The Viking Hostage, page 39
Adalmode frowned. She had heard the name before and could not recall where.
‘It was inside a book that was in a chest, which I believe the Norman duke sent to your husband as a gift sometime ago, but I imagine with the heavy duties of state he has not had time to peruse every book there yet. It was near the bottom. I saw it glinting there with its beautiful, jewelled cover – and when I reached it from the chest, the letter fell out.’
They both looked at the small, jewelled book on the table. ‘I see,’ Adalmode said, still wondering where this might be tending. It seemed unlikely to be anything to do with Audebert. He had few dealing with Normandy as far as she could remember.
‘It concerns Lady Aina of Ségur, the viscountess, your sister by marriage,’ Ademar said.
Realisation dawned on Adalmode. ‘Ah, yes! This Olafr was the man who kidnapped her long ago, before she married Guy.’
Ademar was hesitant now, and Adalmode knit her brow in concern at the tone of his voice. ‘Yes, precisely so, my lady.’
‘Well?’
‘May I read the letter to you? It may shock you, I fear.’
‘Yes, get on with it.’
The monk looked put out at her impatience, pouting at her irritation, but he pulled himself up straight, unfolded the parchment and read:
From King Olafr Tryggvason to Richard, duke of Normandy, greetings.
I write in grief to tell you of a great betrayal that has fallen upon me from a source I did not look for – from my best warrior and foster-brother, Jarl Thorgils, who lives now on Kelda Ey. Since my father was murdered, my mother set me upon the knee of this Thorgils’ father and we grew together as foster-brothers, suffered misfortunes together, sailed and fought valiantly together. Yet he has betrayed me over a woman and over this matter of the ransom of Lady Aina of Ségur. Now that I am Christian, as are you, I cannot have this lie upon my conscience and so I write to tell you of it and to decide if you must tell the viscount in Limoges. Thorgils lay with the lady and would not give her up when I ordered it and he sent, unknown to me, his sister, Sigrid in her stead, to wed the viscount for his silver. So you have taken a cuckoo to this Viscount Guy, and we are deceived by my erstwhile most trusted companion. I leave you to decide what action to take. Good health to you and your wife.
Olafr, son of Tryggve, great-grandson of Harald Finehair, king of all Norway, Iceland and Greenland.
Ademar refolded the letter and placed it back beneath his crossed hands on his knee. He looked at Adalmode, whose mouth was open. Yes, she was shocked. Everyone had suspected that Lady Aina must have lain with her Viking captors before being returned to Guy, even though Guy assured Adalmode his wife had come to him as a virgin. It would be easy to deceive him, she thought, but she had not imagined a deceit of this extent. She looked down at her own knees for some time, trying to order her ideas, remembering the Norse maid, Sigrid.
‘Thank you for bringing this to me, Brother. Give me the book and the letter.’ She held out her hand.
‘Lady, will you act upon it or should I take it to your husband, the duke?’
Adalmode stared angrily at him, and she watched Ademar quail at her expression.
‘Give them to me, Monk.’
His courage failed him, and he passed them to her. She did not doubt he had made a copy of the letter in any case.
‘I will act on it as I see fit and you will keep your counsel on it if you would receive a reward,’ she said, her voice becoming gentler and more conciliatory.
‘Of course, my lady.’
‘Come to me tomorrow morning here after breaking fast when I have had time to consider this fully.’
‘Yes, my lady.’ Ademar rose and left her.
Adalmode opened the letter and looked down at the words there. The Norse made no sense to her, and as the monk had said, the Langue d’Oil was almost indecipherable. Perhaps it did not say what the monk had told her: that Aina, Guy’s wife, was not Aina, but Sigrid, her Norse maid. Why would they have run the great risk of swapping the women? Had Aina perhaps died in childbirth and that was the way for the Viking to still get his silver? Guy would have known … but then, Adalmode considered, perhaps not. She had to find out, and she had to keep that odious monk’s discretion under her control. It was clear he wanted a reward, but in her experience that could mean he would keep on wanting a reward, over and over. She must avoid the public exposure of this story for Guy’s sake. If it were revealed, it would be completely humiliating for him. What standing did it leave his four sons with? But this woman, masquerading as his wife, she would have to pay for such a crime of deception. Adalmode lifted the hem of her skirts and set her foot on the bottom step of the staircase that led to the chambers of the viscountess.
* * *
For several days I have been safe from Adalmode’s eyes, hiding here in my chamber, occupying myself with sewing and issuing orders for the feasting and household matters through Hilde. Guy had come to commiserate with me on my sickness and marvelled there was no trace of it on my skin now. What was one more lie to him to add to my great lie?
‘Yes, I am fully recovered and am quite safe,’ I assure him, ‘but Fulayh says I must have no contact with any pregnant women for at least two weeks.’ Luckily for me, Fulayh is away from Limoges undertaking some business of his own with a friend in Charroux.
Guy is greatly disappointed for his sister’s sake. ‘She was so looking forward to seeing you, Aina. She says it has been twelve years since you last met, before the kidnapping, but I fear she cannot stay here beyond a week.’
I gaze with remorse at a great bunch of gay flowers standing in a pottery jug near the window that Guy brought to me, to cheer up my ‘sick-chamber’. The door creaks. ‘The list for the kitchen is on the chest near the door, Hilde,’ I say, without looking up from a difficult part of the embroidery that is occupying me. It is an overcast day, and the light is not good.
‘Hello, Aina.’ Adalmode’s voice.
I drop the veil on top of my head to cover my face and rise, my heart thumping. If Adalmode should recognise me now, my whole life will collapse around me. I will lose everything: Guy, my children, likely my life, and would Aina and Thorgils be safe?
‘Lady Adalmode, please!’ I say, holding out my hand to stay her progress into the room. Her green gown is stretched over the protruding round of her belly. ‘I fear for your child with my recent illness.’
‘I have a charm against that, Sigrid.’
‘But if the charm should not prove efficacious …’ I stop, realising she has called me by my name.
‘No more lies, Sigrid.’
I lift the veil from my face and drape it back over my head and look at her. I see her grimace in recognition. She knows, and she does not bother with pretence and now neither will I. ‘I am so tired of lies,’ I say. For a long moment, we stare at each other. Emotions pass swiftly over her face, so swiftly that I have difficulty reading them: anger, disgust, confusion? ‘Will you take some wine with me?’ I ask, and she nods her head, sitting and arranging her skirts carefully around her, placing her hands beneath her belly to support its weight and ease it from her back. I call to Hilde and she comes with the wine jug and goblets and then leaves again. Adalmode regards me silently. I take a small sip of wine for form’s sake, and so does she.
‘I didn’t think all this time how strange it was that I never encountered my sister-in-law Aina. After all, we were both much occupied with our children and our households. How is it, Sigrid, that you have deceived my brother and married him in Aina’s place?’ Her voice is low, but the anger in it seethes.
I look her steadfastly in the face. ‘The deceit was not intended to harm your brother, Lady Adalmode. I have been a good and loving wife to him.’
Adalmode nods, but her face is stony.
‘When Aina and I were kidnapped from Saint Michel en l’Herm, the Norse raiders took us to the Scottish Isles to await the payment of the ransom,’ I say, lying again, and intending never to reveal where Aina and Thorgils truly are to anyone. ‘As you know, it was a long wait. Three years.’
‘My brother could not find such a huge sum in a hurry,’ Adalmode says defensively.
‘I can understand that. I was amazed to discover our kidnappers were my brother, Thorgils, and my foster-brother, Olafr, who I had been separated from in Estonia, when I met Lady Melisende and Lord Ademar.’ I falter over my last words. I do not want to remind Adalmode that Melisende bought me in a slave market.
Adalmode is looking at me with interest. ‘Your brothers?’
‘So, of course, Lady Aina was treated well, and I was full of joy to be reunited with my kin. During those three years, Aina grew greatly fond of my brother, Thorgils, and he of her and she became his wife.’ I pause and Adalmode is listening intently, looking down at the floor.
‘Go on,’ she says, looking up.
‘Olafr sent word that the ransom was waiting for collection finally with the duke of Normandy and Thorgils should return Aina to Rouen. Olafr did not know of their relationship.’
‘I see.’
‘By this time, Aina was with child.’ I pause again but cannot read what Adalmode’s response to the tale is. Her face is averted, and she gives no indication of her reaction. I can only carry on. ‘My brother lost a wife and child before this. He was distraught, and so was Aina. She could not leave Thorgils and she could not return to your brother, great with another man’s child.’
Adalmode sits back and regards me. ‘No.’
‘I suggested I come in her place and try to pass myself off as Aina long enough to make them safe from Olafr and from anyone here.’
‘You left your brother and your friend.’
‘Yes. I could not see any other way.’
‘You deceived my brother.’
‘Yes, and I am sorry for it. I am not proud of my cunning perjury. I am no Odysseus, heroic in my lies. I did not laugh behind Guy’s back that I had gulled him. I love Guy. With every fibre of my being I love Guy now, and I believe I make him happy. I am so worn down by lies and fears.’ Tears roll down my cheeks as I begin to truly experience my fear that I will lose him.
‘Guy has told me many times you do make him very happy. You and your children: the four sons you have borne to him as Aina of Ségur.’
I should perhaps hang my head in shame, but no, I touch the serpent at my belt. ‘Lady Adalmode, I throw myself and my children on your mercy. I am no serf. I was nobly born in Norway. My father served a queen, and he was foster-father to Olafr who was king of all Norway. I am worthy of your brother and the name of viscountess that I have taken, even though I have not taken either in a worthy fashion.’
She looks at me for a long time. ‘You acted honourably and bravely for your friend and your brother and you have, as you say, made my brother happy. You truly love him, Sigrid?’
‘Yes, I truly do.’
Adalmode looks down again and after some minutes of silence, I see that she is weeping and I reach out my hand to her, confused, ‘Adalmode?’
‘Just so you took my hand when I told you of him long ago, and how our marriage was thwarted, and I loved you for your words of kindness then.’
I realise she is speaking of her first husband, Audebert.
‘He told me,’ she says, looking up and forcing a smile to her face, wiping one hand across her wet cheek, and leaving her other hand in mine. ‘He told me about Brioude.’
I am confused for a moment. Brioude – eighteen years before – when I had seen her outside in the secret embrace of Lord Audebert. I nod my head slowly. The memory of my feelings then rushes back on me, of him speaking to me in the darkness, both the threat and the humanness of him.
‘You kept our secret then, Sigrid.’
I look at her with understanding and hope. ‘Yes,’ I say.
‘I will keep yours.’
I feel as if a suffocating shroud has been lifted from me. ‘I am grateful …’ I break down, spluttering and losing control of my emotions, my hands covering my wet face.
‘But, Sigrid,’ Adalmode has to raise her voice above my noise, ‘I insist you tell Guy. If he loves you, he will forgive you, but you are not safe unless you tell him, and as you say, the weight of the lies is pressing on you.’
I regain control of myself and look at her. She is right, but the thought of telling him is tremendously fearful. ‘I will, but he will repudiate me.’
‘I believe your son Ademar is soon to be made associate viscount and married to Senegundis of Aulnay, daughter to that Aldearde, who was beloved by the old duke of Aquitaine?’
I nod, and she smiles, embracing me. ‘Tell Guy, Sigrid, and see how he responds. Only one other person knows of this: a monk of Saint Martial’s named Ademar, who is researching in the library at Poitiers and found a letter from King Olafr in a book that belonged to the duke of Normandy. It seems nobody had read it before now. The duke died and my husband never looked at the books that Duchess Gunnora sent as a gift after his death.’
I look at her, concerned. ‘I heard of that letter from Thorgils and Aina and we always wondered why it had never been delivered.’
‘I will deal with the monk Ademar. By controlling the written records, these monks establish what the past was and will be,’ she says. She rises, lifting me with her, holding both my hands and kissing my cheek. ‘I will deal with Ademar of Chabannes, Sister, and his chronicle.’
* * *
The monk Ademar came to Adalmode in the hall the following morning at the appointed time. She looked around her, ensuring Guy was nowhere to be seen and the servants and any other people were well out of earshot. ‘Sit,’ she said to him curtly, and watched him frown, but his frown disappeared, replaced by an avid look when she held out a heavy purse of silver and the beautiful, jewelled book that the letter had been concealed within. He took them, placed the purse in the scrip at his belt, and kept the book on his lap, fingering its jewels. ‘Look inside,’ she commanded.
‘I am most grateful, my lady …’ but then his face clouded as he read the inscription she had written:
To Brother Ademar for his kind service to Lady Adalmode of Limoges, over the matter of Olafr Tryggvason’s letter in this book, and for his unfailing discretion.
Adalmode regarded his averted face as he stared at the inscription. If he took the book and there was a later dispute, Adalmode would be able to show it and claim he had lied and concealed the evidence. She had him caught. The book was costly and beautiful, and she could see he coveted it. ‘How firmly does your grip on your quill equate with reality?’ she asked.
He lifted his head and gave her a defeated smile. ‘I am truly grateful, Lady Adalmode, for your generosity, and you may rely on my unfailing discretion.’
‘Do not forget that the writing of recent history can pose serious dangers, Brother Ademar.’
He nodded, suppressed petulance on his mouth again.
‘I have stories to tell you for your chronicle too, Ademar.’
His face lit and she was glad to see he was at least as interested in scholarship as he was in money and baubles.
‘There is the story of how my father kept my first husband in a deep dungeon and that is how we met and I grew to love him. And the story of how his brother blinded the priest Benedict and how he was captured by my father and brother and thrown into the dungeon for many years.’ The monk nodded, his expression growing more and more avid as she went on: ‘And the story of Count Audebert’s alliance with Count Fulk of Anjou in their war against the duke and the king. And how the king demanded of Count Audebert: Who made you count? and Audebert retorted: Who made you king?’
The monk could not control a snigger as he averted his eyes at this scandalous treason that he would no doubt greatly enjoy transcribing. She saw she would control him best by being a real patron for his work on the chronicle.
‘I will return tomorrow with parchment and pen to write these stories down in all their detail.’
She smiled graciously and dismissed him. Spinning true tales of Audebert and Guy for this monk’s history would be a welcome distraction for her. Her son Bernard needed her advice as he grew into command of La Marche and her little son, Guillaume, needed her guidance and affection too, along with whoever this was now that shifted and kicked like a feather in her belly. A daughter perhaps? Adalmode looked down at the heavy rings on her fingers. Now she had a new sister to talk with, to grow close to, perhaps she could survive Guillaume a little longer.
* * *
To tell my husband is the hardest thing I have had to do in my life, harder even than leaving Aina and Thorgils. I watch his face crumple and want to comfort him, but he holds me away from him and does not speak for several minutes.
‘I knew,’ he says eventually, turning his beautiful, vague eyes to me. ‘I do not know what to call you … I think I must continue with Aina.’
I am confused. What did he know? ‘I don’t understand.’
‘When you first came to me with Richard of Normandy, returned from your imprisonment as a hostage, I think I knew then, but I wasn’t entirely sure. I had seen so little of Aina as a woman and your … her mother, Lady Melisende, accepted you as her daughter and I thought I must be mistaken, and yet I did know.’
‘How could you know?’
‘Your voice – there was still, then, the faintest strange trace in your accent. As soon as I heard you speak, I began to wonder. I told myself that perhaps Aina would have picked up a trace of a Norse accent, living among them for three years, but there was a doubt in my mind, all along.’
‘Why did you allow our sham marriage to go ahead then!’ I burst out angry with the pain I have caused us both over the years.
‘It was, is, no sham marriage, Wife,’ he asserts. ‘I’ll not have you say that.’
I hang my head and slip my fingers into his, and he does not resist my touch. ‘Not for me. Never for me.’
He cups my chin and forces me to look at him. ‘Nor ever for me. I needed so badly to marry Aina of Ségur, else the duke of Aquitaine was threatening to remove my family’s rights to Limoges again, and there you were after three years that had seemed so hopeless, there you were, and I wanted you to be Aina. You had to be her. I smothered the doubt before it became a conscious thought. Then I forgot my doubts in loving you,’ he says simply, and pauses to look at me with affection. ‘And why did you do this? Come here as Aina, come to me and make me your husband? Did she die, Melisende and Ademar’s daughter? Was it to gain the ransom for your kin?’
