Chapter 1: The Shutters and the Windowpanes

In which Bard and Sigrun are eight

An icy mist coming down from the Mountain made Sigrun's yellow hair curl like autumn leaves while she chattered away without pausing for breath. Bard, scowling, pulled his coat tighter about himself and kept his eyes fixed on the Lake; hoping that his sullenness would encourage her to go away and bother someone else. He was used to the sound of her chattering – the day she stopped chattering would probably be the day she died – but today she was talking at about three times her usual speed, and worse, talking nonsense.

'My da's folk are noomeenorians,' she was proudly declaiming; straightening her spine and strutting about like a little queen.

Bard sighed.

'What's a noomeenorian?' he asked.

'It's like a king,' Sigrun replied.

Bard thought about Sigrun's da, and frowned.

'Who says?'

'My da says!'

Bard snorted with laughter.

'I think your da's a liar.'

'He is not!'

'So how do you know that your da's a king?' Bard insisted.

Sigrun's eyes were wide with conviction.

'Because when my da opens his cupboard,' she replied, 'he has so much gold that it all comes falling out!'

'Why's he live here, then?' Bard asked her.

Sigrun seemed thrown by that, and for a moment she stared at Bard with something like panic, her blue eyes widening into pools of crystal doubt.

'Say again?'

'Why's he live here,' Bard repeated, 'if he has so much gold?'

'How…' Sigrun stuttered; trying and failing to sound defensive; 'how much gold does your da have?'

'Dunno,' Bard shrugged, 'when my da opens the cupboard, nought falls out but a lot of those three-pint barrels you can sometimes get at Golden Dragon.'

Sigrun folded her arms and hung her head; and began to rock back and forth on the balls of her feet. Bard waited for her to speak. She said nothing.

'What's the matter, Sig?'

Sigrun kept her eyes fixed pointedly on the ground, and folded her arms tighter; as though she were trying to rock herself to sleep.

'Sig?' Bard insisted; touching her shoulder.

Sigrun looked up at him, and picked up their conversation without replying.

'My ma used to say that drink runs in families,' she confidently pronounced, 'like when people get brown eyes or blue eyes.'

'That doesn't make sense,' Bard glowered; thinking of his own da; thinking of himself.

'Of course it does, stupid,' Sigrun plunged on; oblivious, 'just look at your family. We know that your da likes his drink, so if his da did too, and his da did afore, all the way back to the beginning, then we could suppose that if Girion liked getting drunk as often as your da does, it's no wonder he couldn't shoot straight.'

Bard dropped his hand.

'Girion did not like getting drunk!' he shouted.

'How do you know?' Sigrun snapped, 'did you know him?'

'No, but –'

'Then how do you know?' Sigrun challenged.

'Because he did hit the dragon, you idiot!' Bard yelled, 'his arrow pierced the skin just beneath its – '

Sigrun snorted in disdain; making a dismissive and imperious gesture with her right hand that wounded him to the quick.

'My da says your da made that up to make himself feel better!' she scoffed.

'Then your da's an idiot!'

'Don't you call my da an idiot!'

'But he is one!' Bard shouted; his anger at her increasing by the second; 'an idiot, a spendthrift, and a liar!'

'Stop talking about my da like that!' Sigrun growled.

'Everyone knows that he can't afford all those fancy clothes he buys for your stepma, OR all those stupid gold buttons on his clothes that he won't even sell to buy food –'

'Shut up, Bard!' Sigrun screamed at him.

'– and just because he thinks he's a stupid noomeeporian –'

'Noomeenorian!'

'– he thinks he doesn't have to work for anything, and that other folk should be working for him!' Bard exclaimed, 'and as for all the gold falling out of his cupboard: when people hear you talking about it, they laugh at you, because they know you're lying! Where is this gold? Where is it? It only exists in you and your da's head; that's where it is!'

Sigrun paused, and burst into tears.

Bard felt his anger drop out of the bottom of his stomach, to be replaced both by guilt and by thoughts of the trouble he would get into later as Sigrun slumped to her haunches and covered her face with her hands; weeping uncontrollably. It was a horrible sound: filled with sorrow and desperation; with words mumbled in between that he could not understand.

Bard had never felt so helpless in his life. He stood awkwardly at Sigrun's side, arms folded, and waited for her to stop, or run away. She did neither. She just kept on crying, as though someone had hurt her; as though someone had stuck a knife in her and was pushing it deeper and deeper, as slowly as they could.

'Sig,' Bard said softly; praying that she would stop; 'Sig.'

She didn't stop; and looking quickly around to ensure they were observed by no one, Bard sat down at her side and awkwardly patted her shoulder. She glanced at him and sniffled; a small smile curling her tiny lips. Then suddenly, her tummy rumbled; as noisily as Bard's own did when there was no food to be had, and she shoved him viciously away from her; her pride coming into her mind again like the shame that was rising in her cheeks.

No sooner had that pride returned that she burst once more into tears with such misery that Bard began to entertain thoughts of pushing whoever was responsible for this into the canal.

'Everything's gone,' Sigrun sobbed, 'everything, everything, they took everything.'

Bard sat alone at the kitchen table, staring gravely at the two mildewed armchairs next to the fire. His da sat snoring and stinking in one of them with half a flagon of ale still clutched in his hand. Sigrun was curled up and snoring gently in the other; the tiny mug of wine Ma had forced her to drink sending her sleep without dreams.

Early that morning Sigrun's da had lost a fortune to some idiot at Golden Dragon. When he had realised what had happened, he had tried to win it back.

By the time he had finished trying, he had had no house left. Even the window panes were gone, and by midday, so was he.

'We have to help her,' Bard had told his ma.

'Her father will turn up,' Ma had said, 'he always does.'

'She's better off without him,' Bard had snarled.

'Really?' Ma had asked him, 'would you be better off without your da?'

Bard had glanced sternly across the room at his snoring father, and the only thing he had felt had been a hardness inside: a love that was like hate.

The fire was burning low now. Ma had gone to bed half an hour ago, but Bard still felt as awake as he might have been at midday. He kept thinking about the window panes. How much coin had they gotten for taking the window panes?

He glanced towards their own windows. No glass there. Just shutters. And yet, his family had a house. He knew where his ma and da were. He wasn't alone.

Bard looked back towards Sigrun, and saw that she was awake; the fire turning her hair the colour of gold.

She looked at him for a long time without speaking.

'I'm sorry I called your da a drunk,' she mumbled eventually.

Bard glanced briefly at his snoring father.

'My da is a drunk,' he replied.

'Then I'm sorry I called Girion a drunk,' Sigrun said.

'Maybe he was a drunk,' Bard replied.

'No,' Sigrun added, 'I don't think so. Not if he was like you.'

Bard swallowed, and felt himself blushing. He fixed his face into an immediate frown, and tried to look as stern and grave as possible.

Sigrun, meanwhile, snuggled hastily backwards into her armchair so that her face and chest were in shadow; her expression as unknowable as her smile.