‘We are a poor church,’ he said, ‘we have very little. What we had has already been taken by the first Danes that raided here.’
I did not believe him. I knew how much my father’s fat priest had squirrelled away, hidden deep within his church where he thought no one would find it. When I had been no more than nine, I had been trying to hide from him because I did not want to learn my letters. Donada was always a good girl and had sat waiting patiently, listening to his sermon. His words echoed around the stone. I wiggled myself into a gap, seeing nothing in the darkness but I could feel the cold of silver against my skin. My hands brushed against the curve of a chalice, the hard line of a cross. I listened to the chink of coins as I pressed myself further in.
Elpin had told me stories of the first raids of the sheets of light that had rushed through the air, casting whirlwinds upon the seas. Then came the fiery dragons that flew across the skybringing with them a great famine. God would have his final vengeance when the heathens came and laid waste to the church of God through rape and slaughter and all for the trinkets that I was now pressed against. I could not understand why the monks had given their lives for a handful of plunder and I still do not understand it now.
Father Fintan would sooner be sold in debt than give up a few tarnished silver trinkets from inside the walls of his church. What were they really if not to be used for the lives of the people, for his life? What good was a silver cross if you had to lose your head to keep it?
‘Then my husband will sell you,’ I said simply, in terms I hoped he would understand. ‘Is there nothing that you could use to pay off this debt?’ I stared at him.
His face reddened.
‘No,’ he said, ‘there is nothing.’
I could not help him if he was not willing to help himself. No matter how I tried. He would die to protect those few trinkets, a pious, feeble-minded man.
‘Then, Father, I wish you well in your journey.’ I bowed my head.
He kissed my cheek. ‘Peace be with you, Lady Olith. My peace I give you.’
‘I will pray for your forgiveness, Father.’
I watched as they were loaded onto the ships, the priest and Erik included. Processions of furs and all manner of foods and bags of plunder. Objects that men seemed to value more highly than their own lives.
‘But what of Erik…’ I tried. ‘Is there no way that he could be cleared of whatever debt he owes?’
He kissed me on the head as though I were a child who did not know what they were talking about. Something that he would never do again.
‘One week,’ Sigurd barked, ignoring my question. ‘One week we will be gone. Should you need council, it is Thorkell you must ask. He will help you with our laws and customs.’ He took both my hands in his and kissed them. ‘You will be my eyes and my tongue while I am gone. You already have my heart.’ He bent low, exchanging glances with my navel. ‘And you, little one, I will soon see you grown.’ And he kissed it.
He turned to board the boat in a hail of sobs and cheers. There was treasure in that church of course and there was a time that I made the new priest dig it up when we needed it to pay for better oarsmen. I am no longer pious, not like those men and I will take what is mine and trade what I need to keep us all safe.
Part 2
In secret, riding through the air she comes,
Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland witches, while the labouring moon
Eclipses at theircharms.
-John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667)
Chapter 17
A Reunion
One week. It was not one week but many. My husband took himself off raiding whenever he felt like it. Part of me wondered if he would have been better simply married to the sea. For four months we had been wed, and for at least two of them, I had stood as Jarl.
One afternoon, in my loneliness I had taken myself off into the hall and sat on the chair staring wistfully into the fire. All I could think of was Donada and the promises of home. From the moment Sigurd had told me of her impending marriage, it had gnawed at me. But, knowing my husband would stand by any decision I made it was clear to me then and there I would return to Atholl, and I would bring my sister to Orkney, long before any wedding took place.
Home. The thought of it saddened me. After I brought Donada to Orkney, our father never allowed us to call Atholl our home again and for that, I was truly grateful. Olith died then, but what remained in her place was something more fearsome and more formidable than my father had bargained for. I never did call it home again, but why would you call something home when it was ruled by your enemies?
I would see to it that Donada would take a Danish husband, and our future would be with Sigurd, where we would be safe. I placed a hand to the slight curve of my stomach where my husband had insisted my baby would be. For the first time, I prayed to God that he was right. Somehow, a child was not something that I feared any longer.
Estrid and the other women made sure that I knew my place. We had no help, but I tried my best and kept up with what must be done. They made sure that Ligach and I were never left idle. I had always been a capable hunter, but I found myself growing stronger as the spring began to pass into summer, lifting bails of straw and hauling livestock. My hands grew more calloused, toughening to handle pots of stewed meats and chopping logs to keep the fire burning. Such simple pleasures brought me more joy than I had ever had at home, my only regret was that my sister was not there to see it.
Aside from farm work, my days consisted of visits to the Mead Hall to listen to quarrels and to give counsel on laws that I did not understand. Thorkell, also, the Law Speaker, helped me to judge and settle the disputes we heard. Laws that had been passed by men; from lands I had never visited. I was like a pike caught on land.
