by Jen Black
The thought that she might never see them again hovered always at the edge of consciousness. She closed her mind to it, pushed the worry away as she had so many times in the last few days. Somehow, being with Inga and the others made it harder to bear, harder to keep the thoughts out.
She had no idea where her home was in relation to the mainland of Alba. Names like Skye and Dublin meant little to her. She felt sure that Donald, even though he was younger, would have known exactly where Pabaigh was in the ocean. No one thought it necessary to tell her, since she was expected to stay at home with mother and Catriona, and take no interest in the wider world.
If she hadn’t gone searching for a stray calf, she wouldn’t be here today. Who would guess that such an everyday task could end in such disaster? Unless someone saw the ship and guessed that she had been taken on board, her family had no idea where she was or what had happened to her.
Her head dipped, her muscles tightened, and Inga clucked and murmured in sympathy. Emer’s throat swelled, closed and a huge racking sob shuddered through her. The chattering around the fire ceased for a moment, and then redoubled as women asked what was wrong, what was matter with her, was she ill? Did she have a pain? Their kindness only made her sob harder.
Emer shook her head, kept her face hidden between her hands and fought for control. She needed these women. If they rejected her now, she did not know what she would do. In a world fallen apart, she clutched gratefully at the kindness they offered, wiped away her tears, looked up and gave them a wobbly smile. Though her heart ached for her mother, she told herself life might be bearable after all.
“Someone has beaten her,” a voice murmured. “Do you see the bruises across her shoulders?”
That would be from her altercation with the overseer. She couldn’t see the bruises, so she had no idea how vivid or faded they might be. Once she was dressed, the marks would be safely hidden, but Birgit had taken her linen dress and chemise away.
Thyri had washed it. Hung out in the fresh warm wind, the gown would take a while to dry, but the fire was bright, the room was warm and the dreadful odour of the slave stockade had gone. If she was hungry, they had oatcakes. When her eyes lit up, Inga reached for a basket, pulled back a flap of cloth and offered rich golden oatcakes. Emer almost cried again at the sight of them, and ate eagerly.
“Come and wash off the soap,” Inga said. “Then come back and have another oatcake by the fire.”
She took Emer’s hand and led the girl out through a small doorway onto the wooden platform jutting out over the loch. Emer looked doubtfully from the clear water to Inga and back again. “Am I supposed to jump in? It’ll be awfully cold after sitting by the fire.” She shook her head, and backed away. One of the other women came out, laughing and plunged into the water, spluttered and rinsed soap from her hair and then rushed for the wooden steps and the warmth of the hearth.
Emer looked doubtfully at Inga, who nodded, smiled and gestured to the water. “I know you won’t believe me,” she said. “But it is refreshing and you will feel wonderful afterwards.”
Emer took a couple of quick steps and jumped.
The water was so cold she squealed out loud, and plunged for the steps. Someone held out a large piece of cloth, Emer grabbed it, wrapped herself in it and hurried back to the fire. Once there, warmth tingled through her and she felt truly alive for the first time since she had been captured. The woman who had leapt into the water with her smiled across the fire, a conspiratorial smile that warmed Emer almost as much as the flames. She was accepted, and a sudden flood of warmth replaced the cold memories of the last week. She bit into another oatcake and caught the crumbs in her cupped palm.
“Flane is a fine warrior,” the woman said. Emer remembered her name—Helga. “He will be Skuli Grey Cloak’s successor when he marries Katla.”
“If he marries Katla,” Thyri said on a soft laugh.
Emer sat mute, but her stomach churned and she wondered once again why Flane had brought her here if he was to marry the chieftain’s daughter. Suspecting Thyri was trying to warn her, she sent a shaky smile in her direction.
“Skuli wanted to marry her to Snorri Longnose,” said Helga. “But Katla would have none but Flane. You can understand it; she is the chieftain’s daughter, and Flane is his finest warrior.”
“But it might be better for everyone to merge our steading with that of Snorri Longnose,” Inga suggested. “The two camps would then become one, and be all the better because of it.”
“She is a strong woman, our chieftain’s daughter. He, of course, gives her whatever she asks for.”
Emer’s heart sank. Katla would not take kindly to her once she knew Flane had brought her to the steading.
“Katla talks of an agreement made at the summer solstice,” Inga said. “But I notice Flane always looks a little shifty about it. I suspect he was too drunk to remember what he said.”
The women laughed, and took turns to run a fine-toothed wooden comb through Emer’s hair while they gossiped and giggled. Occasionally they found something they tossed on the fire, and when her hair dried to its usual rich chestnut sheen, Birgit plaited it, coiled it into a bun at the back of her head and skewered a long bone pin through to hold it in place.
Thyri held out her newly washed bleached linen chemise and Emer pulled it over her head, and drew the cords at her throat. The white linen gathered neatly around her long neck and hid her glass beads.
“Show off your pretty necklace.”
Emer shook her head. She wanted to keep it private, for it was her only link with her mother.
“Better to keep it covered,” Inga replied, with a meaningful glance at the first speaker. The woman shot a quick look at Inga and then nodded.
By evening, her linen overtunic was dry, too. Someone admired the lovely rose colour as they tugged it over her head. “It becomes your chestnut hair so well.” They were kind enough not to mention how small and tight it was.
“I dyed it myself. My first attempt. It is a very old gown.” Emer smiled, but didn’t tell them she had intended the gown to be crimson. No need for them to know her first attempt at dyeing cloth had failed.
Once she was dressed and with her stout leather sandals securely tied about her ankles, her stomach started to churn with anxiety. The women would leave the bathing hut soon, and where would she go then?
***
Inga took her to the main hall, which was much bigger than the home she was used to on Pabaigh, and left her on the bed space nearest the main door. Emer looked around. Sleeping platforms ran along two sides, some partitioned off by wattle walls or leather curtains hung from wooden poles. She guessed twenty or thirty people might live here on a permanent basis. A red cloth curtain at the far end of the hall caught her eye. That would be where the chieftain and his wife retreated to private sleeping quarters.
Flane could not be Skuli Grey Cloak’s son, of that she was sure. There was no family resemblance, and he could hardly marry Skuli’s daughter Katla if he were her brother. But there seemed to be some special relationship between the two men. That much she had gleaned from the afternoon’s chatter, but quite what the relationship was she had not been able to discover.
People wandered back into the hall after a day’s work, saw her, recognised a stranger and stared. They asked one another who she was, and one man ambled across the hall in her direction. Emer kept her gaze on the hard earthen floor.
“Who are you?”
Emer couldn’t have said why she felt threatened, but she did. Since she had to look up at him, he seemed excessively tall, with a lank fringe of hair around his ears. The light from the lamp in its niche above the door glanced off his bald head as he leant toward her, smiling in a way that made Emer shudder. She looked away, for his teeth, gapped and stained, were ugly.
He straightened abruptly. “Answer me, girl! Who brought you here?”
“Flane.”
“Flane!” A blast of foul air accompanied his snort of surpr
ise. “What does he want with you?” As if guessing the answer, his evil grin appeared again.
How could she answer such an impossible question? Emer shrugged delicately and made a gesture with her hands to indicate she had no idea.
“Let’s have a look at you!” His finger and thumb pinched her chin.
Emer jerked back and glared at him. “Please don’t touch me!”
His grin widened. “Polite, too. You’re a pretty little thing. Flane has good taste.”
“Glad you think so, Gamel. Let go of her.” The voice was cold, and came from behind the stranger. Gamel didn’t exactly jump, but his eyes lost focus as if every sense he owned concentrated on what was behind him.
Flane stood there, arms away from his sides, hands already half-curled into fists.
Emer sat back with a huge sigh of relief. How long had Flane been there? She had been aware of nothing but the leering, ugly face bearing down on her. What would Flane think? He looked calm, but there was an edginess to him she had not seen before. The two men took stock of each other, and around the hall there was a drop in the level of conversation as heads turned to watch the confrontation in the corner.
Emer hugged herself. Her heart thudded in her chest, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as she stared up at the two men. Should she say something? Should she keep out of it and let Flane deal with it? Gamel continued to stare belligerently at the younger man.
Flane stepped in close. His finger jabbed the other man’s chest. “Touch this girl again and I’ll beat you to death.”
Emer’s mouth dropped open. He had spoken so quietly that no one in the hall would hear but for Gamel and herself. Gamel scowled. He held Flane’s steady, threatening gaze for several long moments, then grunted, turned and stalked off towards the fire pit.
Flane stared after the lanky, untidy figure and then turned to her, and her stomach lurched at his stern expression. Her whole life depended on this man’s good will. Would he think she had invited attention? Would he punish her, beat her as the overseer in Dublin had done?
With casual ease he threw himself onto the bed platform and surveyed her from the crown of her newly washed head to the clumsy dark leather sandals at her feet. ‘I knew it,’ he said in a satisfied tone.
She stole a glance at him from beneath her lids. ‘Knew what?’ She pressed her palms together and slid them between her knees in an attempt to relieve the tension.
He surveyed her from half-closed eyes. All his fury of a moment before had gone, and a lazy, cat-like smile crept across his face. “That you would be a beauty if you were clean.”
She could not think of a single polite comment, yet she had greeted strangers in her father’s home with warm water in a silver bowl, a towel and an offer of food since she was ten years old. His presence unsettled her, and the familiar way his dense blue gaze ran over her made things worse. Emer pressed her palms harder together. Then she gathered her courage, lifted her head and looked straight at him.
He smiled at once. “So, where is this island you come from?”
Emer lifted one shoulder in an incomplete shrug. “I thought I told you — we called it Pabaigh. I cannot tell you how to reach it, for I do not know. All I remember is that we could see the mountains of Harris from the beach.”
Flane watched her attentively.
Emer ducked her head, and kept her gaze on her hands.
“I can understand what brought Gamel to you. Your skin is smooth, and begs me to sweep my palm over the curve of your neck,” Flane murmured. “This is my sleeping space,” he said bluntly. “You will share it.”
“Here?” Emer blurted. “Where everyone can see us?”
The very real dangers of the ship and the slave market had taught her that most men behaved differently to the blood kin she knew on Pabaigh, but what Flane suggested was so far from the life she had known at home she hardly knew what to say. He seemed to think what he suggested was perfectly normal. She stared around the three timber walls that made up his bed space, and clutched her arms about herself.
“What’s wrong with it?” He sounded affronted. “It’s clean and neat, and there’s room for two.”
“What’s wrong?” Emer couldn’t hold the words back. “There is no curtain to close off the front of the bed space from the hall. I had my own space at home. I had privacy there.”
He looked at her down his short, straight nose. “Lose that resentful voice, or we won’t do well together.”
Emer’s insides knotted up at the firmness of his tone. She looked away from his fierce gaze, prodded the mattress, recognised the feel of straw and heather and remained silent.
“This is a good hall, probably much better than the one on your island, so you can get rid of that pout.”
Emer schooled her face, but couldn’t quite banish the scowl. Nor could she meet his eyes. “It seems nice. But it is not home.”
“It soon will be.” He smiled, and joined her on the edge of the bed platform. “Look around. You’ll see the hall is a fair size for the number of people who live here. The slaves sweep it regularly and the fire never goes out. We have ample food, the smoke escapes through those small gaps beneath the eaves, so you won’t be red-eyed all day. The sleeping space is generous, and you’ve already seen the washing place down by the water. Everyone uses it on a regular basis. We’re clean, Emer. What more could you want?”
Emer looked round. All he said was true. Thick, square pillars of golden wood rose up to meet the rafters, and the roof sloped down to meet the walls at the height of a tall man. Unbleached linen hid the lower portion of walls free of sleeping platforms, and someone’s clever needle had sketched mythical animals around it in coloured wool.
“It is a fair hall,” she agreed. “But it is not home.”
Flane sat on the bed, grasped her shoulders and pulled her back to lie on the mattress beside him. He laughed into her wide, shocked eyes. His lips dived to the skin beneath her jaw and nuzzled towards the neckline split in her chemise while his fingers untied the knot that held the strings closed. He parted the fabric and his mouth slid down towards the newly revealed curve of her breast. His bristles rasped against her skin and Emer fended him off with both hands.
“Don’t! Don’t!”
He braced one hand to either side of her shoulders and loomed over her. “What’s wrong?”
Emer gulped. “It isn’t right,” she muttered, unable to meet his steady gaze. She looked across the hall, where children ran about, getting in the way of their elders, and a dog barked as it leapt crazily about his newly returned master. The rest of the world seemed to be going on as normal, and here she was fighting for her virtue. No one cared.
No one had even noticed.
Flane chuckled, and she faced him suspiciously. “I can’t think of anything better,” he said. “What’s not right?”
At his tone, some of her anxiety dispersed. She focussed on his leather jerkin and a part of her brain registered that someone had dressed the leather very well indeed, and threaded small tassels through the shoulder seam. She admired the pale shade, which so nearly matched his hair.
“Be brave,” he said. “Tell me.”
He taunted her now. Emer saw the mischief in his eyes, and caution vanished. “I cannot be happy in a place where we are on public view.” She opened her eyes wide and words, unheeded, shot out of her mouth. “And we should be married before you bed me!” Her breath came and went as if she’d been running and warm blood rushed beneath the skin of her throat and face.
“Really?” His voice betrayed nothing, but his silver brows drew down in a frown. “And how would marriage change anything?”
Emer made to sit up and found there was barely a hand span between their faces. They breathed each other’s air. She sank back at once.
“It would mean I wasn’t a slave!” Her voice sounded shrill in her own ears. “As your bed slave, I am no better than the lowliest slave in this hall—or any other for that matter! I would not dare
refuse you, and you would never know if I cared for you or hated you…I don’t deserve this…I don’t deserve any of this!” She ran out of breath and words at the same time, and a stray, coward tear ran down one cheek.
Flane frowned, sat back on his heels and surveyed her.
Emer bit her lip. She’d gone too far. Now she was for it. Oh, why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? Her mother had told her over and over that she must learn to curb her tongue when talking to men. ‘Say what you wish to me, Emer, but have a care what you say to your father, your uncle or a stranger.’
“My, my…and if I marry you….” Flane leaned on one long bare muscular arm, his head tilted to one side with his straw-coloured hair curled onto his shoulder. He seemed more amused than annoyed. “If I marry you, you will make a happy and obedient wife?”
“I….” She almost said yes and then hesitated. She had been brought up not to lie, and even here she found it impossible.
“It is an important question,” he said. “Take your time.”
The way his lips quirked at the corners made her think he was laughing at her and she didn’t like it. She lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes. “If I give you my promise,” she said, “I expect one from you in return.”
His eyebrows rose in exaggerated query. “And that would be…?”
“That you will not force me until we are wed,” she said in a rush.
He stared at her in total surprise. His chin dropped towards his chest and his shoulders shook as he snorted with laughter. He hauled in a huge breath, broke into a guffaw and his skin turned rosy in front of her eyes. He laughed until he clasped both arms about his midriff as if his stomach ached.
Emer scowled down at his blond head, flung herself back against the wall and folded her arms across her chest. How dare he laugh like that? How dare he?
Chapter Three
Flane wiped tears from his eyes, groaned and sat back against the wall. Small, weak eruptions of laughter threatened from time to time, but the flush slowly subsided from his skin as he regarded her. His merriment was hard to resist. Emer struggled to stay angry with him, but a small tentative smile betrayed her.