The Viking Hostage, page 28
‘Indeed, I will,’ he tells us. Guy’s steward is waiting to make arrangements for Richard’s horses and to give refreshments to the road-weary men.
In the hall, I sit with Guy and take a glass of wine to clear the dust from my throat. He is smiling, but his expression seems vague and disconnected. Perhaps he is starting to doubt me. I cannot look him full in the face. He asks me: ‘No Sigrid?’
My heart leaps at his words as at first I misunderstand his meaning and then slowly calming myself, I say: ‘No, she decided to stay with her countrymen. I miss her terribly.’ I feel the truth threaded through my lies, thinking of Aina and hoping she is well with her swelling belly without me.
‘Of course you do,’ Guy says, briefly placing wide brown fingers across the back of my hand, but then he quickly lifts his hand away, as if he is unsure how I might welcome it. ‘We must find you a new maid, but I know Sigrid was more than that to you. Perhaps I might fill a little of the gulf of lost friendship you are feeling?’
I begin to smile at him, but remember that Aina would not respond so warmly to him and perhaps he will become suspicious to find a wife suddenly warm who before was so cold.
‘Thank you,’ I say, injecting as much cool disinterest into my tone as I can, and am sorry to see his expression alter. I soon excuse myself to rest. The less opportunity anyone has to observe me or I to make a mistake, the better.
I am a barnyard hen that sat on an eagle’s nest. Tomorrow my further trials will begin as I will have to persuade Lady Melisende to be complicit with the deception, consummate my marriage with Guy and assume the duties of the viscountess of Limoges – if I get that far. They are all daunting prospects, but I linger on the last. I watched Melisende training Aina. I know what to do, but knowing is different from actually doing it, from commanding many servants, making decisions, playing hostess to great lords and ladies, advising my husband on the eddies of jealousies and resentments swirling around him. I study Guy at dinner and feel sure I am right in my surmise that his eyesight is very poor. I notice the way he cocks his head to listen carefully to conversations, to music and poetry and how he feels for things: his knife on the table, seeming to caress it before picking it up, the stem of his green glass, the top of his chair. He steadies himself against table edges, the wall, the doorways. I cannot imagine how he has survived thus far, especially in military training and skirmishes. Perhaps he and I will speak of it one day. In the meantime, I will help him, aid him to the best of my abilities. Perhaps I need only maintain Aina’s coolness toward him for a short time.
I lie awake worrying about Lady Melisende. She will arrive just before noon from Ségur with a train of servants, many of whom might know me: Phillippe perhaps, Renaud. I will have to greet them in the courtyard with Guy and Calva, in full view of the Limoges household and the men of Normandy. Of course Melisende will exclaim, but this is not my daughter! This is my slave Sigrid! I roll in the bed, groaning. What can I do? Waylay her on the road before she gets here? Try to persuade her in the forest? And if she will not participate in the lie – and why would she? She is an honest Christian woman who is fond of Guy. If she will not, then I must run away and make my way to the coast and get a message to Thorgils to come to get me or try to make my own way back to Kelda Ey on a boat, and hope that Olafr will not wreak vengeance on Thorgils. Perhaps he will be satisfied to have the silver. But a woman travelling alone? I would not last in safety one night. I would have to steal some men’s clothing from a laundry basket and travel as a boy. Even then …
I wake to the clangour of the breakfast bells. Too late then to ride out and speak with Melisende on the road. I put on the best blue gown I have in my chest, my betrothal ring and some other rings that Guy presented to me as gifts yesterday, and I wear a large silver cross at my neck that Aina had taken from her own neck and given to me, kissing it and crying tears upon it. More lies regarding my beliefs. My Thor’s hammer and serpent brooch are hidden in a locked box inside my chest. A red-gold circlet holds my thick veil in place over my head and face, showing only the tip of my nose, my mouth and chin, and it lifts up slightly with every breath. Perhaps Lady Melisende has aged in the three years of our absence and her own sight might be as poor as Guy’s. I am clutching at straws.
Guy is waiting for me in the hall. ‘Good morning, Lord Guy, soon to be my husband!’ I smile to him, concealing the anxieties welling within me.
He smiles widely in response. ‘You look very fine in that blue gown, Lady Aina, soon to be my wife. Your mother has been sighted from the walls and will be here in minutes. We’ll go out and await them.’
In that instant, I know I cannot do this. Cannot allow the extreme risk of exposure in front of everyone. I grip my side. ‘Oh Lord Guy,’ I say, ‘I have a terrible and sudden pain. I must retire again. I am so sorry. Please, please,’ I call over my shoulder, moving swiftly to the stairs, ‘will you send my mother to me?’
He is bewildered. ‘Yes, of course, Aina?’ but I flee before he can ask more.
I hear the horses and look out the window to see Melisende handed down from her mount and greeting Guy. I am so pleased to see her, and pleased too that I do not recognise any of the attendants with her. My heart begins to thump at the thought of the conversation coming between us now and how disappointed she will be not to see Aina here but instead to find just me. Guy is speaking to her, and she looks up suddenly to the window with an anxious expression on her dear face and I step back so she should not see me. I hear her come running up the steps and know she is on the way to me, but at least alone. I stand close to the door and take a deep breath. The door opens and I catch it in my hand.
‘Aina? My love …’
Swiftly, I take her arm, pulling her into the room, close and latch the door so that it cannot be opened from outside.
‘Sigrid!’ An enormous smile of relief spreads across her face. She embraces me and I feel the thinness of her arms and close up, see the grey in her hair, breathing in her vanilla scent. She is frailer since Ademar died and since we have been gone. ‘So it is true, you are both here and safely returned to me, my two dear daughters. Aina?’ she asks, spinning around, looking confused at the empty bed and the empty room.
‘Lady Melisende, I hardly know where to begin, but I must tell you a tale. Aina is safe and well,’ I reassure her, placing a comfortable stool for her to sit on.
She frowns. ‘Where is she? Lord Guy said she was taken with a pain in her side.’
I tell my story in a rush. How Aina is not here but with my brother Thorgils on an island off the coast of Bretland. How Aina loves my brother and carries his child and how I have come in her stead because she could not come. I give her Aina’s letter and watch anxiously as she reads it slowly.
Melisende shakes her head, her expression amazed. ‘What does my child mean?’ she says to herself, running her eyes over the words in the letter, and then touching them as if she were touching Aina. She looks up at me. ‘What do you mean, Sigrid? This is not possible. She never wanted to marry Guy, did she, Sigrid? What a stubborn girl I have.’ She asks me questions about Thorgils’ status and wealth, and I tell her he is a great jarl in Bretland.
‘He is the lord of the prosperous island of Kelda Ey. He owns vast tracts of land, islands and many chests of silver,’ I say, exaggerating a little but trying not to stray too far from the truth.
‘Stolen from monasteries, like my daughter,’ Melisende says, compressing her mouth in disapproval.
‘He is a very good man.’ I know she and Ademar worked hard to accumulate wealth to pass onto their only child and grandchildren, and that now she competently carries on Ademar’s trading business as his widow. If she agrees to this deception, she will be allowing her family’s wealth and name to pass instead to me and to my children. I tell her I have deceived the duke and duchess of Normandy and now Guy too. ‘It was the only way to protect my brother and Aina and their child, to give Aina what she so dearly wanted, Lady Melisende!’
Melisende looks at me sombrely for several minutes. ‘And what about what you want and need, Sigrid, my Northchild?’ She reaches to stroke my cheek with the back of her fingers and raises her brows at me. I lean my face to her gentle touch and remember how she saved me in the Tallinn Slave Market so long ago with her compassion and kindness. I shake my head and can hardly speak more. ‘I want them to be safe. I love them and I love you, Lady Melisende.’
‘My brave Sigrid,’ she says, her voice warm with emotion. ‘My brave little Northchild in the Tallinn Slave Market ripped from your brother, and now you have lost him – given him up, again.’
We are silent and I look down at our hands clasped together in her lap. I dare not look at her. With my free hand, I swipe at a tear crawling down my cheek at her mention of Thorgils.
‘Sigrid, have you converted?
‘No.’
‘I cannot allow you to marry Guy if you are still a pagan, Sigrid. I couldn’t have that on my conscience.’
‘I will … I will convert.’ No other response comes to me, but I know as I say the words, that now I am lying to her, too.
Melisende regards me steadily for some time.
‘Ademar built up a large fortune and has substantial holdings in Ségur. He wished to pass this on to his daughter … I just don’t know what to say, Sigrid.’
‘You could still pass your wealth to Aina.’
‘How? Guy is expecting you to come with Ségur and all its holdings as your dowry.’ I don’t have an answer for this and Melisende is silent again, thinking. ‘You would have to bring Ségur to Guy as your dowry,’ she says slowly, ‘but perhaps it would be possible to ensure that Ademar’s moveable wealth goes to Aina and her children.’
‘Oh yes,’ I say, ‘if we can find a way to do this, that would be wonderful. I do not want what is not mine.’
‘Oh, Sigrid, I, and Ademar, if he were alive, do not resent giving part of our fortune to you. You were also our daughter, and now you have made this great sacrifice for Aina.’
‘What about you, Lady Melisende?’
‘Ademar left me a very substantial bequest and the holdings of Ségur for my lifetime, which should then pass to our daughter.’ She looked keenly at me suddenly. ‘Yes, I think I can see a way to arrange this, Sigrid, which will be fair to all of us and not obvious to Guy.’ She pauses to think at length again. ‘Well, Sigrid,’ she says, eventually placing her hands neatly folded in her lap, ‘or I mean, well, Aina.’ Her eyes sparkle at me and I know I am safe, we are all safe.
‘Oh, Melisende, forgive me. Is it so terrible a thing that I am doing? I promise to be a good wife to Guy – if it should get that far.’
‘Well, perhaps we could spirit you away now, say your terror with the Vikings was so great you have decided to become a nun.’ I shake my head, pulling a face Aina herself would have been proud of. ‘But I can see how Aina and your brother’s safety and that of my grandchild is best served by your pretence. I can see that. But Guy? He must know it is you?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t think he does. He seems to have simply accepted that I am Aina. He is short-sighted, you know.’
‘Yes, I always thought he was, but not to recognise you?’
‘Very short-sighted,’ I say with certainly. ‘And he only saw Aina and I veiled when we were women.’
Melisende nods slowly. ‘Sigrid, I believe you will make Guy a good wife and you have always been a good daughter to me.’ Her eyes fill with tears. ‘But am I never to see my child again? Tell me of her. And tell me about your brother. Is he good to her? Does he look like you? And, then, my love, my Northchild, we must prepare ourselves for your marriage, my daughter’s marriage, and your new position as viscountess.’
* * *
The noises of the wedding feast are still audible in the hall, but Guy has persuaded the last of those who accompanied us to the bridal bed to leave the chamber. He closes the door with a quiet click of the latch, and the noises and shouts are instantly muffled. He turns back to me, seated in my nightdress on the bed, my hair loose down my back. I notice again that although he is looking in my direction, his eyes do not connect with mine. He walks with one hand held in front of him as if he might bang into furniture, though there is none in his path. Compared to the heavy trials I have already endured: convincing everyone I am Aina, gaining Melisende’s complicity and marrying this man under a false name in a solemn Christian ceremony that means nothing to me and everything to him; the mere act of consummating our marriage now should seem trivial, yet I feel a thrill of nerves in my stomach, mixed with something more pleasant. I am twenty-eight and I have never lain with a man, although I have kissed a few. The idea is not without its appeal and this man – he has reached me now and sits down next to me – he seems gentle and intelligent. He is not ugly. He too wears a thin nightgown and his knees and calves are visible. He is not striking in any way, yet I feel comfortable with him.
He raises his hand to my cheek and runs the back of his finger gently down my jaw, turning my face to him and looking closely at me. He strokes the fall of my loose hair, and smiling, curls a red strand around his finger. ‘Your hair is the most splendid thing I have ever seen. A great flame that I can see from any distance. You are so beautiful,’ he says, ‘and I am very glad you are here, returned at last and we are wed.’
I smile back. ‘I too am glad.’
‘Well, Aina,’ he says, looking quizzically at me, ‘we are married and we should do something about it.’ He leans toward me and his mouth touches mine, his hand cupping my breast through the thin fabric of my nightgown.
23
Milford, 992
The Orm slid with smooth precision alongside the wooden jetty at Milford. Toki leapt onto the planking and Thorgils slung a rope to him, then turned to grin at Aina sitting amidships, cradling their one-year-old son, Ulf, to her breast. It had been a while since King Maredudd issued his invitation to come to a parlay, and now Thorgils, curious to see what the king might offer, had arrived to talk. He tugged uncomfortably at the richly embroidered tunic Aina had insisted he should wear. He would rather have come in his everyday clothes and armour, but Aina assured him he needed to make a great show of status and wealth in this audience with the Bretar king. Lordly display is important, she said, in turbulent times and uncertain company.
He handed Aina and the baby from the ship with care. Asbjorn and Gormr stayed to guard The Orm and the rest of the party, armed to the teeth, formed closely around their leader and his auburn-haired woman as they strode toward the marketplace. The heads of men and women, young and old, turned as they progressed, some with alarmed expressions, others snarling with hatred. ‘Llychlynwyr.’ Thorgils heard them voice one of their names for his kind. People of the fjords. Well, that was true enough and no insult.
Viking ships had been overwintering at Milford and other places along the coast of Cymry for two hundred years and the Gentiles, as the local people called the Northmen, were a familiar enough sight by now, as traders, mercenaries, allies, settlers, as well as raiders. Many Norsemen had married local women or bred children with their Bretar slaves. Many had learnt the language from their women and children. Some of Thorgils’ men, such as Rhodi, were shorter and black-haired and could pass for Bretar. Yet despite the partial integrations and the degree of peaceful encounters, these predominantly big, blond or red Northmen were still mostly distinct. Many Northmen had not given over raiding as a necessary part of their repertoire. Their specialism of taking and trading slaves was not easily forgiven or soon forgotten and most families hereabouts had someone who had been ripped from home and hearts: a wife, a daughter, a young son, an aunt.
Thorgils and his men took no notice whatsoever of the response to their progress through the thronging harbour with its stench of fish and its crab pots, coiled ropes, piles of nets. ‘Don’t respond, Aina,’ Thorgils warned her in a low voice. He did not want his delightfully mercurial wife getting them all into armed combat before he had even had speech with the king, and he also did not want to find himself fighting when he had his woman and child at his side. Perhaps he should have left them behind, but Aina was not given to such ideas, and Thorgils generally found it easier to give way to her. That fight would have been worse by far, he thought wryly, beaming at her, much worse than anything these local men and women might visit on him.
At the marketplace the sale of slaves was in full swing and no knowing where these would have been taken from or whether they were enslaved following crimes or destitution, or whether they were the children and grandchildren of slaves. Aina overheard one merchant telling another that he was insulted by the offer of toothless, old, feeble merchandise on offer. Another man was haggling with a slaver, wanting to return a sick slave and get his money back. ‘But the goods are faulty,’ the man was saying, ‘and it’s just not satisfactory.’ Above a crowd of craning dark heads, Aina saw three young women stood in thin shifts at the front of the platform, while a slaver called out descriptions and encouraged the crowd. One brown-haired girl had a completely blank expression, as if she were dead inside. Another was shaking and crying, tears streaming down her pink face and snot gleaming on her upper lip. The third had the dark skin and hair of a foreigner and stood staring at the crowd, angry and proud.
‘Whenever I see a slave now, Thorgils, I think of Sigrid,’ Aina said, ‘and her views about it.’
‘Yes,’ he said, turning his gaze away from the unfortunate three women and the platform where he had once stood himself and been separated from Sigrid. He surveyed the marketplace for signs of danger as well as signs for where he should head. ‘This way,’ he said, seeing a group of highly armed men outside one of the large houses. Aina took her eyes and her mind away from the slave women reluctantly, and followed her husband toward the house. Seeing Thorgils and his small band of huge, fair-haired men advancing on them, the guards crossed their spears with a loud clang.
