I decided I would take myself back to the Mead-Hall, unsure of what it was a Viking wife was supposed to do. I got dressed quickly. I pushed open the door to the cavernous Mead-Hall tofind it bathed in men, all standing shoulder to shoulder. Doors hung open with a sea of heads stretching to the grassy knoll outside.
I could barely hear my thoughts over the excitement and expectation from the men. A strange smell lingered in my nostrils, it may have been from the roasting meats and salted fish. More men arrived, forcing the others to make space on the benches. They were all dressed and armed as though they were going to war.
I weaved my way past intricately carved wooden columns and row upon row of curious eyes and out into the dawn. Men and boys lingered, surrounding a ramp which led into a huge pit. At the front the Volva stood, eyes turned to the sky, chanting. She praised each of the gods but soon, her praise turned to the goddess Freya. The Volva’s words twisted and turned, like Freya weaved the threads of fate describing her great beauty as she presided over the battlefields in command of her Valkyries, choosing the most prized warriors to host in death.
The congregation seemed to sway and pulse to the rhythm of her words. I could not peel my eyes away as a procession of animals were led towards the ramp. A ram. A boar. A cockerel and a bull. They would all be gifted to the goddess Freya before dawn.
As my eyes followed, I caught sight of Sigurd, again stripped to his waist but this time, staring back at me was not the gentle man that had taken me to bed. Where before the tattoos had danced and moved, now they were soaked in the blood of the beasts. He stood in a mass of blood-spattered carcasses, sword aloft. ‘To Freya,’ he shouted.
My head span and my belly rolled. I have a strong stomach. I have hunted and I have carved beasts myself, but this was not the same. The stench of fear and blood soaked the air. It is not the sight a bride imagines on the morning after she is wed, thather husband be knee-deep in blood. It was a sight that I did grow used to, and in turn, grew to love. I have stood in those pits myself, my tear-stained face and have done what must be done to bring blessings upon us.
As they brought the corpses out, one by one and began hanging them aloft, I turned to go back inside but did not make it past the door when I spilt the contents of my stomach on the floor.
‘My Lady? Are you unwell?’ Sigurd said behind me.
I could not look at him. In my mind’s eye, I could only see him dripping in blood. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. ‘I am fine, my Lord.’
‘Perhaps you should go and lie down? I shall send Halldora.’
I tried to steady myself. ‘It is too much my Lord, the sight of the blood.’ I turned and walked shakily back the way I’d come.
?
I lay on the bed, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. Contemplating my rash decisions when the door burst open and Sigurd walked in carrying a plate of meat and a glass of mead, smiling as though he had not just sacrificed half of the livestock and bathed in their blood. At least he had had the decency to clean himself.
‘Are you hungry?’
‘Am I hungry?’ I could not believe what I was hearing. ‘No, Lord, I am not.’
Even though my stomach ached for the want of food if I had eaten it would have revisited me. I could feel his eyes upon me, like being hunted by some half-wild animal. He then proceeded to greedily eat the plate of smoked fish and buttered roots and did not stop until he sucked the last of the grease from his fingers.
‘You are a pig.’
He looked down at the empty dish. ‘Did you want some?’
‘No. I did not.’
He seemed confused but then clapped his hands together, causing Angus to jump.
‘Now it is time for your bride gifts,’ he said with excitement. ‘This is the first.’
Looking at the monster before me, I would not have trusted him to give me a grain of wheat.
He took my hand roughly and uncurled it, placing in it, a circular key made of gold that almost covered my palm. Hesitantly, I held it up, letting the light slip through the bow intricately inlaid with an ash tree with a man hanging from it, like Christ on the cross. The key wards themselves were almost in the shape of a nine.
‘It is beautiful, but I do not understand. Why use do I have for a key?’
‘You are the woman of the farm now. This is your key. I had the blacksmith make it for you. See this,’ he pointed to the ash tree. ‘That is Yggdrasil, the tree of life that holds us to the sky. Odin hung himself from the tree for nine days and nine nights to gain the knowledge of the worlds. You have given yourself in marriage and now you will learn what it is to be the wife of a Jarl. It is your home now, to do with as you see fit.’
I was young and impressionable then, it did not take me long to forget what I had seen in the pit, being overawed with such a beautiful trinket.
‘Mine?’ I said marvelling at such an exquisite gift. ‘What is it you would have me do?’
‘It is the key to your new home.’ He smiled. ‘I would have you live in it and enjoy it with me.’
Home. Home is not a place. It is a feeling. It is a smell. It is a touch. It is not close-cut bricks and mortar and thatch. I did notknow it then, but I had found my home. The key still hangs on my waistband, though my hands are not nimble like they once were, I often take it out and look at it and think of home.
I turned it over and over in my hand. For something that seemed so small, it was the most thoughtful gift I had ever been given.
