The Viking Hostage, page 37
Again, Thorgils paused to stab his knife into the meat before him, take it from the knife and chew. Again, the people in the hall waited.
Eventually, Thorgils had eaten enough and washed it down with enough wine that he could continue. ‘But that axe-blow only stunned me and when I came to, corpses lay across and on top of me and I could no longer hear the screams and shouts of battle. I began to push the dead limbs away that I might emerge and was in time to see Olafr standing on the rim of the ship, his red cloak whipping out behind out like a sail just filling with the wind, and I watched in anguish as he jumped overboard.’
The listeners gasped at the image of golden Olafr leaping from the ship. ‘He could not survive, weighed down with the silver of his great armour. I swallowed the shout that was on my lips, for I saw through the tangle of limbs still piled on me that Jarl Erikr was stepping aboard The Long Serpent. The enemy had carried the battle and Olafr jumped because he thought he was the last man standing. I pulled the corpses back around me and closed my eyes. Olafr’s sixty ships, including The Crane, The Orm and The Long Serpent, were all lost, floating empty and bloody. King Svein, Erik the son of Jarl Hakon and the Swedish king had joined forces against Olafr, and Sigvaldi, chief of the Jomsvikings, had betrayed him.’
The men in the hall shouted angrily, and the women wept louder. Thorgils eyes were brimming with tears and Aina stroked his arm, gentling his grief. ‘Tell us the rest of the tale, Husband. How did you come to return to us?’
Thorgils nodded and resumed. ‘After some time, the corpses were lifted from me and I heard splashes as they were thrown and rolled overboard. Then I was limp in the arms of the enemy and tried not to gasp as I hit the cold water. I swam down, with the pale arms and faces of my companions waving around me. While I could hold my breath, I looked for Olafr’s red cloak but could see little in the murk. I dropped my own armour on the sea floor, and watching the shadow of the ship above me, I rose slowly into that shadow. I could hear the enemy shouting above, celebrating their win, boasting already. Corpses floated past. I grabbed onto a tangle of dead arms and legs, closed my eyes again, and waited for the tide to take me into the shore.
I felt my toes hit gravel and cautiously opened my eyes, avoiding looking too closely at the dead faces I swam with. The yellow sand of the beach was before me and I saw there were hundreds of corpses swilling back and forth in the red surf and at the edge grey wolves slavered and fought over their rich feast, pulling bodies out of the water, tearing at bellies. Ravens gathered shrieking in the trees and eagles sat on the faces of men and pecked at their eyes.’
Aina glanced around at the murmurs of distress and saw that Ulf’s eyes shone with the images of Thorgils’ tale.
‘I stood quickly and ran for the trees, before one of those beasts should try to make a meal of me and I heard no shouts from the boats behind me. As I ran stealthily through the trees, I saw, at some distance, a group of men and women poorly dressed, making their way down to the shore, intending to share the corpse plunder with the beasts. I sorrowed for all my friends and Olafr who had fallen there. The Orm gone and all the drengir gone. Olafr, the hawk-minded, the benchmate of his drengir, the deed-strong, the flight-shunning, Olafr was gone into the depths. Olafr!’ Thorgils leapt to his feet, raising his goblet.
Benches scrapped, swords clanged, dogs howled as they failed to move out of the way quickly enough as every man, woman and child in the place leapt up, their own beakers raised, roaring, ‘Olafr!’
Thorgils subsided, and all fell back to their seats again, and each picked over the meal before them in miserable silence until Thorgils spoke again. ‘My golden friend is drear-cheeked now. I was covered in sand and blood and stopped to wash my wounds in a small waterfall. I found a hole under an earthbank and crept in, pulling a bush to conceal me, for I was dead tired and needing sleep. When I woke, darkness had fallen, and I moved on until I came to a hamlet and a tavern where I offered myself as an armed guard to any merchant going on the Swan Road and I came home that way.’
* * *
Alone later in their chamber, Thorgils told Aina: ‘Olafr told me quietly when we stood shoulder to shoulder waiting for the battle to begin that he had lost his way as king without me.’
‘It was good that you went and were with him, Thorgils.’
‘He said he had to rule by force alone when he should have remembered how well he ruled by consensus, with the unwavering love of his men before he was king, when he and I rode the sea together in little Orm.’
Aina looked silently and gratefully into Thorgils’ face until he spoke again: ‘In valour, Olafr was a lion, but in wit and resource, he was a squirrel on the ground. Still,’ he added doubtfully, ‘he was a wondrous swimmer.’
Aina wrote to Sigrid to tell her of Thorgils’ survival and Olafr’s heroic death and added at the end of her letter:
The centre where kings play cannot hold it seems, Sigrid, and all is change there, but the edge can, and Thorgils, Ulf, and I thrive on our island at the edge of the world.
You didn’t want or plan to, Sigrid, but despite yourself you too have lived bravely, travelled widely and accumulated wealth as a good Norse heroine should. You are a secret Viking. The only part you are missing is fame – no one can speak your true name and your heroism and adventures are unsung.
Thorgils tried to forget how his shoulder companions were in earth’s grip, gravegrasped. He told the skalds he did not want to hear tales of Svold for one full year, and yet after that year had passed he was still heavy with friend-loss and it was a long time before his hall was filled again with cheerful uproar and throng-noise, forgetful of the quiet dead.
35
Poitiers, 1003
Guy came to visit Adalmode and his son, Ademar, on his return from the Holy Land, and his visit made her life more bearable for a while. After the required public welcoming and feasting in the hall, she finally had her brother to herself in her chamber and could really speak with him. Looking around her, as Guy embraced Ademar for as long as the boy would allow, Adalmode thought again how the lavishness of her chamber, hung with yellow silk, red and green tapestries, loaded with furs and cushions, felt like somebody else’s room. None of it was her choice. It was all Guillaume. Still, Guy could not see any of its details and made no remark on his surroundings. He bounced on the bed next to her and took her hand, smiling.
‘Things do not stay still,’ she said, ‘with a new emperor in the east, Henry II, and a new Pope, John XVII.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, everything changes.’
‘How did you find things in Limoges? Is there change there? How are Aina and Bernard?’
‘No, little change in Limoges. Everything is well. They are both very well and Aina sends her apologies not to be here, but she is much occupied with our other three small sons. Bernard is growing into a fine boy, Adalmode.’
She smiled warmly, sitting close where he could see something of her face. ‘And how is your marriage, Guy? You thought Aina was not inclined to the match during your long betrothal.’
‘Yes, that’s true. I’d entirely forgotten that,’ Guy said, a look of surprise on his face, ‘because, Adalmode, I am entirely happy. We are happy, I believe. Aina is understanding and helpful about my eyesight, too. I couldn’t be happier.’
‘I am very glad for you, Guy.’
‘You deserve to be happy too, Sister,’ Guy said, frowning and lowering his voice. ‘Are things no better between you and the duke?’
‘No,’ she said, brightly putting a mock cheerful expression on her face. ‘They can’t be and they won’t be, Guy. I loved Audebert with a love far deeper than the pit he was imprisoned in at Montignac, and no man could follow on from that. Least of all Guillaume. Simply, I do not like him nor ever will.’ She took Guy’s hand. She could see his distress at her words, knowing he had been party to forcing her to the marriage. ‘But I am not without consolations. I have you. I have Bernard. And I dearly love your son, Ademar. And I am a good duchess, I believe. I am not entirely unhappy, Guy.’
Guy told her he met Fulk of Anjou in Jerusalem. ‘He travelled there to atone for burning his first wife, Elisabeth.’
‘Little good that did her,’ Adalmode said, her expression grim.
‘And King Robert has had to put aside his wife, Berthe.’
Adalmode raised her eyebrows in query.
The king has been under great pressure from the Church,’ Guy told her, ‘because of the close kinship between them. So Berthe is repudiated now and Robert has married Blanche of Anjou’s fifteen-year-old daughter Constance of Provence.’
Adalmode raised her eyebrows again. ‘Constance, Blanche’s daughter. I was at her birth in Brioude.’
Guy nodded. ‘This is a peace offering to Fulk from the king, since Constance is Fulk’s niece.’
‘The Angevins continue closely aligned with the throne one way or another. It’s not right that clerics should involve themselves in these ways in our business, forcing the king to repudiate his wife.’
Guy said nothing in response and Adalmode saw he did not wish to discuss this topic of consanguinity further, since it touched so closely on his own marriage. ‘The Norman Duke Richard has married his sister Emma to the English King Athelred, whose kingdom is much plagued by Vikings,’ said Guy.
‘Oh, here too!’ exclaimed Adalmode. ‘I knew there was something else I meant to tell you!’
‘Vikings here?’ asked Guy. ‘When was this?’
‘Earlier this year they came to Saint Michel en l’Herm again, where Aina was taken.’
‘What happened?’
‘When news came of their landing, my husband mounted a defence of his lands,’ said Adalmode, her tone heavy with sarcasm. Her brother took a gulp of wine, knowing he was in for a good story.
‘The Vikings dug concealed pits in front of the abbey where they were feasting and Guillaume rode his horses straight into the trap.’ Adalmode allowed herself a brief smile at her husband’s ineptitude and Guy snorted.
‘What happened?’
‘He narrowly escaped with his life while many of his entourage were captured. He had to pay exorbitant ransoms to get them back.’
Adalmode enjoyed giving Guy her frank assessment of her husband’s court. ‘It is full of pomp. He preens about his meetings with the Pope, the emperor, King Canute that come of his annual pilgrimages and mentions their names in connection with his at every opportunity. He is well regarded by bishops to whom he is generous, but he is not so well regarded by his own local lords, such as Hugh of Lusignan, Radulf of Thouars and William of Parthenay, not to mention his neighbour, Fulk of Anjou. All pay him lip-service as the great duke, recognising his suzerainty, easily manipulating his vanity, and paying him little attention in their deeds.’
* * *
Guillaume heaved a sigh of relief, that he disguised as a sigh of distressed emotion, as his mother’s last breath left her mouth and the priest commended her soul to God. Guillaume tried not to think about how God might react to that. ‘Protect the abbey of Maillezais, Guillaume, in eternal memory of me,’ she had whispered to him. There had been so little Christian kindness in his mother, and she had committed so many crimes against others, but he could not waste time to think about the suffering she would undoubtedly be going through in Purgatory, perhaps in Hell. He would pay for prayers to be said for her, of course. That was his filial duty, but he doubted a million prayers would help her and he had too many other things to think of and do now she was gone.
The news that Boson of La Marche had died arrived yesterday. The messenger reported a claim that he had been poisoned by his wife. The woman was waiting in the hall below now, for Guillaume’s judgement. He needed to take action over the inheritance of La Marche and Périgord. He already knew what he would do. He had planned it from the start. Perhaps if Adalmode had been kinder to him, if she had tried harder to give him an heir, he would have changed his mind and kept his promise, but no, she needed to be taught a lesson and he needed to protect his own interests. Never again would he be threatened by a count of La Marche, as he had been threatened by Audebert and shamefully made to run for his life from his own city, a laughing stock.
Adalmode was waiting in the hall for him, smiling ecstatically into the face of her son, who she was seeing for the first time since her marriage. Bernard was twelve and already favouring Audebert dramatically – it was like looking at the man himself as a boy on the verge of manhood. Guillaume tried to ignore the knot of fear in his stomach that he experienced at the sight of the boy. Also in the hall were Boson’s wife and two sons. He would show them all justice. He would show them all that he was duke. The three most favoured friends in his entourage were also there, as instructed, Cadelon of Aulnay, Boso of Châtellerault, and Raoul of Thouars, and their presence bolstered him up for what he must do.
Boson’s sons rose at his entrance, and he gestured for them to take their seats. Boson’s wife stood but did not look up, keeping her head down. Her sons sat apart from her whereas Adalmode was hanging onto Bernard’s hand, as if he were a small child. The boy stared boldly at Guillaume, who found himself having to avoid his blue eyes that reminded him so of Audebert.
‘I come with the sad news that my mother has just in this last hour died and gone to meet her maker,’ Guillaume said, and all in the hall crossed themselves and murmured commiserations, although none, Guillaume knew, had ever liked her.
‘Shall we postpone this hearing, then, my lord?’ Adalmode asked. ‘Prepare for your mother’s vigil and burial?’
‘No,’ Guillaume said quickly. ‘That is all going on, but we shall see to this business, nevertheless. Countess Cecilia, it has come to our notice that you have been accused of maliciously and criminally murdering your husband, Count Boson of La Marche and Périgord, with poison. Do you deny this charge?’
The dejected woman shook her head and her two sons shifted further away from her on the trestle.
‘Speak,’ Guillaume said, ‘you need to speak.’
‘No,’ she said, swallowing and looking up now, looking to Adalmode and speaking in her direction. ‘I did kill him and I repent that it was a sin, but the man was cruel and unkind to me all my life. He took mistresses and flaunted them in my face. He beat me.’
Guillaume watched the sons drop their heads at that and stare blankly at the floor. Yes, the woman was clearly speaking truth, and he knew from Adalmode that Boson had harassed her too.
‘Whatever his crimes to you, you had no right to take his life,’ he said.
‘I know, my lord, and I am greatly sorry for my sin.’
Guillaume paused at length. It was necessary to introduce some theatricality into these situations, to give his words their proper weight. ‘You will be confined in the nunnery at Maillezais and the nuns will work with you to bring you to absolution if they can.’
‘Thank you, Lord.’
‘She should burn for the murder of my father,’ the eldest son burst out.
Guillaume quelled this disruption to his dignity with a cold stare, and the boy hung his head again. A tear trickled down the face of his mother and Guillaume saw Adalmode was looking with pity at the woman. She had such a vast lake of kindness available for anyone but him. Had he not done penance enough to earn her love by now? Why could she not pity and love him?
‘Lady Cecilia’s fate will be as I have decreed and there will be no further debate on the matter.’
The boy did not look up and Guillaume settled further into his throne with satisfaction, placing his arms along its broad wooden struts, wrapping his hands around the balled claws. His feet touched the ground when he sat back thus in this chair, but only just, he thought with irritation, sitting a little forward again in case anyone should notice that he was having to reach down with the toe of his boot.
‘There is the matter of the disposition of the counties of La Marche and Périgord,’ he said.
‘My son, Bernard, is the heir to the counties,’ Adalmode stated in a loud, clear voice and Guillaume clenched his hands on his chair in irritation.
‘You will be silent,’ he said, turning to her fiercely. ‘I am the duke and I will say what the disposition of these vassal counties are.’
‘The count of La Marche and Périgord gave you no fealty, nor any other man,’ Adalmode said.
‘If you are not silent, Lady Adalmode,’ Guillaume said coolly, ‘I will have you removed to your chambers.’ He glanced toward Cadelon, Boso and Raoul, implying they would physically do the removing if he commanded it. He saw Adalmode’s mouth set in a straight line and she gripped her son’s hand with both of her own. She did not want to be removed from him.
‘It is my decision that Bernard will inherit his father’s county of La Marche,’ Adalmode opened her mouth but Guillaume quelled her with an angry look, ‘and the county of Périgord I give into the hands of young Helie, the son of Boson who was my faithful vassal, before he was so direly murdered by his wife.’
Boson’s sons and Lady Cecilia looked up in surprise. Guillaume waited with satisfaction. Adalmode would object and he would enjoy her dismay. He looked at Bernard while he waited for her response, and was alarmed to see the look on the boy’s face. There was no fear or subservience there. His expression had hardened into cool dislike. Before Adalmode could gather herself to address him, the boy himself spoke up: ‘Both counties belong to me. They are my rightful inheritance from my father. My uncle Boson was merely regent during my minority. I ask them both of you now, Duke Guillaume.’ His voice clenched on the word ask, implying a demand rather than a request.
‘I have made my decision,’ Guillaume said. ‘Further, since you are still a minor, Count Bernard, I am sending you to Bellac with two guardians who will take care of you and your inheritance. Lord Humbert and Father Pierre will accompany you.’
