have ye?” I challenge.

“Fair enough” He shrugs.

With that he leaps from where he stands right to the side of me, with an army on my upper back and the other just north of where my womb ought to be is twists his arms and forces me horizontal. Before I can even start to fall he pulls me closer, gets down on a knee, and then presses me gently on the ground, just barely enough to squish my breasts any.

“That was lame Canute.” I say flatly.

“Have ye ever got a splinter in yer nipple? I have, I wouldn’t want that for anyone.” He details.

Ya know what? I’ll take that answer. I need to start the next round anywho. So I can enact my wicked scheme.

“Now ya good for the second run?” Canute asks impatiently

“Now I am but don’t think it’ll be so easy.” I proclaim.

With that he approaches me, again, and this time rather than try to fight me all the way up simply chooses to hold both my hands in one his own and start climbing the shelves again. This time, I’m smarter than to challenge him physically, instead when I free my hand I don’t take one of the thick, oak or spruce shelves, no, I slide right down to the space between his legs.

Canute slows once I figure out how to get the thing to grow, but gains a sudden burst of energy, performing the same bout of acrobatics that force my lips against the planks nailed into the rafters. Though as he starts to descend again I finally figure out why its mother called it rains. It slows him to a crawl and has him break out in a sweat the fast I run my hand across it, but never fully. His movements become slower and tenser but never fully stop. Though, it does buy me time to think. Why am I fighting?

I ponder that question why I’m so intent on this rite of passage. The only qualification in the tribe is to be worthy in the eyes of the father. He’s proven I can’t stop him, even if I want to. So, Why? I stop my stroking and he powers on through, like a draft horse freed from its load. Soon enough my breasts are on the floor, then I’m back up in the ceiling and down again. Still lost in the question of why.

Perhaps it's more simple than fear of rite. I think it might have to do with the idea of the tribe I am no longer part of. Since I, before coming here, had no people of my own, I might be afraid of finding a new one. Do settled folks also kick people out when they don’t think there’s enough food to go around?

I’ve never heard of the Danes killing Danes over reindeer and sheep. Though my great grandpa told me about how his grandfather’s grandfather knew a poor farmer who raided a place called Britain so successfully they made him chief, and one of our own killed one of his cattle, the two fought and the reindeer slew the human. I don’t really know if the individual towns of the settled folks raid each other's fields…

I should ask.

“”Ey, Canute, do you ever raid nearby towns?” I ask.

He turns to me, his eyes clearly frustrated. “Why would we do that? We’re not on the border with the Swedes or the Geats, nor are we on the border with the Empire, those are the only places where reivers still rummage around on land.” He explains.

“So there’s not cattle raids or anything?” I ask expectantly.

His eyes go from frustration to a face of lowered expectations. “Before I answer any more questions, just how much do you know about the non-Sami world?” He asks.

“Very little, just how to speak Danish, that the cheese, beer, cider, and salted meat comes from Denmark and that’s why I learned Danish.” I explain.

He smacks himself in the forehead. “Well then. C’mon we’re going inside for a lesson with Jan, Kryastanya, Estrith, and my mother.” He states, as if knowing I’ll follow without protest.

I mean.

I did.

Once inside, Estrith wraps me in a thick quilt, and Canute wakes Jan and Krystanya before getting another mug of spiced cider. I don’t know how the humans can have that stuff so close to their face, its offensively strong but I guess it tastes nice. It's cider after all.

After the household is gathered, Canute begins the first phase of his lesson, with lots of corrections by Estrith and his mother- no, my soon-to-be-mother-in-law. So, the town of Hverby is older than my clan, by a few hundred years, with the town existing under a forgotten name before the priests and clergymen were invited by Harald Bluetooth many centuries ago. Some time ago, when is not really known, this town, and the whole of Eastern Denmark, were captured by the Danes, and ever since, in the borderlands between the Danish Realms that rub up against Germany, “Estonia”, the Swedes, and the Geats, raids still occur. I would hope so, the Sami still raid the Swedes and the Geats. Women apparently wear clothes all the time except when bathing, nursing, or with their husbands, which doesn’t make much sense to me, and men usually work from sunup to sundown in the fields or their craft, which also doesn’t make much sense. Every few weeks there’s a feast-day for the various saints representing the people of the village, again at Christmas, and so on.

Its incredibly boring.

Jan makes it more interesting when he discusses places called cities, a great war between a horde of “Heathen” Tartars, and the “Noble Knights” of the House of Piast, the viscous “Order Knights” in their never ending war against heathens, heretics, and sinners who don metal armor from head to toe and make great raids on their enemies or of the might of the Empire who could field over twenty thousand warriors in one place maybe even more. Moreover his knowledge of horses, how to tell a good one, what their teeth mean, and the different kinds. Truly, Jan is a man of great wisdom.

They tell me about other things, most interesting is cheesemaking, and it involves Canute and I getting time away from the other girls as he takes me to a different building with giant tubs, massive presses with stones for weight, and more. Its very interesting. I cannot wait for spring!

Come the sunset after lunch, I lay in my room wondering what on earth happened today. For one, I’m engaged, second I’ve now got a place to stay. In a few days I’ll be wed and probably with child not long after. My heart races as I stare at the wooden rafters. Part of me wants to scream, another wants to laugh, another wants to skewer Canute, the other wants to make a baby with him.

It's all too frustrating.