The Harrowing

by James Aitcheson

  A date was settled upon. We exchanged betrothal gifts with the messengers who came on Skalpi’s behalf. The bride price was paid. A contract was drawn up in which we declared what property we each would bring to the marriage and what rights we held over that property.

  And so, on a bright July morning – the feast of St Swithun it was – he came to our manor with his retinue. I was standing in the yard, watching the track that led down from the wolds, while around me preparations were being made for the feast. A long table had been carried out from the hall, and benches and stools set around it and two great carved wooden chairs like thrones placed in the middle, and there were ale cups and wooden bowls and clay pitchers and ewers filled with water, and a canopy was being erected over everything so that we’d be protected from the sun. Close by, stones had been laid to make a hearth, with a spit suspended over it. Elsewhere, a wide ring had been marked out with wooden stakes where later there would be games. Streamers of cloth in red and green and ivory-white were nailed to fence posts; from all the cottages and barns and workshops hung bright banners and bunches of foxgloves and poppies and forget-me-nots and other field flowers. Skylarks warbled somewhere in the blue above and a gentle breeze played across the meadows where the sheep grazed, making waves in the tall grass.

  I spied the first of them coming, a column of mounted figures with a cloud of dust rising at their rear, and a banner unfurled and fluttering in the breeze. I leaped up and cried out, and that was when my mother called me inside. It wasn’t right, she said, that a man should see his bride before the ceremony, for it would only bring misfortune. And so while Eadmer and Thurkil the reeve and Father Leofa, my tutor whom I’d invited to give holy blessing to our union, rode out to greet Skalpi and his retinue, my mother went with me to my chambers to help me get ready. As she combed out my hair and fretted over the tangles I kept being distracted by the sounds of conversation in the yard outside. I was trying to guess which of the voices belonged to my husband-to-be, but they were too far away for me to make much out, and my mother kept fussing and eventually I gave up as they moved away.

  I couldn’t stop pacing, I was so restless. My mother was explaining what I should do at each part of the proceedings, as if she hadn’t told me a dozen times already. She kept giving me instructions as to how I should carry myself as I entered the hall – how I shouldn’t look up but should instead concentrate on my feet and make sure that I took only small, careful steps, because that way I wouldn’t trip over the hem of my dress, and because men expected their brides to appear timid, not bold. She kept on asking if I was listening to her at all, and I said half-truthfully that I was. Those are just the things I remember; there was more but I was too nervous to take it all in.

  It felt like hours later when Eadmer came knocking on the door of my chamber, saying that everything was ready, and that it was time. I made my way across the yard to the long mead hall, where the ceremony was to take place. It was only then, standing before its great oak doors, waiting for them to open, dressed in my finest gown of yellow wool, which my mother had ordered sewn for me especially for the day, with my hair uncovered and falling loose over my shoulders, and a crown of buttercups resting upon my head, with Eadmer and my mother beside me, that I realised this was truly happening. All the worries I’d been trying to quell over the last few days and weeks burst out from the place inside where I’d kept them bound up.

  What if I didn’t like him? What if he didn’t like me, or if he thought me too plump or too slender? What if he preferred a woman who was dark-haired rather than fair? What if I couldn’t please him in the ways he was used to, in the ways his first wife had done? I didn’t know much about that sort of thing; I knew only what everyone knew, and of course my mother had told me what to expect, but being told isn’t the same as doing it yourself.

  And then I thought just how little I knew about him, apart from his name. I had no idea what he looked like, or whether he was fierce or kind, cultured or boorish.

  Whether it was because of all those thoughts running through my head all at once or because of the heat of the morning, I’m not sure, and probably it was both, but suddenly it felt as though my throat was narrowing, for I couldn’t breathe, and my cheeks were burning and my eyes too, and my head felt light, and my heart was beating like this, this, this, this, and my knees were weak and I couldn’t feel my feet.

  Eadmer thumped his fist upon the oak, and a moment later there was a creak and the doors began to part, like the jaws of some monstrous creature opening up to swallow me. This was it, I thought.

  Inside it was so dark, or at least it seemed that way because the day was so bright. All was silent. Men and women and children were gathered on either side of the hall, awaiting my entrance, forming a path from the doorway to the dais at the far end, where, surrounded by candles, stood my husband-to-be.

  Skalpi Guthfrithsson.

  And I took one look at him and burst into tears.

  *

  ‘Why?’ asks Guthred.

  ‘Because she was happy, you fool,’ says Oslac.

  Merewyn shakes her head.

  ‘He was ugly, then?’ the poet asks. ‘Missing half his face? Did he have a battle scar?’

  ‘It wasn’t anything like that. It’s just that no one had told me. I suppose it’s my own fault. I never thought to ask. I simply assumed. Remember this was the first time I’d ever met him.’

  ‘I don’t understand that,’ Beorn says. ‘How can you decide to marry someone without even knowing what he looks like?’

  ‘I didn’t think it was unusual,’ Merewyn replies. ‘No one did. Maybe it’s different where you come from.’

  ‘But then how could you know that you wanted to marry him? And how could he know that he wanted to marry you?’

  ‘For all the reasons I’ve just told you. I never for a moment thought when I was growing up that my marriage, whenever it happened, would have anything to do with love. As far as I and Eadmer and our mother were concerned, this was a contract between Skalpi and our family, nothing more than that. This was about land and wealth and rank. If friendship or love blossomed, then so much the better, but also I knew that it would be wrong to hold out too much hope.’

  ‘And did you love him?’ the priest asks.

  She reddens. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. I think so. Not straight away, though. Only later, when I came to know him better. Even then it was a different love to the kind I hoped for.’

  Guthred frowns. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Maybe if you all stop asking her these questions and give her a chance to speak, she’ll be able to tell you,’ Tova snaps.

  They all turn to look at her, as surprised as she is by her forcefulness. She feels her cheeks growing hot and hopes that it doesn’t show.

  ‘Besides,’ Tova says, more softly now that she has their attention, ‘if you carry on, you’ll only spoil the story. Do you want that?’

  No one says anything. Maybe she’s stunned them all into silence. After a moment, Merewyn takes a deep breath and begins again.

  *

  I don’t know what I was expecting. Should I have tried to find out more about him beforehand? Should I have paid more attention to the things they were telling me and the things they weren’t? Probably. The truth is that, for all that my mother and I had argued, I still trusted her to do her best for me. Maybe that’s what she thought she was doing.

  At the time, though, it didn’t seem that way. At the time, I felt tricked. Betrayed. Because the man standing before me looked older than my father.

  His hair, which was tied back with a leather thong, was grey and turning white, as were his beard and his moustache. His face was creased and cracked like old parchment, and his skin looked as dry. I’d known he was older than me, but not by how much. In time I’d find the courage to ask him, and he would say he didn’t know exactly, but he reckoned he must have seen at leas
t forty-five winters and possibly more.

  He remembered growing up in the days of King Cnut, when just as now England had been ruled by an invader from across the sea, only this one had come not from France but from Denmark, and so Skalpi’s family, being in a way distant kinsfolk of his, had prospered. He told me how as a boy he had dreamed of one day joining the royal war band and taking up arms, and he remembered the struggles after Cnut’s death as the king’s two sons squabbled over who should succeed him. These were things of which I’d heard stories from my father and uncles and their friends, but to me they were so distant they might as well have come from one of those ancient poems that they were always so fond of reciting.

  That was later, though. Then I knew only that I was giving myself to a man twice my age and more. Yes, I could have changed my mind. I could have fled across the yard and back to my chamber, or taken horse and ridden far away where no one could find me. All these things crossed my mind. But, if I did that, I’d bring shame not just upon Skalpi and his kin, but also upon myself and my own family. Upon my mother and upon Eadmer, and I knew they would never forgive me. Word would spread of the woman who had broken her betrothal promise, who had broken her oath, and what man would ever want me after that? I would grow old without ever finding a husband, without ever knowing love, and I would die childless and alone.

  So you see I was trapped. I had no choice.

  At first I think everyone in the hall assumed that the tears spilling down my cheeks were ones of joy, or else that’s what they preferred to tell themselves. But as I was led, trembling, towards the dais, head bowed like a slave being taken to market, and when my sobs didn’t stop but went on and on, I think they began to realise. People fidgeted and grew uncomfortable. Smiles turned to frowns. A whisper passed around the hall, like a breeze stirring the rushes. Someone coughed, then another, and another. One of the younger children began to cry.

  Skalpi knew, of course. Right from the start, he knew. I remember so clearly the heartbroken look in his eyes. For he’d tried his best. He might have been more than forty-five winters in age, but he still looked every bit the warrior. Later, when the ceremony was over, my tears had subsided and he led me out from the silent hall into the glare of the day, I saw him more clearly. He was tall, by which I mean he stood probably a head and a half over me, and he was powerfully built too, without much of a belly. Yes, he had his fair share of scars, but he had taken care over his appearance. He’d combed his beard and perfumed his tunic, which was plain and unembroidered, the colour of holly leaves. His sleeves were bunched where he wore his arm rings, which were fashioned from rods of gold twisted around one another. I supposed they must have been old family treasures because no one wears such garish things nowadays, but he prized them greatly.

  He was a proud man, and I don’t just mean in his appearance. I could tell straight away that I’d wounded him, and deeply. His weather-worn face was flushed with embarrassment, which only made me feel worse. We weren’t even wed and already I had failed him.

  Thurkil the reeve, who was in charge of the ceremony, asked me quietly whether I was well, and if I wished to go on. Skalpi was looking anxiously at me, and I said with a sniff that yes I did. But I was sobbing as we knelt before each other, sobbing through the vows and sobbing as, afterwards, Leofa the priest led the hall in prayer and wished us a long and fruitful life, and asked that our marriage be blessed with many children in the years to come.

  For the sake of everyone watching, I tried to swallow my tears as Thurkil bade us rise and proclaimed us man and wife, and as Skalpi gently, uncertainly, took my hand in his, which was leathery and had to be twice the size of my own. I could hardly feel my feet, and at any moment I thought I would fall. Together we began what felt like the longest walk of my life: from the dais, past all those folk, who shuffled their feet and averted their gaze, through the open doors and into bright sunlight, where we were greeted with cheers and showers of petals from those waiting outside, and bright peals from the bell tower. As we took our places at the feasting table I caught my brother’s glance, and on his face there was a look as if he couldn’t believe what he had done. I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, but then my mother sat down beside me, her head raised proud and her chin jutting out. She didn’t speak to me or even look at me.

  That night was my last under the roof where I’d grown up. I managed somehow to stifle my sorrow through the feasting and the games and the music and the dancing, but I was dreading what was to come. I had hardly eaten all day, I felt so sick. All too soon the sun fell below the gable of the hall. The skies turned the colour of fire as the day blazed its last, and then the stars began to emerge.

  Evening fell.

  I’d witnessed enough marriages to know what would happen next. Someone would blow a horn; at once the cavorting and the swilling would cease; a cry would go up, and then all the men would chase after the bride, ripping her garments from her as tokens of good luck until eventually she stood in just her undergown or what was left of it, and then everyone would cheer as the newly married man stepped forward and scooped her up in his arms and carried her off to his chamber, and there would be jokes about his manhood and her chastity, and much laughter, and ale cups raised and lewd songs and raucous cheers.

  All the time, as we joined in the dancing, and the men passed between the women around the circle, laying a kiss on each one’s cheek before moving on in time with the sound of the flute, I was waiting for that to happen. First Eadmer took me by the hand, and he was smiling but there was sadness in his eyes at the same time. I did my best to smile back before we changed partners, and then it was Leofa’s turn, and after that one of Skalpi’s retainers, a dark-haired man whose name I didn’t know but whose face seemed fixed in a perpetual smirk, and it was almost a relief when the music changed and he moved on and I found myself once again looking into Skalpi’s blue eyes, as clear as crystal.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said in my ear, gently, although there was a rasp to his voice, like a saw grinding against timber. ‘Quickly, before anyone notices.’

  He took my hand, and I didn’t know what else to do except go with him. My heart was pounding as I bunched my skirts in my other hand to stop them trailing. Like everyone we had left our shoes by the table while we danced, and so we ran barefoot across the yard, away from the revellers and the fire, the earth still warm from the day. For a man whose hair was grey and who had probably seen many battles in his years, Skalpi was nevertheless quick on his feet. Quicker than me, anyway, and I struggled to keep up. The flute-player carried on but we slipped away into the darkness, across the yard, towards the house. Behind us the music grew softer and softer.

  At least I was spared the rest of it, I thought. The jokes and the cheers. The tearing of clothes.

  He hustled me inside, shut the door and set the bolt so that no one else could get in, and then without a word he led me carefully up the stairs to the bedchamber, holding my hand all the way so that I didn’t miss a step. It was difficult to see anything at all; we had no candle and the darkness was like tar in the way it clung to everything. The air was hot and heavy, and I felt as though I would drown, for it was so hard to breathe.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, a shadow among shadows, when we reached the top. He took both my hands in his, caressing the backs of them softly with his thumbs. His palms were warm, greasy from the feast, and I wanted to snatch my hands away, but I knew it wouldn’t be right. All was still, save for the sound of our breathing and the far-off trills of the flute. We were closer to one another than you are to me now and still I couldn’t see him, not even his arm rings gleaming, it was that dark.

  This was how it began, I thought. My throat was dry and I had to swallow to moisten it.

  ‘Sorry for what?’ I asked.

  ‘For not being what you were expecting. What you were hoping for.’

  I was trembling. In the darkness I couldn’t see
his face. From the sound of his voice alone I couldn’t tell if he was angry at me.

  I said hurriedly, ‘No, Lord—’

  But he cut me off. ‘It’s all right. I know. You don’t have to say anything. Or do anything. Not tonight.’

  Outside, a horn blast. The music stopped. A cheer went up, and people were whooping with laughter, but it wasn’t long before the whoops turned into cries of confusion as they realised we were nowhere to be found.

  ‘When you’re ready, then we will,’ Skalpi said. ‘Not before.’

  I felt his warm breath on my face and flinched as he laid a kiss upon my forehead, and he must have felt me shaking, felt my apprehension, because he didn’t linger but broke away quickly. He let go of my hands and then he was gone. I heard his feet on the stairs, heard the door open as he went out back into the night to join the revellers. Exactly what he told them, he never said, but I imagine it was nothing that caused him to lose face. As I lay down on what would have been our marriage bed and closed my eyes and breathed deeply and tried to work out what had just happened, I could make out what sounded like his voice as he rejoined those celebrating, and then there was more laughter and the singing began again.

  All I could think about was how relieved I was.

  The next morning, under heavy skies that promised a downpour later, we left for Heldeby, which was two days’ ride away. What I had decided to bring with me to furnish my new home was already packed in chests and trunks and saddlebags: everything from clothes and shoes to a tæfl set made from chestnut and walrus ivory, a gift from Eadmer to Skalpi in recognition of the new bond between our two kindreds, and an embroidery of a hunting scene that my mother had given me, which she herself had helped to make and which she hoped we might hang somewhere in our hall.