His Last Fire by Alix Nathan Page A

Immewoth
    Immeliidh O Immaeleck Immaeliie
    By the time of the wager swathes of Schefferus were committed to memory; he knew well what deprivations to expect, what attitudes to anticipate. Anni and Mari were Christian. He could take them to church but they might need more; he purchased certain stones, drums with brass rings, deer’s horn hammers for divination.
    He’d read of the Lapps’ ‘immoderate lust’; both sexes, all ages slept in the same hut. Blushing, he accused himself of accepting the wager because of it. Yet the Lapps also esteemed marriage, said the book, rarely violated it.
    On the return voyage the sisters stayed below deck and for a week after their arrival wouldn’t come out of their room, in which, Edward understood, his housekeeper eventually washed off smoke-grime. When finally they appeared, how charmed he was by their penetrating dark eyes, exotic smallness, broad breasts, slender waists, their childlike pleasure at his glittering gifts! That was how he wanted them, beautiful, innocent; to admire, to learn from.
    Of necessity there had been a small exchange of vocabulary, though Edward was not a natural linguist. He was albma – a gentleman , he told them, Mari was kiscardasche – a sister of Anni, at which they giggled. He would be wellje – like a brother , he said, but they looked dismayed, speaking words of which he recognised none. He struggled to explain that they should sleep in beds, not on the ground, convinced them only by gestures. Under shaggy reindeer skins, according to household gossip, they slept naked.
    He instructed his cook to lightly boil the reindeer meat kept in the ice-house ( jenga kaote – ice shed: he was pleased with that). This satisfied Mari and Anni while it lasted; they rejected tasteless mutton, vegetables. Reported pulling at raw topside in one of the pantries, he bribed them with bracelets and smiles, understood their need, sent out a man to catch trout.
    One of the reindeer had to be killed. By now it was summer: Mari and Anni placed strips of meat along the terrace balustrade to dry in the sun. Around the plinths of Pan, Bacchus, Mnemosyne and Jupiter in shepherd garb. In late afternoon crows grew bold. Dried meat was abandoned.
    They foraged for berries in the kitchen gardens, annoying gardeners, delighting Edward with their pleasure and stained fingers. He explained to Cook how burying a dish of boiled strawberries in the earth was a hedge against winter. He wanted everyone in his household to learn.
    Looking from his window on a wonderful July night, he saw Mari and Anni gather leaves below the terrace, lay out reindeer skins on them, lie down to sleep in the full moon. On subsequent nights, they moved to another patch of ground, speeding agilely over the grass with their leaf mattresses and skins.
    Following the description in Schefferus, whose illustrations greatly excited the women, Edward helped build a tent, stretching woollen, linen, skins obliquely across poles, ramshackle but dry enough, with a smoke hole at the top. There they’d sit after a day swiftly sweeping the estate for fruit, embroidering winter gloves and caps with stars, flowers, birds, reindeer, knots, spangles of gold and silver thread. And there at the opening they welcomed Edward in, into the smoke-filled warmth.

    *

    Robert Sanders was small, brawny, unflappable, with practical ingenuity grown out of years of difficult employment by a woman of notoriety. At her death her daughter dismissed him with sorrow. He took another unusual post, helping Edward Gage with his collecting. Edward found Robert an excellent help-meet, common-sensical, unromantic, utterly unlike himself.
    Tales of Edward’s past poured into Robert’s ear when he arrived, gossip, rumour which, though years old, shone with repeated telling, sparkled with semi-precious phrases.
    It seems that Edward had fallen in love with two Lapp women.
    For months he’d spoken of nothing