Little Freydis giggled as Embla flapped the wings. ‘Look, Mama! Odin bird!’
Embla kissed her daughter’s cheek. ‘Clever girl! Shall we find the others now?’
Freydis nodded and slapped her arm gently, silently demanding to be put down. With her heart in her throat, Embla set her two-year-old daughter down, and took the torch from the boulder where she had rested it while they played.
Oblivious to her mother’s worry, Freydis tottered off down the rocky path towards the larger chamber below.
‘Careful, darling!’ she called, hurrying to grab their bag. All of her children had been quick to walk, and it was both a blessing and a curse. She hoped the babe in her stomach would be a little less brave, although by all the kicking it gave her at night, she doubted it.
‘Slow down!’ she called again, but if anything, Freydis seemed to pick up speed. Her stout little legs pounded the stone floor as she ran in her reindeer boots. The flickering lights of the chamber grew closer and Embla tried to hurry to catch her, fearing she would fall at the little drop down at the end of the path.
A dark shadow loomed up at the end of the tunnel, and Freydis gave a little scream. But it was not a cry of fear; it was a cry of pure childish delight. Runar grabbed his daughter by the waist and swept her up into his arms before she had a chance to fall on the final drop.
Embla gave a deep sigh of relief and walked down into the chamber with considerably more ease. ‘That child is going to make me lose every hair on my head!’ she grumbled.
‘Mama! We added our own picture! Come and see!’ called Baldr, and Embla made her way over to her eldest son and Magnus, who were both drawing on the cave wall.
Her youngest nephew grinned up at her as they approached. His elder brothers had gone trading with their father, but Magnus was still considered too young to join them as he had only seen ten winters.
She pushed her torch towards the wall to see it better. ‘Is that our mountain?’
‘Yes!’ said Baldr. ‘And there is our Gudvangen family.’ He pointed out a group of longhouses drawn in the red paint Runar had made for them. ‘Uncle, Auntie, and the boys,’ he added, pointing out each person proudly; they were crudely drawn as if they were made out of sticks, but Embla was still impressed.
‘Then here’s the Sami family...’ Magnus said, pointing out the groups of triangularlavvuon the other side of the mountain. ‘I added reindeer, and snow on the peak of the mountain to show it is winter... Otherwise, they would not be here, would they?’
Embla admired their work with lots of praise, and then asked, ‘So, where are we?’
‘I was just about to draw us!’ Baldr reached forward with his brush and painted a large cabin in the centre of the mountain.
‘Our longhouse isn’t in the middle of the mountain,’ said Runar as he tickled a laughing Freydis in his arms.
‘No, but you are the bridge between them,’ said Magnus thoughtfully, reaching forward to draw four stick figures of varying sizes.
‘You forgot the baby!’ Baldr reached forward and drew a tiny stick figure between the two smaller ones.
Bickering began between the two boys as they argued over whether the unborn baby should be included, or if they should wait until after it was born.
Embla decided it was long past time for her to sit down, and went to rest against one of the blankets in the centre of the cavern. Runar came to join her, leaving Freydis to play with her own paints on a nearby boulder.
He peeked inside the cloth-covered basket and then let out a disgruntled huff.
‘Those beasts have eaten everything!’ he complained, giving the boys a mock furious glare, which they pointedly ignored.
‘We should head back soon anyway. Otherwise, Freydis will get grumpy.’
‘She can go in the sling on the way back.’
Embla smiled at that. Freydis had taken to sleeping on Runar’s back, unable to deny her anything. He carried her everywhere, while he went about his chores, and even occasionally on hunts with him.
‘What about you? Are you well enough to head back?’
Embla smiled, brushing the dust off her skirts. ‘I will be fine. I am strong remember?’
Runar shook his head with an admiring smile. ‘The strongest woman I know.’
Embla laughed; she was still as plump as she had always been, more so after the children. But what did that matter? She was also strong, devoted, and loving.
‘Come on, time to go! Pack up your things,’ Embla called out to the children. When they protested, she added, ‘Aunt Gertrud is coming with your grandmother tomorrow, and we need to prepare a feast for them.’
