Far After Gold by Jen Black

swung it against the wall. Dust flew into the air and made her eyes water. Coughing, she retreated to the hallway, cursing herself for her stupidity. She should have taken the mattress outside before beating it, but causing the dust storm had at least vented her temper.
    She peeked into Skuli Grey Cloak’s quarters. A huge bed took up a good deal of the space. Someone had carved sinuous, open-jawed animals across the head- and footboard, and a pretty blanket in soft shades of blue and pink lay across the feather-filled quilt. A half-made gown, abandoned on a chest, still had a needle and thread tucked into the fabric. Several more stout wooden chests lined the walls, and in the far corner Emer espied one bound up with a heavy iron hasp and padlock. Skuli’s gold, no doubt.
    Emer seized a besom, returned to Katla’s room and swept the bed platform. How odd that such a neat, attractive girl should live in such squalor. Employing short, swift strokes of the besom, she slowly realised her anger was directed at Flane as much as Katla. He thought himself a warrior, but how much of a warrior could he be? She stabbed the besom into a corner. Men considered themselves so brave, so full of courage and yet when it came to explaining feelings, they backed away like small boys from a broken pot.
    She folded discarded chemises, retrieved gowns thrown carelessly over a three-legged stool, picked up and shook out those that had fallen from the pole jammed across the corner of the room. She could not fault Katla’s preference for gowns in shades of blue and red, which would undoubtedly suit her dark colouring and the stitching and embroidery was exquisite at close quarters.
    The overloaded shelf was crammed with ribbons, half-finished tablet work and a collection of mismatched objects. It looked as if a cat played with them all on a daily basis. Emer tidied the collection with a grimace of distaste, knowing she couldn’t live in such squalor as this.
    She paused to admire an amber pendant. Beside it she found a twisted golden torque, and a carved walrus tusk dangling from a leather cord. Broken wooden combs, obviously discarded, filled a mug with no handle, while a good carved ivory comb sat in plain view. Would Katla notice if she took one of the broken ones? It was a temptation, since her need was great; but the last thing Emer wanted was to be accused of stealing a broken comb.
    A flat leather purse lay at the bottom of the untidy mess and she propped it in plain view against the shelf upright. Then she paused, swung her hair back over her shoulder and ran the back of her wrist over her warm face. She considered the room, slowly, as if seeing it for the first time.
    The mattress had been dusty, like any mattress filled with straw, heather and bracken, but it smelled sweet and seemed free of insects and lice. The slaves would change the filling on a regular basis. Katla’s clothes had been creased and crumpled, but they were clean. The besom had picked up the debris of a day or so, but nothing like the accumulated dirt of weeks.
    Emer bit her lip, and a suspicion hardened to a certainty. Katla had deliberately upset her room so she could ask Emer to clean it.
    Why on earth would she do that? The natural answer was spite, of course. If Katla loved Flane, she must be terrified Emer might entice him away. Emer snorted. As if she could!
    A small voice at the back of her mind suggested that she could if she tried.
    Emer dismissed the idea as absurd. All she wanted was to get back to Pabaigh. She wanted to avoid Flane’s embraces, not encourage them.
    Another idea struck her, and she went to the shelf, took up a needle and some wool thread and sat on the bed. She turned back the top edge of her gown and stitched her treasured gold ring on the inside where it would never be seen. She was not going to lose that as she had lost the necklace of glass beads. Her father’s gift was doubly precious now.
    Her thoughts wandered back to Flane as she