His kind blue eyes were what she had best remembered; that, and the salty, filling oysters he always fed her with. He and Irish Maeve had bargained together in his tent of uncured skins, bartering their cheeses for various healing herbs that the man had gathered. Eithne recalled the rank, earthy, bloody smell of deer pelts and sinew, ripe as a fresh kill, the stink of burnt antler bone that hung over the whole camp, sharp as singed hair, and the great shell midden piled up close to that smelly tent.
The tent and giant were no longer there, near to the stand of pines, but the midden of shells remained. Eithne allowed the coracle to drift towards it, hoping and feeling shame at the same time. I told Olaf that here was my lucky spot, my best-loved place beyond Maiden Isle. Is it wrong to feel disappointment if he has not remembered?
The boat scraped along the shallow bank and Arne snuffled in his sling, almost gnawing on her right nipple. He was already a good-natured, quiet lad, and for that, she was thankful, especially when they were being hunted. She kissed the top of his downy head, forcing her eyes away from his beguiling presence to scan the bank afresh.
A tanned arm and large hand, neither as dark as the giant’s had been, stretched out and grabbed the coracle, bringing it safely to rest against reeds and bulrush.
Olaf grinned at her, blowing a kiss to the yawning Arne. “Pass him over,” he said, adding, “I have never ridden so fast on such a short horse before.”
Too relieved at meeting her husband, Eithne did not trouble looking for his mount. They brushed fingers and bumped noses, watching each other as she lifted their son and his carrying sling off her shoulders. Carefully, minding the bobbing of the coracle, she lowered the sling over Olaf’s bowed head. Olaf’s hands clasped Arne and he chuckled at his faintly pouting, rosy lips.
Graceful as if they were in a midsummer dance, Olaf stepped away and she scrambled onto the shore, only then her knees threatening to give way.
“Safe, ástin mín safe you are.” Olaf held her until she steadied. Only then did his fingers tremble against her middle. “By the Norns, I am glad I remembered here.”
Eithne swallowed and patted his arm, her free hand trailing over the crisp dark hairs and gleaming gold bands. She did not want to speak of more threat, but knew she must. “The hunters. They will be coming, I think.”
For an instant, Olaf looked young, unguarded, and a flash of fresh hatred against Mongfind burned through her like a brand. “Know your own land, ye ken?” she reminded him, falling into the older way of speech to tempt him to smile. “That, we do. Which means we can be ready, or run them a merry chase.”
He did grin, then, and the colour and heat of the world whooshed back for her. Everything settled about them, including Arne, who waved a chubby fist and became red-faced for a moment.
“Ah.” Olaf instantly offered his son back, unapologetic as she dug in her pack for more moss. “I will see to the boat,” he offered, as if in trade, a barter she did not mind.
Better a smelly son than a half-waterlogged ship. “How is our cow?” she asked, as she and Olaf started their tasks.
“Thriving with a new, hale calf.” Olaf piled more brushwood and rushes on top of the coracle, to hide it, and crouched by the old shell midden. “No fire, yet. Agreed?”
A fire would be comfort, but also danger, as the smoke might be seen. Eithne offered Arne her breast again as he sniffled and looked ready to wail. When he found her nipple and suckled, she sank onto a grass tussock that she realised, too late, might be an ant hill, relaxing further when it was not.
The quiet felt like that before a storm. For Olaf’s sake she said, “You could take the boat, sail down the loch.”
“This again?” Olaf sounded weary rather than angry. “I do not leave you, especially now.”
“You are in the most danger.” Pride and love compelled Eithne to point out that brutal fact. In a few spare sentences she explained why—Fina’s new treachery, Mongfind probably still pregnant, her half-sister’s latest likely scheme, how Arne would be valued as an heir or warrior-to-be. As she spoke, the words seemed to gouge in her chest and roost there like carrion crows, and she was not surprised when Olaf cursed and leapt to his feet, stalking back and forth on the tiny shore and kicking the ancient midden each time.
“Enough,” he snapped, in an iron voice. “I grow tired of your thoughts, wife.” In three long strides he stalked back and took her by the elbows, looking as if he wanted to shake her. “They are insulting—to me and to you—and you should cover our son’s ears lest he hear them. I have a home here at Black Broch. I have carved runes and sun-signs for the folk and set the guard-stone and brought us all through winter.”
“But in your service in the east, in Constantinople, you had gold and silver and garnets.” Eithne did not understand why she was protesting, or why these fears were flowering in her head like toadstools in a fairy ring. “Fine ladies of the court in silks, and rich, bright wine served in glasses.”
Olaf drew her up, slotting her and their son into his arms as she cried. “There was nothing in that city for me after Karl was killed,” he told her, stroking her back and flanks. “The gems were tarnished, and the wine turned sour. I had no anchor. With you, I have.”
“We should return soon.” Fear of what men, warriors, could do to their ragged little tribe had Eithne breaking out in a sweat of dread. Olaf shook his head, his long hair tickling her nose and Arne’s. Before she could stop being enchanted by her baby’s frown, she giggled at the sight.
“Better,” said Olaf, swinging his hair out of Arne’s grasping fingers. “White-Hair knows to keep the gate of the palisade shut and we will draw the strangers off.”
“We need to know how many men are in that party.” Eithne disliked how wavering and weak she sounded. Ignoring her stupid weeping, she looked up, scanning the horizon, then studied a looming patch of darkening sky more closely.
“I call clouds like those Thor’s Anvil.” Olaf clumsily wiped the tears off her face with his hands. “In the north, such a sky means storms are coming.”
“The same here,” Eithne answered, catching her husband’s passing fingers with a kiss. “Breaking sooner rather than later. We must seek shelter.”
She kissed her nursing son, in case he was feeling left out, and sniffed the back of his neck, delighting in his sweet baby scent. A soft tug of her hair brought her back to the present and their immediate needs, and she hastened to make a suggestion. “A large holly will do. They are usually dry at their middles, close to the trunk. What of your horse?”
Olaf released her and pointed to two bushy hollies just a little farther off, growing tall and broad on the rising woodland slope. “There, then,” he said, moving as he spoke to disguise any tracks of theirs by scattering more branches underfoot. “Sæhrímnir can find his own way back to the broch. I will not try to hold him, not with Thor’s Anvil so close. Go on, or Arne will get wet.”
That warning was sufficient to prompt her to hurry, leaving her husband to cover their trail as he followed after. The rain started before she reached the heart of the bushier holly, with Olaf joining her just after a boom of thunder sounded, like a hammer struck on a sheet of metal, a quake that seemed to shake the whole hillside.
Arne mewled like an angry kitten and squirmed against her, but Olaf grinned. “No one will be hunting in this, not even Mongfind’s men.” He stared out into the grey sheets of water and tapped his bristly chin. “Good, the water runs away from us. I have no need to dig a trench.”
“A pity we cannot direct this flood onto the hunters,” Eithne remarked. The dry sharp leaves beneath the holly made her aware afresh of her bare feet.
“Ah, yes.” Olaf had also noticed and flexed his right hand into a fist, a sign, Eithne realised, of embarrassment. “I could not find Fina or your shoes at Black Broch.”
“No matter, I have your bow,” she replied quickly, not wanting Olaf to think her ungrateful. “Summer is less a time for shoes.”
She did not speak of
Fina, or Fina’s youngsters. The woman had caused enough damage. A memory of the mother’s neat, sharp-featured face and braided hair flashed through her mind, merging for an instant with a darker-haired, altogether more striking female. Mongfind smirked and Eithne swiftly made a sun sign against any evil befalling her son, although it seemed her half-sister had already done enough, tempting first Conall, and now Fina, to plot against her.
Are my people going to leave me, one by one? Restless, she paced across the dry, leaf-strewn circle within the holly, rain spitting and drumming through the rest of the woods. She dared not settle, although Olaf had crouched earlier and patted a spot beside him. If I once sit down I may never get up again. The rain, a grey serpent, hissed through the woodland canopy, tightening its coils about her.
I am losing. What happens when Olaf goes?
Chapter 16
Sprawled amidst the roots of the holly, Olaf leaned back on his elbows. The cursing pole he had set up in winter must be losing its power, he decided. He had not expected any more trouble from Constantine the coward—he was clearly not in any way “Bold”, despite what the bards claimed.
A gaggle of men, listening too much to a woman. Only a woman would have fashioned such a wild scheme as to kidnap a new mother and babe. Sour, he admitted that he sought his wife’s advice more often than he should, except Eithne had sense. For the most part.
Indulgent, he smiled in remembrance of her easy tears, seemingly a thing womenfolk were prone to after giving birth. Karl in Constantinople had muttered against his Greek mistress for being the same. The thought of Karl brought the expected regret and bitterness, though that was softened these days, grey like this everlasting rain.
Olaf rolled onto his belly in case his face showed a hint of his real concern. He disliked Eithne’s distrust, not of others, which was prudent, but of him. Had he not done enough? Still she seemed to doubt him—and that pricked his pride and ground in a deeper, secret hurt. As if she tosses my feelings for her back in my face. Yet, how can I convince her—carve a love poem up our clan’s sacred hawthorn tree in runes? He almost snorted and rolled again onto his back.
It was easier to think of the raiders, whoever and how many there were. He loathed the Irish Kirk with their princely saints, but maybe an alliance with one of the churchmen would stop Constantine from stuffing his so-called Christian court with more pagan Viking mercenaries.
Eithne still paced, her face a mask except when she tended to Arne. He watched the little lad sucking strongly and acknowledged the stab of lust that exploded in him. The Kirk would call me sinful for wanting to taste my wife’s milk, for wanting Eithne to gaze at me as fondly as she does our boy. I do not care.
Olaf wrenched his thoughts back to the would-be kidnappers. “A pity we cannot direct this flood onto the hunters,” Eithne had said. Was that possible? Lay an obvious track for these filthy creatures to follow, down into a gully, and send rocks and a diverted stream onto their heads?
He bounded to his feet, ideas fizzing like Greek fire in his head. Shooting a bow in a downpour took skill, which he had. It was time to act.
“Stay here,” he told his wife, before she could protest. “I will be back by nightfall.”
Eithne halted and looked at him as if he was a stranger. “Night will be hours yet,” she said faintly, adding, “I hate waiting when you are gone.”
“You have Arne. This storm will hide me.” A second boom of thunder overhead backed up his claim. Catching her brief, stricken expression Olaf almost stayed, but the warrior inside was chanting in his skull, Go now, no better time, they will not expect it, go now.
He snatched up the bow and arrows. Eithne remained where he had left her, still as a patch of moonlight. He wanted to cuddle her, tell her all would be well. “I will not be long.”
He did not intend to be. A pick up of their trail, hunt all down, shoot with the bow.
Eithne went white. She swayed a little, as if struck by an invisible fist. “What if they find us, instead?”
His fiery plan vanished like smoke. He hated that she was right, resented, briefly, the tiny body that she cradled and who pinned them both down.
Not a body, you selfish boar, your boy, your son!
Suddenly appalled by his own thoughts, Olaf dropped the weapons and stepped back. Like the sun returning to the far north after winter, a little of her colour bloomed in Eithne’s pale cheek. He took another slow step nearer, his heart jolting in his chest.
“Can we not all go,” she whispered, “Go now, as a family?”
Finally, he reached her. Finally, they embraced.
♦◊♦
It quickly became clear they could not leave to hunt. Eithne would not have Arne made wet, and even with her cloak and Olaf’s on top, the water would find a way. Arne also loved to suckle, especially in the evenings, although it was then that her milk was growing low. In spite of this, each evening, each time he was detached from her breast he whimpered and fussed—sounds that would alert strangers.
Worse, when she uncovered her baby to change the padding in his loin-cloth, she found his bottom red and sore.
“Let him roll on my fur hood,” Olaf offered at once, pulling said thick, bushy white winter fox fur out of his tunic and handing it to her. It was, like the rest of his clothes, only a little damp. “That will be soft enough. No need for padding then.”
Her husband was trying to help, Eithne decided. She responded in kind. “But your hood will be dirtied.”
“I can fashion another before winter.”
She nodded, looking at Arne again, who had his legs drawn up to his waist and looked ready to really cry. No wonder, with him being so sore. I am a poor mother not to have seen this sooner. Quickly, she placed the lush white fur beneath him and wrapped the ends across his tiny middle and chest.
Beside her, Olaf sighed and said carefully, “This is why heroes who hunt and fight are either men or maidens. What does he need? What do you need for him?”
Eithne bit down on her first reply that there were great hunters who were mothers, and if she considered it, she could give their names. Such a habit was bickering, and she despised those who did it. Mongfind had bickered. I will not. Instead, she ran through her rhymes of herb-lore and answered, “Do you know goose-grass, also called cleavers?”
“The one that sticks to my trews. Yes, I know it.”
“Gather some of that for me, two fistfuls please, then find me a smooth flat river pebble and a smaller pebble to use for grinding.”
Olaf ducked under the holly branches and was off into the murk. Eithne understood ever more sharply what he had been trying to say earlier, when they had been so much at odds with each other. Babies need a home. In her own place on Maiden Isle she had beeswax and pots and a hearth to make fire. Fresh cleavers and beeswax would make a fine healing salve for Arne. Here under the holly she would have to make do with only the ground-up cleavers, lay her baby on the mash for a while, feed and then clean and wrap him in the fox fur.
I wish I could do more.
She knew traveller women were also mothers, and good mothers, but they had their home with them. She had not; at least, not at the moment. In the end, all she could try was the cleavers mash, to which Arne submitted with a steady snuffling, and then, when she had washed it off, lay him on his tummy and drip some of her milk onto his sore spots.
“An old belief, that my milk will heal small wounds,” she explained to Olaf, who answered with an almost courtly courtesy, “It is said mother’s milk is best.”
He and she were still being careful with one another. They could not join in love, not when Arne had no crib to keep him safe. There was a flash directly above them, and another bellow of thunder, and Eithne dismissed all thoughts of passion. Survival was what mattered now.
Olaf gathered their son into the hood and wrapped her and Arne in his cloak. “Time to risk a fire,” he said, and she could only agree.
Mongfind’s men—if that was who they were—would be e
qually on edge, and cold and hungry.
With that bleak thought, she fell into a fitful doze, stirring each time thunder sounded and Arne wailed. Even with a fire, it was a long day’s end and a longer night.
To add to a miserable time, she dreamed of her dead half-brothers Talorc, Domnall and Drest—tall, hulking, and arrogant as they had been in life.
“Why did you not save us?” Talorc demanded, his ginger beard jutting exactly as his father’s had done when he ranted. “Why did you not bring us to the sacred healing pool of the royal family, the Queen’s pool, to revive us?”
“Where were my burial rites?” Drest broke in. He was always a man for his rights and dues, never his responsibilities.
That, Eithne could answer. “Each of you were re-buried as soon as it was possible and my husband poured ale and blood over your graves, as is proper.”
“A Viking!” Domnall the tall said, speaking for the first time. “What does a Northman know of our Pictish rites?”
“I know them, my man learned from me, and that is enough,” Eithne replied, and she turned her back on their scornful, jeering faces and woke.
She had never been told the site of the royal healing well of Black Broch. Giric, her father, and Mongfind, her half-sister, had both taken great pleasure in denying her that knowledge, seeing that she was but a bastard and not of full royal blood.
They did not tell me, but that does not mean I do not know.
Chapter 17
“Why a visit to this healing well or pool, as you call it?” Olaf could not understand it. Yes, the day had dawned bright and sunny but was it not better to return to the croft, ensure all there were unharmed? Better, surely, for Eithne and Arne, than to go romping into more forest or moorland.
Frustrated, he ground one fist into the other. First, he could not hunt the trespassers in their lands; now, his wife wanted to waste another day or more travelling to a healing place. Abruptly, his heart started to race within his chest. “Are you sick? Is Arne ill?” he demanded.
The Viking and the Pictish Princess: The Rose and the Sword Page 10