Far After Gold

by Jen Black

  “That is not true. She’s a thief and I shall tell my father so. The girl will be punished.”

  Flane stiffened. The punishment would be a whipping at the very least. “You have your damned purse, and whatever silver was in it. Let that be an end of it.”

  Katla shook her head. “We can’t let a thief go unpunished.”

  “She is not a thief, and you know it. This is not worthy of you, Katla.” Subdued murmurs reached his ears. Women still stood within earshot. He glared at them and swung round on the men. “Leif, Balder, Thorkel— get these women away from me! And as for you, lady, you can come with me!”

  He seized Katla’s elbow, marched her out of the hall and headed for the loch. The jetty would be empty so early in the day, and they could talk there without being overheard. As he walked, he glanced around, but saw no sign of Oli or Emer, for which he was glad. At least the girl was safe for the moment.

  “How can you defend that little thief, Flane?” Katla trotted to keep up with him.

  “Very easily,” he snapped, and increased his pace.

  “Slow down, Flane! What has happened to you?” Katla lagged behind him. “She has bewitched you!”

  ***

  “Oh, Oli, stop! Where are we going?” Emer sagged against a tree trunk while she caught her breath and darted a worried glance around at the encircling trees.

  The boy halted and came back to her. “To my den. It’s not far away now. You’ll be safe there.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll bring food and then you can escape.”

  “Escape?”

  “You can go to Skye and live with your aunt,” Oli explained, as if it was all perfectly reasonable.

  “But I don’t know how to get—”

  “Well, you can’t stay here. They’ve killed thieves before.”

  She stared at the boy in the sudden silence beneath the trees. “Killed them?”

  Oli nodded and jogged away. “Come on, we have to go.” He peered over his shoulder to make sure she started after him. “You’ve got to run away now, before it’s too late.”

  “Who killed the thieves, Oli?” Emer asked. A tremor of fear started up deep in her belly.

  “Skuli Grey Cloak, of course. Who else?”

  ***

  Oli left Emer sitting bolt upright in his den with only Grendel for company, ran back to the hall and slunk into the cooking area. He seized a chunk of cheese from the barrel, a loaf from the cooling tray and bolted before the gossiping women realised he was there.

  “Here you are,” he said to Emer when he returned to the stone cairn. He dug food out of his pockets and handed it to Emer. “Hey, I like that!”

  Emer displayed the neat little pouch she was weaving from reeds. “I found a pool a few yards away, with reeds growing in it. I had to do something, Oli. I couldn’t just sit and wait.”

  “If you finish it quickly, you can carry food in it.”

  Emer nodded. “I’ll continue while you talk. What is happening in the steading?”

  “Everyone in the hall is talking about you and Katla. Out on the jetty, Flane’s talking to Katla. Well, he’s talking and she’s listening. They’re too far away for anyone to hear them.”

  “I suppose he’s still trying to bring Katla to his way of thinking, but he might as well try to stop milk going sour.”

  Watching her fingers manipulate the reeds, Oli sighed. “If you go to Snorri Longnose’s settlement, I’ll tell Flane where you are. He’ll follow you, won’t he?”

  Her fingers stopped working. Flane would have to follow her, if he wanted her. It was a risk she was prepared to take. “The idea of leaving the steading is growing on me. It is summer, the weather’s good, and I’m confident of walking the distance. At worse, I’ll have a few blisters, but at least I’ll be away from Katla and her dreadful tasks.” She hesitated. “If you tell him too soon, he’ll only bring me back and then it’ll all start all over again.” She touched Oli’s hand. “Promise me you won’t tell him for at least three days?”

  Oli nodded.

  “Can you tell me which way to go?”

  “You head west out of the steading and cross the river by the stepping stones. Then go up the hill, and keep the sea on your left. When you see a loch on your left side, walk between two mountains beside the long thin loch. When you reach the end of the loch, walk north with the sea on your left. Skeggi says there is a trail and you should follow it because the land is rough. Snorri Longnose’s camp is on a wide bay.”

  He made her repeat the instructions till she had them word perfect, but when the moment came to leave, she hesitated. “I’m not sure, Oli. I don’t feel as bold as I expected. What if I don’t find anyone? What if I get lost?”

  “You’ll be all right.” Oli grinned encouragingly.

  She was scared and ready to admit it. The thought of being alone in an empty, unfamiliar landscape suddenly seemed far too dangerous. She couldn’t raise a smile for him.

  “You’d rather be with your aunt than here with Katla, wouldn’t you?”

  After a moment’s consideration, Emer nodded. “You’re right.”

  “Well, then. You’d better go before they start looking for you.” Oli wriggled back out of the cairn before she could change her mind.

  Running back into the steading, Oli found Skeggi chopping wood by the livestock barns. “Has Katla named Emer as a thief?”

  The axe swung down and split the log in two clean halves. “Flane’s over there arguing with her about it.”

  Oli looked toward the water, frowning. They’d been arguing a long time. “What would happen if Emer ran away?”

  Skeggi settled another log on the block. “Best thing she could do.” He swung the axe, grunted and kicked the two halves to join the pile behind him. “Come, let’s eat.” He clasped Oli by the scruff of his neck and laughed as Oli ducked away from him. “You’re getting better at that. No one will be able to hold you soon.”

  They walked toward the hall. “I’m hungry,” Skeggi said. “We missed breakfast, and we’ve waited long enough while all this fuss goes on.”

  “Would it be the best thing? Really? Don’t runaway slaves get hunted down and killed?”

  “Depends on their owners. Why?” Skeggi approached the gently steaming cauldron at the edge of the hearth.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “I’ve had enough of it.” Skeggi handed the boy a bowl of porridge. “Eat. All this uproar gives a man an appetite.”

  Oli followed Skeggi and settled down in his bed space. It wasn’t as roomy as Flane’s, but it was better than his own and he wanted company. “What do you think will happen?” He scooped porridge out of his bowl for Grendel and watched the eager pink tongue take it from his palm.

  Skeggi looked sideways at him. “Who are we talking about? Emer? Or Katla and Flane?”

  Oli’s cheek bulged with food. “Flane.”

  “He’ll marry Katla in a day or two. Then they can fight it out between them.”

  Oli swallowed. “What do you mean?”

  “He’ll have the upper hand once they’re married,” Skeggi said. “He will be second only to Skuli Grey Cloak, and Katla had better mind her manners then.”

  Oli thought about it as he spooned up porridge. “But he likes Emer better than Katla. I know he does.”

  “An end to it all would do for me,” Skeggi said, with a quick sideways grin. “Our brave Flane spent most of the night wandering around the loch. He must’ve slept about two notches on the candle, if that. Couldn’t make up his mind what he was going to do. It’s no way to go on.”

  ***

  Flane halted at the very edge of the jetty. He remembered the night he and Emer followed the sleepwalking boy to this very same place. It had been brave of her to follow a child she did not know through a strange place and out into the darkness. But then, she had shown courage over and over again.

  Katla gasped for breath at his side. Her long earrings trembled under the force of her bre
athing, and the early morning sun shone on her face. “We’ve known each other a long time, Katla.”

  “Since my father took you into our settlement.”

  “In the last few days you have changed into someone I hardly know. You have a wild temper and a spiteful streak as wide as your father’s ship.”

  Blood rose through the pale skin of her face and throat. “How dare you say such things to me? I shall tell my father…”

  Once they were married, he’d break her of the habit of flouncing off to her father. If he married her, he thought. “Your dealings with Emer have shown me your true nature. You have not treated her well.”

  “She is a thief, Flane.”

  “Why do you accuse her? She is no threat to you.”

  “Why do you always defend her?” Katla demanded. “She’s from some wild island no one has ever heard of! She’s nothing but a slave!”

  Flane shrugged.

  “That’s no answer, Flane Ketilsson!” Katla snapped. “You spend all your time with her, yet you are to marry me in a day or two. You should spend your time with me.”

  Flane regarded her steadily and realised how little time he had spent with Katla since Emer arrived. “I brought her here, so she is my responsibility. She is…vulnerable.”

  Katla’s dark eyes widened. “You’ve brought captives back from raids before, and you’ve sold them off for silver without batting an eyelid.”

  “I have.”

  “So why should this slave be different?” The shadow of a gull flying overhead flitted across her smooth white brow and angry eyes.

  “They were male slaves.” They didn’t have long brown hair that shivered over his skin when he made love to her. Nor did they have expressive brown eyes that made him doubt his own judgment.

  “Still slaves, Flane. You should sell this slave, too. How can we ever be happy if she is always here?” Katla eyed him as if he were some weakling she despised.

  A spasm of dislike ran through him. “Happy? Do you think we would be happy, if we married?”

  She tilted her head and touched his arm. “We were happy until she came.” Her voice softened. “Now you make it sound as if we never shared a moment’s joy.”

  “It would have been a marriage like many others,” Flane said grimly. “I would have spent time sailing and hunting. You would have looked after the settlement while I was away. Once I got a ship—”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, it would have been, you would have sailed?”

  Flane frowned. The words echoed in his mind and he realised his tongue voiced his true feelings. He stared at Katla until the soft slap of water against the wood of the jetty grew loud in his ears. “Nothing,” he said at last, shrugging away his confusion. “A slip of the tongue, that’s all. When we are married, I will sail—”

  “So, we have the truth at last.” Her face puckered. “You never wanted me at all! All you want is the steading.”

  Flane thought of Emer. He looked at Katla’s smooth oval face and felt nothing. He sighed, glanced over toward the settlement and caught a glimpse of Oli as the boy slid between two buildings, heading for the hall. That meant Emer was safe somewhere and relief ran through him. He brought his attention back to Katla. “You twist my words, woman. Men sail and women spin. That’s the way things are, the way they’ve always been.”

  “No! We would have been different!”

  He doubted it. He disliked the turn of the conversation and could just as easily grow to dislike Katla. “What makes you think that? You would have looked after any children we—”

  “Children?” Katla stamped her foot on the wooden boards. “From the way you talk you wouldn’t be on shore long enough to father any except on that woman!”

  “And whose fault would that be when you’ve got a tongue as sharp as a sword blade and a nature worse than a swarm of angry wasps?”

  Shock widened her eyes and held her rigid for a moment. Then her face twisted and she lifted her fist to strike him.

  Flane’s fragile patience ended. He grabbed her, tossed her across his knee and delivered three walloping cracks to her backside. Katla heaved, struggled and screeched in outrage. Flane released his grip, and Katla dropped to her knees on the rough planks of the jetty, her breath coming in disordered gasps. Flane glanced back at the hall and saw young Oli, clutching something to his chest, run furtively back into the woods.

  Katla scrambled to her feet and glared at him from a safe distance.

  “I don’t want to sell the girl. I want to keep her,” Flane said. “I will keep her, no matter what.”

  Shock widened Katla’s eyes, but she made no reply.

  Flane glanced sideways, where the long stretch of the loch glittered under the sun. Beyond it shone the open sea and a bright blue sky. He would not budge on this. Katla should have learned long ago that she could not dictate what he should do. Damn Skuli Grey Cloak for always spoiling her.

  A faint sound made him turn to her. Tears trembled on her long dark lashes. She sniffled again, brushed the tears aside with her fingertips. “You should honour the promise you made at the summer solstice,” she muttered.

  “To tell the truth, I don’t remember making any promise. My only recollection is that you suggested we should marry and I said I would give it some thought. If you consider that was a promise, then so be it. I will honour it. I’ll marry you.” He let the air go slowly from his lungs. “But I shall keep the girl, too. You will accept her; otherwise there will be no marriage.”

  “But if we don’t marry…what will happen to me?” Her wet lashes were very black in a face gone suddenly white. A tear rose and ran down her cheek, but her bottom lip was red where she had bitten down in an effort to stem the tears.

  The misery in her eyes surprised him. He hadn’t expected that. “My guess is your father will insist I leave the steading, and then he’ll marry you to Snorri Longnose. It is your choice, Katla.”

  “Flane!” Another tear escaped and rolled unheeded down her cheek. “Then she means more to you than me? Than having the entire steading under your hand? You’d even leave this place? For her?”

  “It is quite clear in my mind. Either you accept Emer or you and I do not marry. You must decide.”

  Her chin wobbled and she clenched her jaw to control it. “What kind of marriage would it be?” Her voice was bitter. “I hate her.”

  “You need not see her. She could live outside the hall—”

  Katla made no effort to hide her disgust. Beside them, the wind ruffled the surface of the water. One of the small fishing boats swung gently at the end of its line and knocked against its neighbour. The sound of wood on wood echoed in the silence. “I never thought you would force this humiliation on me, Flane Ketilsson.” Tears rolled faster, dripped onto the blue linen gown.

  Flane turned away. He could not afford to soften, or she would win. He knew her far too well. He kept his gaze on the hall and outbuildings of the steading.

  “You don’t like me, do you?” Katla pressed her hands together under her breastbone. “You never have. You just wanted me because I’m Skuli’s daughter, and you would have the steading when my father dies.”

  Flane linked his thumbs behind his back. He shifted his gaze beyond her, for he didn’t like to see her eyes turning pink. “The idea was attractive. Your father needs a man to follow him. He would have accepted us as a good arrangement. But he likes Snorri Longnose, too, and he’s a good man.”

  “But I wanted more than a good arrangement,” Katla wailed. “I love you, Flane Ketilsson! I want you to love me!”

  “Snorri Longnose will marry you,” he muttered. “Then you’ll be lady of two settlements—”

  “The settlements can sink in the ocean! What are they to me?”

  “Katla, we can’t always—”

  She whirled and ran along the jetty. Flane stared after her. “Thor’s hammer. You might have handled that better, Flane.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Emer strode
along the faint trail through the grass and bracken. Now and then she patted the bread and cheese, snug inside the woven reed pouch slung from her belt, glad it was there. She would make it last as long as possible. If she walked steadily, she was sure she would reach Snorri’s Steading within three days. Water was not a problem, for cold, clear runnels and streams trickled down every fold and wrinkle of the hills around her.

  Skuli’s Steading held no happy memories for her. Well, perhaps one soft, sweet memory; but Flane had to decide what he wanted for his future. If he saw her as property to pick up and use only when the mood took him, it was better she should put him right out of her mind.

  Her chin wobbled at the thought, and tears stung the back of her eyes. She blinked them away. Had she not always planned to escape? From the day the Vikings stole her, she had sworn to find her way home. Well, now she was free at last, and it was up to her to reach the next settlement and somehow persuade them to take her to Skye.

  ***

  Once Oli was sure Emer had left on her long walk, he began to worry. He went looking for Flane and could not find him, but saw Skeggi amongst a group of men walking down to the jetty. “Skeggi, where’s Flane?”

  Skeggi turned at the boy’s call. “No idea. We’ve been hunting, and I haven’t seen him since mid-day. Where’ve you been to get so dirty?”

  Oli pushed his hair back off his forehead and shrugged. “He hasn’t come for food.”

  He added such heavy emphasis to the last two words that Skeggi smiled. “He’ll be here any moment. What’s your rush?”

  “Oh, nothing. Where’s Katla?”

  “She’s been closeted with her father since her argument with Flane. Why?”

  Oli shrugged again, wandered outside and stuck his face in the bucket of water more as a gesture to Emer than because he wanted to be clean before he ate. He shivered and groaned under the sting of cold water and wished with all his heart that she would come back and stay with Flane. He liked Emer much better than bossy, stuck-up Katla and he was sure Flane did, too.

  A hand clamped down on his shoulder. He whirled, and then grinned. “Flane!”