Home. The word felt strange. I had felt heartsick for the home I had known as a child, but then I was only heartsick for the fire pit in the Mead Hall and my warm, fur-covered bedchamber. I longed for the company of Ligach and Halldora and Estrid. I longed for my sister, but that would have to wait.
After Sigurd left, I pressed Brigid further.
‘I must ask you, where are the women that were with us?’ I supped some milk to clear my mouth of the bannock.
‘I saw to it that they had warm clothes and food in their bellies.’ She placed more salted gannet before me. ‘Jarl Sigurd spoke with them through the night, gave them coins and bid them farewell. They left just before dawn.’
‘How do you find my husband’s rule?’ I asked, listening to the deep growl of Sigurd and Fergus outside preparing for our departure.
‘He is a fair man. We have had worse. Much worse,’ she said between mouthfuls of bread and cheese. ‘I’d sooner they owed us a kindness.’
As my gaze drifted around the room, I caught sight of the small cross beside the fire. So insignificant I almost missed it.
‘I dinna know how that-.’
I placed a finger to my lips. ‘Your secret is safe with me, but I would cover it before the Jarl sees it.’
She nodded and slipped it beneath a mound of cloth waiting by the pots to be boiled.
Chapter 25
Warlords and Chieftains.
Outside the sky was overcast but at least warmer than it had been on our journey. Brigid helped me back into my travelling cloak.
‘It has been wonderful to meet you, Lady Olith.’
I took both her hands in mine. ‘You must visit with us.’
She turned to her husband and hesitated at the sound of his cough. ‘In the spring, when he is well again. We will be travelling to sell our own produce. I will make sure we come to Byrgisey.’
‘You will be our guests,’ Sigurd shouted as he placed the heel of bread and cheese Brigid had insisted we take, into the leather pouch of the saddle.
‘We have fine healers, they could help with what ails your husband,’ I said.
‘I am grateful for the kind offer, Jarl Sigurd. We will be sure to visit in the spring.’
She did visit with me the following summer and brought a gift for Thorfinn, but I never saw Fergus again. The cough had taken him before the winter was out. During the summer months, I would often send thralls to do the heavier work on the farm and in the winter, she would come and stay.
Sigurd helped me into my saddle.
‘I shall settle the falcons,’ he said, taking each of them from their cages and casting them to the sky like tossed paper. ‘They can stretch their wings.’
He spurred his gelding on to a steady trot and I followed, leaving Brigid, her farmstead and the fleshmongers far behind us.
?
For a long way, the path remained straight beneath heavy clouds that had blown in from the sea. The damp air began to wrap itself around me. We had a day’s light ahead of us, although on our islands they seemed to be shorter and shorter.
We settled into a steady rhythm. I guided my mare with ease through the undulating tracks back towards our home. All the while I could feel the rush and roll of my unborn child. We travelled in easy silence. Each delighting in the others company. Soul-worn and heart-tired but grateful for the blessings of the gods.
The storm clouds thickened. Lying black and heavy against the midday sky. Drest and Freyja followed, although I had not seen them. I could not mistake their excited screeching.
‘I hear Thor in the thunder. The gods are pleased.’
‘If they are truly pleased, let us make it home before we are soaked through with rain. Is it much further?’
I stared skyward looking for some sign of Thor, but I could only feel the heaviness of the storm against my skin and the threatening squall about to make land.
