‘It never lasts long on the islands; the snow soon makes way for rain.’
I could not have imagined it then, but Sigurd was right. The snow did not lie long, the winds that buffeted our islands would always take the snow and bring with it fresh rain clouds.
‘Will you help me?’ I asked.
I had grown clumsy as my belly got larger. He helped me on to a small stocky mare, the one that I had seen out in our pastures grazing. She was sturdier and broader.
‘These are not our horses?’
‘No. Neither you nor I will be riding those beasts your father tried to kill me with.’
I snorted. ‘He did not try to kill you. It was your poor riding and your arrogance that saw you on the floor.’
He ignored my taunts.
‘I had these travelled from Iceland,’ he said, mounting his own. ‘She is yours. What will you name her?’
‘She is mine?’
He nodded, resting on the pommel of his saddle so that he might get a better look at me.
‘I do not know.’
‘Who are your ancient ones? Your gods?’
When I was a little girl, in the time before, my mother would take me on her lap and smooth my curls and tell me stories of the ancient ones. She always seemed so proud of our ancestors, of the women that had come before. Then, no matter how my father’s pious priests told her she would be punished, she refused to give us those stories. Now, I wonder if it was their lies that crushed her spirit. If she truly believed it was her belief in those pagan gods that had made a vengeful God take her only son. I loved those stories. Words do not kill, not like a sword swung by a pious man. Women are gods, women create life.
‘We had many gods, but they were banished when we took the White Christ into our hearts.’ Women no longer had a female god to look up to, not like the Danes had with Freyja. ‘When I was a wee girl, my mother would tell me of an ancient goddess, the most powerful and feared of all. She would rule the winter for its entire duration, all the way to Beltane.’ I looked skyward. ‘In honour of our first snowfall, I shall name her Beira.’
‘Beira, it is beautiful,’ he leaned over and placed a huge hand against the curve of my belly. ‘Now, what shall we call you?’
‘I have not thought of a name.’
I had been too afraid to name him. That by naming him it somehow made the words of the Volva hold more weight.
‘We shall name him Thorfinn, after Thorfinn Skull-splitter. He will be in my place when Odin welcomes me into Valhalla.’ He nudged his horse on and mine began to follow.
‘Do you not name a son after his father?’ I asked curiously.
‘A child is named after his ancestors, yes, but those that are already in Odin’s Great Hall or with Hel.’
‘Who is Hel?’ I asked, pushing my horse on so that I could ride next to him. ‘Estrid has not told me of her.’
He laughed. ‘Estrid must be getting too old and forgetful. Hel is the daughter of Loki and the giantess Angroboda. She rules the underworld of the dead.’
‘You have two places for your dead? Like Heaven and Hell?’
‘Our warriors who die in battle get to feast with Odin in Valhalla and the dead, they dwell with Hel in the underworld on the mountain of the dead.’ He pushed on further.
‘Where are we going, Sigurd?’
‘Before our son arrives, I must show you the Jarldom, there is not just Byrgisey.’
We travelled until the sun passed into noon. As the farmhouses fell away into the distance the land opened into flat plain. It is not made as the same land as Alba, it is as though God has taken his hand and flattened it, like hammered silver. It is why they are fertile for certain crops. I listened to the soft clicks of Drest and her new companion as their cages rattled against the hindquarters of Sigurd’s horse.
The air was clean and peaceful, and the snow clouds had given way to an ice-blue sky. Deeper into the grasslands, we passed fewer and fewer farmsteads. They were merely black inkspots against the heather. No smoke spiralled from fires lit to warm the hearth.
‘Where will we sleep?’ I tried to disguise the panic of a woman who feels very nearly ready to bring a child into the world and is not ready to do it in someone else’s home. ‘Surely we cannot sleep out under the stars when I am in such a way?’
