I placed my hand to my stomach. ‘Aye, it’s all right, little one,’ I whispered. ‘Your father will be home soon, and we will travel to fetch your aunt.’
The girl that had arrived in Orkney all those years ago is gone. She had spent her life praying to a God that had only forsaken her. One day I had been a child. The next day I became a woman.
I would return to Atholl for my sister’s wedding, as my father had demanded, and once a skirmish ensued, we would escape with Donada and get far away from any reach my father might have. He would be so busy guarding his borders against the Kingdom of Northumbria and Jarl Finnleik and his men to search for us.
‘Lady Olith,’ Ligach called, startling me from my thoughts. ‘You’re wanted in the mead hall.’
‘Help me.’ She took my hand, steadying my cumbersome frame. ‘What is it today?’
‘Another dispute of land?’
I sighed. It was all there seemed to be. I’d spent my days, back pressed against the Jarl’s unyielding seat, with a pelt across my lap listening to the quarrels of farmers. Missing sheep. Stolen land. Escaped aurochs trampling crops. It did not stop. Even as the wind grew cold and it brought with it the seeds of winter. Day after day until my feet were swollen and my back was stiff.
‘I’ve requested braziers to be lit.’ She tucked my arm into the crook of hers. ‘There’s some salted gannet. You must eat something to keep your strength up.’
I avoided her gaze. My child was trying to wring me inside out. I could hardly keep food down, and the little I managed just lay in my stomach like a stone. I was wasting away to a shadow. If it had not been for Ligach and Estrid’s care of me, we would not have survived.
‘I will, and mebbe some bread if you’ve made any?’
‘Aye, there is. It will do the two of you some good.’
I had no appetite for it.
Angus forged ahead, weaving in and out of the long reeds effortlessly. The sand underfoot was soft and dry the closer we got to the hall, making walking difficult in my unbalanced shape. I braced myself against Ligach. Angus stopped, musclesstiffening. He turned slowly to face us with a low rumbling growl.
My eye followed. Standing silhouetted against the dawn stood a shape that was neither man nor beast. It resembled a bear but with the antlers of a stag. The gods could take on the form of many beasts. Ligach gasped and gripped my arm.
‘Who… who goes there?’ she said, her voice trembling.
‘It is time that we speak again, Lady Olith.’
I could not mistake the voice of the Volva. It made my blood run cold.
‘Must we speak again so soon?’
‘It is not I who wills it, but the gods.’
She turned, white furs of a buck trailing behind her and a grotesque headdress made from bone and teeth with twisted antlers. She did not walk. She looked as though she sailed across the land like an apparition.
I left Ligach without another word and I followed. By the time I reached the entrance to her stead the door hung open with wisps of grey smoke spiralling skyward. The walkway was littered with the stone idols of the gods, Balder, Frigg and Odin, the gods of the aesir.
This time, as I entered, we were alone. No chorus. She faced me, her grey hair almost to her waist. One blue eye and one brown sat deep within bony features, either side of a charcoal cross that ran from her forehead to her chin.
I sat before her, heart pounding in my throat. She had prophesied my husband’s death. She had warned me but then, I still did not believe her. She had also foreseen a son. I placed a hand to the pear shape beneath my gown.
‘You have been dreaming, Lady Olith. You must tell me.’
No one must lie to the seeress.
‘I stand on a clifftop looking at the raging sea below. The wind is all I can hear. Then, I am held beneath the waves. Itclutches at me. Catching my breath. I cannot fight it. I can hear its heartbeat. Creeping. Crawling. I wake gasping.’ I shudder at the memory. ‘Is it my death?’
‘The smoke from the flames will tell us.’ She looked deep into the fire at whispers of figures dancing beneath the orange glow. ‘It is not death you hear but life. It is the child inside you.’ She kept her eyes fixed on a distant place looking for some meaning. ‘His heart beats in time with yours.’ Her head snapped quickly to face me. ‘You do not believe me?’
‘I have never held with such things.’
‘For all that you have seen among us? Among Odin and Frigg. You still believe in your White Christ?’
It was true then, that part of me still believed in God. A God that would forsake me. That would forsake my husband and child.
