My skin felt flush. Burning fiercely that it might get caught out in a lie. If my father were to know how much money was to be made from the trade of flesh, I had no doubt that he would want nothing more than to be partnered with my husband in his trade in Miklagard.
‘Do I have the honour of drinking the mead that the Jarl spoke so fondly of?’ he said raising his ale horn.
‘The pleasure is ours.’ They were my lands and my home. I would never return to the lands where their God had forsakenme. ‘Taste it. Sweet, isn’t it? Tell me it isn’t the finest mead you’ve tasted. The honey is from the Jarl’s own skepts.’
Just then, one of the men, with a missing left eye, tried to grab Ligach by the waist. She tried to smile sweetly at him as she sidestepped and swerved, swiftly avoiding a grab of her thigh.
‘I have not told my husband,’ I blurted, feeling Thorkell’s look of disapproval boring through my back. ‘About the child.’
Thorkell turned and disappeared through the archway and into the open air. It had been enough to catch the attention of the men and allow Ligach room to escape. ‘I’m waiting for the Jarl and his men to return from his trading in the north so I would prefer it if we did not talk anymore on the subject. It must come from his wife and no one else.’
I tried to sit a little straighter, forcing my back, now damp with sweat, against the hardness of the chair.
Laird Malcolm looked me up and down, disgust etched on his face. ‘You’re sure?’ He nodded to a toothless man. ‘Check.’
He strode across the room, grabbing me by the wrist and yanking me to my feet. Ligach dropped the clay flagon, sending it splintering across the floor and the amber liquid along with it.
‘Please take yer hands off my mistress,’ she said, weaving through the men that were standing up in the commotion. ‘You only have to look to see she is with child.’
She pushed, but her way was barred by a line of father’s men. He pulled me again, stumbling, I lost my feet, thrusting my hands out in front to break my fall.
‘Thorkell!’ I screamed.
He was there in an instant. Along with a dozen women, all running, carrying whatever weapons they could lay their hands on, shields, axe, bow. Estrid included. They battered them back and raised their weapons in defence. Ligach caught me by the arm and helped me to my feet.
‘Sit down.’ I said breathlessly. ‘You have no right to touch me like that. When my husband is not here it is me who rules. No one else.’
In the years after, I would wonder if I was to blame for what followed. If it had always been my insolence that made my mother and father hate me the way they did.
A sea of solemn faces, lit ominously by candlelight stared back at us, waiting for their Laird King to make his move. Every able-bodied person that could hold a weapon stood at my back.
I would not shake. I would not fear him. I would make him pay.
‘You would give commands to your father!’ He tried to grab me by the arms. ‘Look at you! Half a year away and already you are living like them.’
He stared at me, white spittle forming at the corners of his mouth. His priest tittering something intelligible. Nose to nose we stood but I would not back down. I was no longer the child that he had sold to a Jarl. Now, I was of equal standing. He no longer had the right to talk to me like that. Me or my people.
‘You have no right to be disrespectful,’ said Thorkell, pushing his sword closer to the soft flesh of my father’s neck. ‘We should teach him, that he should not speak to a Jarl’s wife like that.’
‘We could teach him for a hundred years and he would still not learn,’ Estrid spat. ‘A dog needs to be shown how to respect its master.’
Shoulder to shoulder we stood. We were one.
‘Remove them. See if he can talk to me with a civil tongue in his head once he has had a chance to calm down.’
I stood and watched as they were marched from my sight.
‘What do you think he will do?’ Ligach whispered.
‘I do not know. The only thing I am sure of is that he will not let me get away with it.
Chapter 19
Better to Fight and Fall than Live Without Hope.
Ilay awake, propped on one arm watching the moon pass through the stars and turn into the sun. The Volva’s words rang in my ears: the father of my son would die. I touched a hand to the slight swell of my stomach.Dead before the baby is born.
The night had been haunted by nightmares. Black creatures swirled high above, screeching a war cry. Sea-salted air whipped at my skin before I was plunged below the surface of the icy water. I was held there, beneath the pulsing waves. Twisting and turning to break free of its grasp. Was it death?
