The narrow wooden planks wobbled beneath Gisela’s feet, tipping one way, then the other, brownish water bubbling up from the mud and washing over the flimsy boards, staining her leather boots. Stepping cautiously, she made her way out to the gaggle of children dipping their buckets. Sea birds wheeled about her head, spreading huge white wings, cackling and screeching; fear snaked through her diaphragm. A child squeezed alongside her with a full, slopping bucket, then another, almost pushing her off the plank in their haste to reach the boiling house on the shore.
These salt pans were more basic than the ones nearer the town: shallow pools dug out above the low-water mark, edges shored up with lumps of stone to stop the unstable mud sides caving in. She knelt down on the stone lip, swinging her bucket into the dense salty water, setting it beside her while she repeated the action with the other bucket.
The light was dimming fast now, the sun dipping below the horizon in a riot of pink and orange hues. The Danish longships pulling up to the shore turned to dark silhouettes, the masts a cluster of black poles against the shimmering sky. Although it was only September, the evening air was chill, heralding autumn; Gisela shivered in her thin gown. Her sleeves were wet, splashed with sea water, and she pushed the coarsely woven wool up to her elbows to stop them becoming even more soaked.
For their journey north, her father had insisted that both she and her sister Marie change their fine noble garments to more lowly outfits for travelling, so they would not attract attention. The servants in their castle on the south coast, their new English home given to her father for his loyalty to William the Conqueror, had been happy to supply both girls with serviceable gowns. An underdress of fawn undyed wool, an overdress of darker brown, crudely patched at the hem. The only things Gisela retained from her previous life were her fine woollen stockings, her leather boots and her mother’s silver brooch that held her scarf in place.
‘Come on, mistress!’ a little girl called to her from the end of the plank. ‘The tide is coming in! We must go back now!’ Looking around, Gisela realised that all the children had gone and were walking back to the shore. She glanced at the river; the brown water slopped and churned, the foaming tide beginning to fill the deep crevasses that scored the mudflats. The blood in her toes prickled; she had been kneeling for too long. Scrambling to her feet, pausing a moment to gain her balance on the rickety wooden plank, she reached down to heave up the buckets. Her arms ached, as if they had been stretched to twice their length already.
Not far ahead, some of children had stopped, their gaunt, undernourished frames clustering around each other. She heard a wail, then another, and increased her pace towards them, carrying the heavy pails. A child, the small girl who had called out to her, had fallen into the mud, and was now up to her knees in the thick, gelatinous ooze.
‘How did she get there?’ Gisela asked sternly, looking down at the wan, grime-streaked faces.
The children appeared puzzled for a moment, as if they hadn’t quite understood her. She was used to this, for as much as she tried to disguise her foreign accent, sometimes the Saxon vowels evaded her. She repeated her question, more slowly this time, and a boy eventually spoke. ‘It was him, mistress.’ He poked another boy in the arm. ‘He pushed her in, she was teasing him, you see...’
‘I understand...’ Gisela said sharply, seeing the girl’s face whiten with fear as she struggled in the mud, slapping down futilely with her palms. Placing her buckets carefully on the board, Gisela took two long strides out from the plank on to the mudflat, intending to pull the child out.
‘Oh, mistress, no...!’ the boy shouted out in warning, as her feet encountered the mud. She sank, promptly, her feet disappearing, swiftly followed by her calves and knees, her body lurching forward in shock. ‘Oh, God...no!’ Gisela cried out in horror as she realised her mistake. The hem of her gown rose up around her and the thick cold mud hugged her knees, her thighs.
‘Oh, mistress, you shouldn’t have done that!’ another child said. ‘That mud is dangerous, it’ll suck you down. That’s why we use the planks. To stop us disappearing...’
Gisela let out a long, shaky breath. In her effort to reach the girl, she had forgotten. Sweat gathered beneath her linen scarf, along her neckline. She longed to rip it off and feel the cool air against her skin. Do not panic, she told herself sternly, fear bubbling treacherously in her belly. Do not. Beside her the little girl wept openly, her pinched face marred by tears and grime.
‘I will get you out of here,’ Gisela said confidently. Putting her hands beneath the child’s bony arms, she pulled and lifted, ignoring the fact that she sunk lower in the process, until she heard a satisfying sucking noise. The mud released its grip on the child’s legs; Gisela fell sideways, the child in her arms. Relief coursed through her.
‘Crawl flat on your belly over to the plank,’ she told the girl.
The child frowned at her, her sweet face doubtful. ‘But what about you, mistress?’
‘Tell someone to come for me, when you reach the shore,’ Gisela told her. ‘Find someone to help me!’ she called to the rest of the children, watching the girl slither across the mud to join them. They nodded in unison, pointing at her, then nodded again, the bedraggled group chattering in subdued voices as they made their way back along the planks.
As the wind whipped away their high-pitched voices, a gust of vulnerability, insidious and threatening, enveloped her. In this windswept barren landscape, she was completely alone, up to her thighs in mud, unable to move. Her buckets of brine sat on the wooden plank, mocking her. How long would it take for the children to send someone out? Would they even come? The salt-pan master had no care for her, he knew there was something peculiar about her, despite her rattling out the same story that her and her father and sister had all told on this journey. They were Anglo-Saxons heading north to live with relatives as the Normans had dispossessed them of all they had owned in the south. Maybe her mangled use of the English language had finally given her away.
She tried to bend forward, lying down flat on the mud, scrabbling with her hands to try to reach a clump of reeds, to try to pull herself out. The mud seeped through her gown, cold and wet against her stomach and breasts. She tugged on the grass, slowly, gradually, hoping for the smallest movement around her feet and legs, a sign that the mud was giving up its hold on her. Nothing.
To her right, the river slopped and gurgled, an ominous sound; the water spilled over the lower walls of the salt pans, starting to fill the shallow ponds. The tide was coming in quickly now. With a sickening dread, Gisela eyed the water gushing towards her. Sinking in the mud was not her only worry. Now, drowning seemed like a more likely option. Screwing her eyes up, she sought and found the figures on the shore, pale ghosts in the twilight. The children had surely reached the adults by now and were telling them to come and fetch her. Aye, that was it. As she straightened up, the thought comforted her and she kept her eyes pinned on the bleached lines of the planks, heading back to shore, squinting in the half-light for any sign of help, watching for someone, anyone, to come out to rescue her.
But then, to her utter dismay, the cluster of people by the boiling houses walked away. Not one face turned towards her! Nay, they were heading towards the Danes, newly arrived on the shore. Arms raised in welcome towards the visitors, the shouts and calls of greeting echoed out across the mudflats. Distracted by the Danes’ arrival, they had forgotten, or had not even been told about her, stuck yards out from shore in the mud. No one was coming. Panic swirled in her chest, a great flood of terror that she would die out here, her breath choked off by the incoming tide, until the air in her lungs expelled in a scream of sheer desperation. She screamed and screamed, her voice shrill and clear, waving her arms violently towards the shore, for her life depended upon it.
Chapter Two
As the Danes jumped from the longships, calf-length leather boots splashing through the shallows, the Saxon town
speople crowded on to the strip of shingle, slapping the tall seafaring warriors on the back, shaking their hands. Smiling widely, the men accepted flagons of mead from the dark-eyed Saxon maidens, hefted steaming meat pies from passing wooden trays, eating with real appreciation. Ragnar ran an eye along the bows of the longships, making sure all vessels were drawn up high enough against the incoming tide. The six boats had carried more than two hundred men across the North Sea; Harald’s larger fleet would bring double that number in the next few days, swelling their ranks to a sizeable army to help the Saxons throw off the Norman yoke.
‘Torvald has found us an inn for the night.’ Eirik walked over to him, handing back his empty tankard to one of the Saxon maids. ‘The men can sleep in the ships, but I, for one, wouldn’t mind a comfortable mattress, as I’m sure you would.’
‘Age getting the better of you, Eirik?’ Ragnar grinned.
Eirik laughed. ‘Perhaps. I have the choice so I may as well be comfortable.’ His gaze fell on a nearby Saxon maid, her face blushing with attention as she moved deftly around the crowd with a tray of ale tankards. ‘This town is as good as any for us to spend the night.’ His mouth twisted with a rueful grin as he pushed strands of dark hair from his eyes.
‘Too bad you’re married,’ Ragnar said. The corner of his mouth quirked upwards.
‘Aye,’ Eirik said wistfully. ‘But you’re not. Sure you won’t take what’s on offer?’ He jabbed Ragnar in the ribs.
His short hair, thick golden strands, riffled in the sharpening breeze. ‘No, Eirik.’ Guilt crashed over him, black, coruscating. A flock of geese flew low over the mudflats, necks stretched out, honking wildly, and he followed their path in silence, his body gripped with regret.
‘It’s a shame.’ Eirik folded huge leather-bound arms across his chest. He looked out across the water.
It’s only what I deserve, thought Ragnar, after what had happened to Gyda. His younger sister was worsening by the day, a thin pale effigy of the maid she once had been, shrinking before his eyes, before his parents’ eyes. Her silent presence haunted his days, as she brushed past him like a ghost, or perched, mute, at the end of the table. She hadn’t spoken a word since she’d been brought back from this godforsaken land.
‘What I could never understand, though,’ Eirik continued, ‘was why Gyda decided to travel to England with Magnus in the first place? On a raiding mission, of all things.’
Because I told her to do it, thought Ragnar. By Thor, I encouraged her! I could see how much in love with Magnus she was and could see how against that love our parents were. I told her to go, that I would explain everything to our parents: Gyda and Magnus would marry in England and return to Denmark as husband and wife. All would be well. But then, suddenly, it wasn’t.
Raised voices nearby yanked Ragnar’s attention from his memories. He was thankful. He had no wish to dwell on his sister’s plight any longer than was necessary. His eyes traced the shadows, hunting out the sound of an argument. Beneath the overhanging thatch of a building, a woman tugged at a man’s tunic sleeve, a large bulky man, his flabby red-flushed face slack from alcohol. She was pointing desperately, gesticulating with her fist out to the mudflats, her voice a shrill cackle, pitched with urgency. Not many people were around now; the crowd by the longships had drifted away, eager to show their Danish visitors the delights of the town, funnelling eagerly up the narrow streets that led from the shore. Only Eirik and Ragnar and a few of their men remained on the shingle.
Lifting one meaty fist, the man clouted the woman around the ear, shoving her backwards. ‘You have no right to speak to me like this. Get away! I told you, I’ll fetch her when the tide comes in.’
Hunching over, her hand cupping her throbbing ear, the woman replied sullenly, ‘The tide is coming in, you senseless oaf! The maid’s up to her knees in it already. You need to do something, otherwise she’ll drown.’
Staggering back against the uneven cob wall of the building, the man lifted his tankard and took a huge gulp. The ale trickled down his chin. ‘Let the girl drown, then! What do I care?’
‘She rescued little May, did the children not tell you? That’s why she’s in the mud. She stepped off the planks to save her.’
Anger flaring in his gullet, Ragnar covered the shingle in three long-legged strides. To see a man hit a woman like that filled his mouth with sour distaste. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked the woman, touching her elbow with concern. Clutching her ear, she stared up at Ragnar in astonishment, then nodded slowly.
As Eirik came up beside him, the drunk man raised his head, regarding the tall Danes with a churlish, guarded look. ‘’Tis our business.’ He cleared his throat noisily. ‘Go into town with the rest of your men.’
Sensing an ally, the woman lifted her eyes to Ragnar, plucking nervously at his tunic sleeve. ‘The maid is stuck in the mud!’ Her cheeks were pinched, crusted with salt. ‘And the tide is coming in so fast, she will surely drown!’ Guided by her pointing finger, Ragnar scanned the bluish-brown marshes, the clumps of stiff grass, his gaze snagged by the deep grooves cut into the thick brown ooze. The setting sun flashed against something, a brooch, or a ring, he knew not what, and his eyes honed in on that spot. And then he saw. The silhouette of a figure calling plaintively through the twilight. The foaming edge of tide swilled around her knees, floating out the hem of her dress. The woman was correct: time was not on her side.
‘Fetch a long rope from one of the ships,’ he ordered one of their men who had followed Eirik and him across the beach.
‘You’re not going out for her, are you?’ Eirik frowned. ‘Let these people rescue their own, I say. We should not involve ourselves in the business of the town.’
‘Then what in Odin’s name are we doing here?’ Ragnar lifted brindled eyebrows, burnished arcs of copper below his flaxen hair. ‘We’re supposed to be helping them throw off the Norman yoke, yet we can’t rescue a Saxon maid from the mud? She is going to die out there, unless we do something. Do you want that on your conscience?’
‘Nay, of course not.’ Eirik grimaced, his expression rueful, as if ashamed of the way his thoughts had run. Despite his superior rank to Ragnar, they were friends first and foremost, having grown up together on neighbouring estates in Ribe.
‘Besides, you’re not going out there.’ A muscle quirked beneath Ragnar’s high cheekbone and he smiled. ‘The King of Denmark’s son, wading through the mudflats? Your father would never let me hear the end of it.’
‘Then go with Thor’s blessing,’ Eirik replied, as their man returned with the unwieldy coil of rope slung around his neck and torso. ‘Let’s hope she’s alive by the time you reach her.’
* * *
Gisela’s throat was dry, scraped raw by her continued shouting. Exhaustion made her head swim, her thoughts dancing about with chaotic abandon. Crossing her arms over her chest, hugging herself, she wished for the hundredth time that she had worn her cloak that day and not just her thin gowns and chemise. She was cold, shivering uncontrollably now, the icy mud gripping her legs and thighs like an iron fist. Treacherous sea water swirled around her, embracing the tops of her legs, curling lovingly around her freezing limbs. As the tide lapped higher and higher, a panicked fear took hold, silencing her screams. For what was the point of calling out? No one was coming for her now. The shore was visible in the limpid twilight, snagged by lingering sunlight, but it was empty, deserted. Everyone had gone.
Unable to settle on one spot for any length of time, her vision scurried across the silvery mud. Twinkles of light shimmered out from the huddle of cottages that formed the town. A weakness suffused her muscles, draining the last of her strength; her stomach was empty save for the small bowl of gruel she had eaten with her father and sister that morning. Her brain jumped and twitched with hunger and fatigue; the temptation to lower herself into the swirling brown water, to sink her hips into it, threatened to overwhelm her.
&n
bsp; How would her father cope without her? Her sister? Poor Marie, she had been through so much already. Her beauty had been the bane of her life, her angelic looks catching men’s interested gazes wherever they went. Tears welled in Gisela’s chest, spilling hotly down her cheeks, blurring her sight. She would no longer be there to protect her. Pressing trembling palms to her face, she wept at the sheer hopelessness of her situation, the sea water creeping to her waist, soaking the coarse fabric of her gown. She had never been prone to self-pity, but at this moment in time, as the tears dripped down through her fingers, she truly believed that she was going to die.
The slim outline of the maid’s wavering figure became gradually more distinct as Ragnar strode along the narrow wooden planks, the rope tied around his waist for safety playing out behind him, back to his men on the shore. Shiny tussocks of grass perched on top of the carved mudflats; seabirds wheeled around his head, flapping and croaking at his presence as he passed by. Halfway across the mudflats, the incoming tide lapped his calf-length boots, frothing around his ankles. He cursed. The leather would take an age to dry out.
Jerking his head up, he suddenly realised the maid’s screaming had ceased. Had she even seen him? For if she saw him, it would give her hope. But the girl stood with her hands over her face, the brown churning current of the river at her back. A coarse linen scarf wrapped tightly around her neck and head, secured with a fearsome-looking silver brooch, the silver that had flashed in the dying sun, attracting his attention before.
‘Hey!’ he called out in Saxon. ‘Hey! You there, I’m coming for you!’ He was expecting her hands to fall away from her face, for her to look up and see him. But she remained as she was, face covered with her hands, as if she hadn’t heard him. Which, of course, she might not have, given the noise that the seabirds were making. The maid’s garments were shabby, ripped in places, loose threads dancing in the shimmering light. Layer upon layer of earth-coloured cloth enveloped her, garments that every low-born Saxon seemed to wear.
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