I hoped it would grant me some forgiveness with the women. They would not pardon me, but they did see that there was not always a side of right and wrong but sometimes there was a better way that could be carved from the ground between the two.
‘I hope so, Thorkell.’
?
Not three days had passed since I had settled the dispute between Halldora and Bodil. The pens had been mended and peace seemed to be restored. Ligach and I had waded out into the sea, knee-deep and skirts billowing around us, as one of my father’s ships appeared through the mist surrounding our cove of sea cliffs.
‘Lady Olith, do ye ken if that’s one of the Laird King’s ships?’ She pointed.
I squinted into the distance at the black speck against the horizon, it did not have the craned neck of a dragon so it could not have been my husband. A thrill of panic went through me.
‘It is not one of the Jarl’s ships, but it could be one of the Laird King’s.’ I tried to examine it more closely. ‘Until it nears, I will not be able to tell.’ I had never had any interest in my father’s ships. We were not seafaring, not in the same way that the Danes were. I would have not known one of my father’s ships if it sailed onto dry land and docked at my feet. ‘We should get back to the hall and get cleaned.’
Halldora, Estrid and the other women were mere specks upon the shoreline, tending to their catch. We could go unnoticed. I turned and headed back, struggling through the ebbing tide, pushing and pulling at my legs. Angus watched from the shoreline, tongue lolling and tail wagging waiting for scraps.
I sat down on the sand and pulled on my boots. My first thought was that my father would expect me to be with child. I had only bedded my husband twice. I had missed my courses but that did not mean I was carrying his seed. Part of me wanted to board his ship, turn around and head back to Alba.
‘Do you think they’ve come for us?’ said Ligach, breathlessly settling her skirts stuck to her legs.
‘My father would not care about us,’ I said, hauling myself to my feet. ‘We will be left here.’
I could hear Donada’s voice in my head telling me to be patient. That I would not be exiled for long and I could return and just maybe, she would find it in her heart to forgive me. The thought steadied me.
I looked out onto the horizon again as the ships drew nearer.
‘We do not have much time,’ I said, heading back towards the circle of longhouses. I needed to meet them as Lady Olith, wife of Jarl Sigurd, not Olith who is still waiting to find her salvation. ‘We need to reach the house before they make land.’
?
Ligach helped strip me of my wet things. She placed me in the dress Estrid had given me the night before our wedding, a blue thing with a cloak trimmed with fur.
‘Here,’ she said handing me a fistful of cloth. ‘Put it beneath your skirts. Make them see a child in your belly and that your seat next to the Jarl is secure.’
I did not have time to think. Then, I did not fully grasp what it meant to carry a child, how his tiny life would play into my father’s crown and how he would be both Dane and Christian. Then I could only think that it would be something that my father would look favourably on and that when my sister learned of it, she might find a way to forgive me. Lifting the hem ofmy skirts, I made a small makeshift curve around my belly, smoothing its roughness with the fabric of my skirts.
The air in the chamber smelled of earth and ash mixed with the smell of sea against my skin. I took my seat to the left of my husband’s, lying empty and settled myself.
‘Go quickly,’ I urged. ‘Make sure the fire is lit.’
‘Aye, Lady Olith.’
Ligach made quick work of the fire, sending sparks fluttering skyward. She wore trousers now and a tunic, like the rest of the shieldmaidens, I could barely tell her apart but for her white hair. I would soon dress the same, I did not want anyone to know of my past. I wanted them only to see the woman in their famous sagas.
‘That’s enough,’ I said, urging her to stand at my side just out of view. ‘Thorkell,’ I called.
‘What is it Lady Olith?’
‘My father and his men.’ I pointed in the direction of their ships, even though they would not have gone unnoticed. ‘I want the hall readied for their arrival.’
‘Does Jarl Sigurd know?’ he said, in his thick Norse tongue.
‘No, it is unexpected.’
I had thought my father would have been too preoccupied with his newfound allegiance with the Danes to make the journey to the northern isles.
‘I will be at your side,’ he said simply, falling in beside Ligach.
In my husband’s absence, I was ruler. Something that I had never become used to in the months following our wedding, but now? Now I have ruled longer alone than we ever did together. Sitting straighter, I tried to steady my breathing. With the doors to the longhouse open, I could see past our farmstead and its fences and all the way to the shoreline and my father and his men. Like a nest of snakes. The head of the snake rippled across the long grasses, inching its way ever closer.
