Over the uneven ground he whimpered. I could feel the wetness against my back from the wound on his forehead. His good arm slipped around my waist and held firmly. It felt as though we had ridden for hours. It was past noon when I could see the thatched roof of the Mead Hall on the horizon.
We moved relatively unnoticed, that was until Thorkell caught sight of me. ‘Lady Olith,’ he shouted. ‘Did you ride well?’
‘I did,’ I said. ‘But my Lord not so much.’
I turned the mare.
‘What happened?’
‘I am fine.’ He groaned into my back. ‘The beast took off–’
‘He fell,’ I cut in. ‘Will you help me get him inside?’
?
I sat Sigurd on a stool by the fire. He seemed to sway with weariness. I thought hard about what I could do with the gash to his forehead, which now seemed cracked with dried blood. I poked a finger around its edges, not quite sure what to do. Donada would have known, she was always better at healing than I was. She still is now. I am usually the one with the injury, not the one needing to treat it.
Now, my eye moved lower to his tattered, bloodied shirt and the arm he cradled. It looked much worse than the wound on his head. I took his elbow and moved it, up and down. He grimaced but he did not move or flinch. I apologised frequently for hurting him.
He smiled. ‘Do not worry. I have been hurt by much worse.’
‘Your shoulder is bleeding. I need to clean it.’
I had seen his body on our wedding night but now as I removed the tattered cloth from around his shoulder, dark blood oozed from it, and I could make out more faint silver lines from scars long since healed. By the time Odin called for him to returnto Valhalla, I could tell you every battle those scars had been hard won by the trace of my finger. Even as I close my eyes now, I can still see them.
I found my parcel of clothes and taking a linen underdress, I tore into strips from it and used it to stem the bleeding.
His face contorted again.
‘Hold still.’ I tried to be careful, but I was not patient or caring. I was angry. Angry that he had not taken better care of himself. ‘Headstrong and foolish,’ I muttered.
‘I am indeed.’ The corner of his mouth upturned. ‘I should not have been trying to impress my new bride.’
I felt my cheeks redden. ‘No. Not when your new bride can hold a horse better.’ In my uneasiness, I had pressed harder than I intended. ‘Perhaps you should stick to teaching me about our borders.’
‘Woman!’ He gritted his teeth and wriggled beneath my hands. ‘It is still attached.’
‘That is the worst of it over,’ I said as I tied the pieces of cloth tightly. ‘I thought you Danes did not feel pain?’
‘Oh, we feel it.’ He made a noise somewhere between a cough and a growl and flexed his injured shoulder. ‘We just do not cry about it like your weakling Christian men.’
I ignored him. Danish men. Christian men. It made no matter; they were not as hardy as their women, but Sigurd did always like to think that the Danes were not as feeble-minded as their pious counterparts.
‘Your head,’ I said, placing a hand on his chin and turning it back and forth before the firelight. The wound had crusted and would cause no more trouble. I had seen Donada with worse skinned knees. ‘Your head is hard enough to have fallen from that mule a hundred times and not cause you much trouble. You will live.’
He shook himself and tried to stand, but he was still unsteady. ‘It is a good woman who can show her husband sympathy.’ He laughed then, a deep infectious sound. ‘We will make a Dane of you yet.’ His hand reached out and touched my face, making my skin prickle with gooseflesh with the tracing of his thumb.
He was not wrong. I would become a Dane. I would become the fearsome queen that the skalds sang of in their sagas. Made from fragmented histories and the bile of my enemies. I just did not know it then.
Chapter 15
A Very Heathen Bishop
Sigurd had spent the rest of the morning in varying states of undress lying on top of a mound of blankets and furs. I spent the same time frustrated and angry at the sight of his nakedness. I wanted him by that fire, but he insisted on talking about nothing but rules and laws. His head seemed to be healing well, although it was now peppered with bruising. I wanted to knock more sense into him. Though he was not drunk, he vomited more times than I care to remember. After he spewed, he would bark commands at me, propped on his good arm.
‘You will tell Thorkell?’
I sighed. ‘Yes, my lord.’
