‘Someone will give us food and shelter.’ He waved a hand dismissively. ‘Who would turn away their Jarl and his bride? They will be grateful for our presence.’
He reined his horse left before coming to stop near a brook.
‘We can rest here a while, and I will find us shelter before nightfall,’ he said, lifting both our falcons down and resting them against rocks that jutted from the ground.
‘I need your help, Sigurd. I think my body has seized. It has been a long time since I have ridden a horse any distance and never while I have been this shape.’ I looked down at the curve of my gown that was hiding the pommel of the saddle from my view.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Lean on me.’ He helped me down from Beira. ‘There is a place you sit.’
Out of the saddle I arched my back, trying to stop it aching. ‘Out of one seat and into another,’ I mumbled sitting down against the cold stone, trying to tuck my cloak beneath me.
‘Are you travelling well?’
‘Aye, I am,’ I said, feeling more like the Blessed Virgin, being rattled around on a mule trying to find shelter than the wife of a Jarl. ‘How long do you intend us to be travelling?’
‘I want to show you Hamnavoe, it is our busiest trading port. If you are to make a good Jarl, you need to understand our ways. We will be home before the moon rises tomorrow.’ He glanced down at the falcons, eyes alight with interest. The sight of Drest made me think of Elpin, for the first time since I had arrived on the island. I wondered, for a moment, what hewould have thought, seeing me carrying a child, watching me rule the Jarldom and teaching a Dane how to hunt with a falcon. I pushed the whole thing from my mind. Sigurd and Elpin could never have coexisted together.
‘Shall I show you?’ I said, hoping that being close to him would bring me some comfort.
Without another word, he brought them to me. Gingerly I opened Drest’s cage and placed my arm before his feet. Sigurd stood behind me, warm breath against my neck.
‘See this here,’ I whispered to him, touching the thin leather strap tied to Drest’s foot. ‘This is a hunting jess; you use it like this.’ I slipped the piece of leather between my thumb and forefinger coaxing him onto my arm and holding him there. ‘Now, I have control.’ I slipped off his hood and with a flick of my wrist he was gone.
He soared skyward, twisting and turning and stretching against the breeze. I squinted against the midday sun, my gaze settling on a skein of geese flying noisily before him.
‘He is astonishing,’ Sigurd whispered.
‘I have you to thank.’ I had not forgotten what he had done for me all those months ago. ‘If it had not been for you, he would be dead at my father’s hand.’
‘I could not see you parted from him.’ He kissed my cheek. ‘I am not like your father.’
I knew. Just as I knew the sun would rise again tomorrow. Sigurd was a good man until his last breath. I smiled and turned my eyes to the heavens. ‘Now, it is your turn.’
I opened the arched door of the cage and guided his hand with mine. He took the jess nimbly between his fingers and lifted the bird out. It gripped tight onto the sleeve of his tunic. She was snow white. The most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She looked as though she had drifted through the embers of a fire and been speckled with charcoal.
‘Hold her steady,’ I said, walking behind Sigurd, bracing his arm with my own. ‘Feel the weight against you.’ I moved slowly removing her black hood. Black eyes blinked rapidly before staring fixedly at the sky. ‘Before you let her go, what will you name her?’
His eyes met mine. ‘I will name her Freyja.’ He let go.
We watched as Freyja tore towards the heavens; feathers as bright as the clouds. Against the sky, their figures were like tiny flecks. I listened to his steady breathing as he watched. It is always wise to ask a man for his good favour when he is at his happiest, it seemed like there was no better time. I would dazzle him with all he could gain.
‘Sigurd,’ I tried, a trill in my voice like a child who wants. ‘Would it not be better that my sister marries a Dane? What of one a man from Norway?’
‘I thought we were not going to talk of it anymore?’
‘You said we were not going to talk of it anymore. I was not in agreement. So here I am talking.’
‘Woman, I have told you. If your father has given your sister to Jarl Finnleik, there is no Dane, no Norseman alive who would go against him and marry her without Jarl Finnleik’s say. Your father may as well made himself a bed in Jörmungandr’s nest. Now, let me watch my bird.’
‘But Sigurd,’ I placed my hand against his arm. ‘Surely it would be safer for us all if it were anyone else but Finnleik? Our own Jarldom would not be safe.’
‘It would have been safer for us all if your father had married your sister to a Pict. He would have been wise to give Finnleik what was asked, and he would have sailed on to Northumbria. Now, he will be King on Finnleik’s short leash, and your sister the bait.’ He turned his eyes back towards the birds.
‘So, my sister can be swallowed up?’ Like I had been when I had to suffer the loss of both a brother and a mother. ‘I hopeFinnleik holds my father’s leash tight enough that he might choke and while neither of them is looking I will set her free.’
He chuckled at that. ‘You? And what army?’
Sigurd’s army was vast then. As big as my father’s, but not what we have now. I knew then, that if it came to it, the Danes would back us. They would send ships.
