Far After Gold

by Jen Black

  “I brought you to live in this hall and this is how you repay my kindness? Never have you caused me so much displeasure. You and she were brought up in the same household. Why did you strike her?”

  Flane didn’t hesitate. “She angered me, lord. She set the hunting dogs after my slave. She was wrong to do that.”

  There was a long pause before Skuli Grey Cloak nodded in reluctant agreement. “True. But was there a need to strike her?”

  “Probably not, lord. But I feared for the life of the slave. I still do. The dogs are running even as we speak.” He met Skuli’s steady gaze head on. He might as well save time and get it over with as quickly as possible. “I told your daughter we could not marry. To believe that we could was an honest mistake, and no insult is, or was ever intended, to you or your daughter. I wish to marry elsewhere.”

  Skuli Grey Cloak shifted from side to side as if uncomfortable in his carved chair. “I cannot release you from your promise, Flane Ketilsson. The offer of marriage was made and accepted in good faith, and my daughter would hold you to your promise.”

  The dogs in his mind growled and paced closer to Emer. Flane forced his thoughts back to Skuli Grey Cloak. “Lord, I was a fool to think that I could ever be worthy of your daughter, but I hope I am still worthy of your trust. I thank you for your generosity through the many years of my youth and because of that I cannot lie to you. I know you have long thought on Snorri Longnose as a wise choice of husband, and the two steadings being stronger together than alone. I will never be the husband your daughter expects and deserves. The fault lies with me alone. I cannot in all fairness go on with the marriage and I must withdraw.”

  Skuli’s frown deepened. His pale, cold eyes raked Flane from head to foot and he spoke after a long pause. “You say you wish to marry another?”

  “This is true, lord.”

  Skuli sat forward, elbows on his knees, beard jutting. “You cannot mean to marry the girl you bought in the Dublin market?”

  Flane nodded. “She is of good family, lord.”

  Skuli flung himself back in his chair and banged a solid fist on the stout wooden armrest. “Have you taken leave of your senses, man?”

  “No, lord. I do not believe the lady Katla will hold me when my heart begs to be released.”

  There was a long silence. “You talk of your heart,” Skuli Grey Cloak said wearily. “Perhaps you would be wiser to listen to good sense and marry my daughter. If you marry this other girl, you must leave the steading. It would not be fitting for you to stay afterwards.”

  Flane had expected it; but he simulated surprise and dismay as a courtesy to Grey Cloak. He owed the man much for all the years of his care. “But…am I not your best…” He amended it swiftly. “One of your best warriors?”

  “That cannot signify when the happiness of my daughter is at stake.”

  “Have I not brought you—?”

  Skuli Grey Cloak jerked to his feet.

  Flane twitched, and his back smarted as if someone had doused the wounds with vinegar. He did not step back.

  “In three days you must marry my daughter, or you will leave the steading. I want your answer at daybreak.” Skuli grunted. “You must do what you will. But first, there is the matter of compensation. You struck my daughter, and therefore you must pay me silver.”

  “You may have all the silver I own, lord.” He would have given anything to get away from here. How much longer was this going to take?

  Skuli’s brows lifted. The smooth answer surprised him, but he had to accept the offer, or look like a vengeful lord. He rose, flung the curtain aside and strode into his private quarters without further words.

  The glance Flane turned on the red curtain would have melted steel quicker than the blacksmith’s forge. He spun round on his heel, clamped his jaw shut as his back protested and walked stiffly back to his bed space. Once there, he leant one shoulder against the bed post, and took several deep breaths. His back pained him more now the danger was over. He guessed it would hurt a good deal worse than this very soon.

  Skeggi was waiting, bowls and clothes to hand. He pointed to the bed, and watched Flane lower himself gingerly onto the edge of the bed platform. “Well? What happened? I assume you want me to do something about that?” He nodded at Flane’s back.

  “Better now than later. Do what you must, but do it quickly. We have to ride.” He twitched the two halves of his tunic clear and eyed the bowl and cloths with distaste.

  Skeggi threw the remains of the tunic on the bed. “I went to Inga while you talked to Grey Cloak. She said this will help the healing. Can you—let me—”

  “It’s cold,” Flane complained when the salve touched him.

  Skeggi worked quickly and ignored the harsh gasps Flane could not prevent. By the time he finished, Flane’s face was buried in his palms and his fingers hooked like claws over his head. Skeggi wrapped clean linen around Flane’s chest and tied off the ends. “That’s the best I can do. Inga said it would numb the pain in a little while.”

  “It’s working already. Thanks.” Flane shook his head and stared at nothing while Skeggi packed the bloody cloths into the empty bowl and tamped them down. “Skuli said I have to marry Katla in three days or leave the steading. Oh, yes!” Flane threw Skeggi a bitter glance. “And I have to decide by daybreak.”

  Skeggi studied his nails, and then picked up the wooden flute he had been whittling the night before and studied that instead. “I thought you had already planned to leave?”

  Flane twitched. “Maybe I had, but I grew up here.”

  Skeggi stared at him, a faint smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “And you hate being told to go?”

  Flane glared at him. “What’s funny?”

  Skeggi held the flute between the fingertips of both hands, and examined it from all angles. “Emer was uprooted from her homeland, and you expected her to cope with it. I can’t see that this is so different.”

  Flane scowled, opened his mouth to retort and thought better of it. He straightened slowly, testing his back. “I can’t sit here and chat. Find me a tunic from that chest and help me into it. I’ve got to go and find her. Why don’t you come with us when we leave? We’ll probably take the boy as well.”

  Skeggi dropped the flute on the bed. He picked out a tunic and held it over Flane’s head. “Where will you go?”

  Flane shrugged, and winced. He got to his feet. “If we ever find out where Pabaigh is, we could go there. Or Skye? Will you come?”

  Skeggi nodded, and followed Flane out of the hall. “I doubt my girl will leave her mother, but yes—”

  “We might overtake the dogs,” Skeggi suggested. “They’ve been out less than an hour at most.”

  “They’ll have been at my den first,” Oli panted as he ran up behind them. Skeggi slowed, and turned. “Your den?”

  Oli pointed into the trees east of the settlement. “We went there first. The hounds will follow the scent, won’t they? I showed Emer the way to the river through the trees, so no one saw us. If you go straight to the river, you’ll save time.”

  Flane ruffled the boy’s hair with a rough hand. He met Skeggi’s glance over Oli’s head. “That’s what we’ll do.”

  Skeggi stopped. “I have an idea,” he said. “What if we lay a false trail? Emer wore your old tunic for a day, didn’t she? Could we knock the dogs off the scent with that? We’d have to get ahead of them first.”

  Oli beamed. “I know where it is.” He turned and raced back to the hall.

  Flane stared after him. “You know, that boy will be a great man one day.” He shook his head and then headed for the stables. “Let’s get the horses.”

  By the time they led the ponies out of the stable, Oli was back, the tunic clutched in his arms. Skeggi took the excited boy up before him on the saddle. “Keep tight hold of the tunic, and tell us exactly where Emer was going,” he said as they rode out of the settlement. “Then you and I can make a diversion while Flane finds her.”


  ***

  Emer walked along the lower slopes of a mountain and skirted the long, thin loch. She picked early blackberries and ate them one by one as she walked, enjoying the burst of rich dark juice on her tongue and the sunshine’s warmth on her shoulders. Walking soothed her. She and her brother drove their family’s sheep and cattle from pasture to pasture and thought nothing of walking half a warm summer’s day to reach the high grazing.

  Watching the landscape, using deer trails where she could, Emer took care where she placed her feet, especially among rocky patches. This was no time to injure herself. Loose stones were a menace, flies were a nuisance and the sun burned one side of her face and neck. The hillsides were very like her island home. Bracken grew impenetrably in some places, and boggy patches were best avoided. Somewhere a cuckoo kept pace with her, repeating its monotonous call, but always from a different stand of trees.

  She stopped when the sun was high in the sky and ate the last of her bread, now grown so hard she soaked it in water before she could chew it. Walking made her hungry, but she saved the little square of cheese left in her pouch to eat that evening. She lay back on the hillside, closed her eyes and rested. For some reason, memories of her brother Donald filled her mind, and she viewed them with quiet pleasure. On the edge of sleep, other memories slid into her mind.

  Flane as she first saw him in the slave market of Dublin, with his corn-gold hair sweeping his shoulders and then on the jetty at the steading; the bathing place, the touch of his lips and his hands roaming over her body. Her body, his, entwined, rolling, heaving — Emer sat up, shuddering, her palms cooling the heat from her face.

  She groaned and buried her face in her palms. It was better she did not think of Flane, for in escaping from the steading, she was forcing him to make a choice. On the third day, Oli would tell Flane she was going to Snorri Longnose. Flane would then have to decide if he followed her, or married Katla.

  Emer struggled to her feet and continued her journey, but her mood of quiet optimism gave way to resignation. The faint trails disappeared, the bracken tugged at her skirts and walking was a struggle.

  The sun had slipped down the western sky by the time she stared out across the silver glitter of the sea. Hidden somewhere out there was her island home. Turning to the south, she gazed across the folds of purple mountains toward the distant hump of land that might be Skye. Mountains were strange, changeable things with personalities of their own. Earlier in the day she had walked beneath a line of jagged peaks; but now, from this direction, she looked back on a smooth cone with a rocky plug at its summit.

  She sighed, recalled Oli’s instructions and faced away from the sun. The land ahead of her was flatter, but covered in scrubby trees and once among them, it would be difficult to recognise landmarks of any kind. The smoke of Snorri Longnose’s settlement should appear soon on the northern skyline and as she walked, she sent up small, heartfelt prayers that Snorri would be friendly, and that he might have a ship going south to Skye.

  He might turn out to be mean and avaricious, or as remote as Skuli Grey Cloak. He might put her on a ship for the Dublin slave market, or keep her for his own amusement, but she had to take that chance. Contemplating such choices as she navigated her way through boggy patches and around prickly gorse bushes, life with Flane Ketilsson seemed less terrible than it had a day or two ago.

  He’d made it plain from their first meeting what her rôle in his life would be, and he’d given her no reason to think things would change. The second day she’d discovered that he expected to marry Katla, but that was understandable. He would take every chance he could to better himself. Tales of the Vikings spoke of them as rough, violent men who roved the sea and took whatever they fancied. If such men wanted more than one woman, who was to stop them?

  Emer’s people followed the teachings brought to the islands after the Roman conquest, and they allowed a man only one wife. Other bedfellows were forbidden. Yet he had not been unkind to her. He’d protected her, and seemed fond of her. But that hadn’t stopped him wanting both the leadership of the steading and Skuli’s gold. Marrying Katla had been the easiest route to achieve his aim.

  Flane must have thought she would be glad of his protection and fit into the periphery of his life without a murmur of protest. And then there was Katla. She loved him, too. With a jolt, Emer realised that in one short sentence she had admitted to loving Flane. She studied the sloping hillsides and the rocky, tumbling streams, but could not ignore the truth. She had grown to care for Flane, and his insistence on marrying Katla hurt.

  Tears threatened, but she forced them back. She would not weep over a man who might choose to stay with Katla. Misery crept over her at the thought of never seeing him again, so acute she stumbled and came to a halt in the middle of the valley with tears trickling down her face.

  Through the soft twilight of the cool northern summer, Emer caught the faint sound of hounds on the wind, and hesitated. She glanced back over the way she had come. This was her second night out in the open and so far there had been no sign of pursuit. The sound of hunting dogs was not what she wanted to hear. The hair on the back of her neck lifted as she squinted through the soft blue haze. Clumps of trees and bushes crowded the stream that wound through the centre of the meadow that covered the valley bottom. Nothing moved but a pair of crows crossing the darkening sky.

  The sound of the dogs was very faint. Oli’s tale of the man who had not returned once the hounds had been set loose was making her imagine things. Shaking off her fear, she faced north again. She had walked steadily for the best part of two days, with only the briefest of rests, and Snorri Longnose’s camp couldn’t be far off now.

  A mournful wail rose and hung on the air. Emer shivered; she hadn’t been mistaken. Someone had set the hounds loose, and they were somewhere behind her, following her trail. They could have been trailing her all day, and would certainly move faster over the ground than she could. A cold trickle of fear ran down her spine. She set her jaw and walked on as fast as she could.

  The ground was not her friend tonight. Boggy patches waited to trap her and enforced detours slowed her progress. She made her way carefully up through the higher reaches of the steep, boulder-strewn valley and the smell of a hearth fire came to her on the breeze. The faint tang of wood and peat promised a welcome if only she could reach it before the hounds ripped her to pieces.

  The yips and yelps grew steadily louder, and her heart knocked against her ribs. Without conscious thought, she moved faster and faster until a stone tilted under her foot and she fell. Shaken, she forced herself to take care, to go more slowly. A twisted ankle would mean she could not walk and then the dogs would find her.

  Emer used her hands to help when the slope grew steeper. Darkness fell. She looked up, panting. The rising hill blocked the moonlight, leaving the way ahead in darkness. Over to her right, a rock face rose sheer into the sky. Behind her, she glimpsed the long, winding ribbon of the river, glistening where the moon caught it. She saw movement and fear gripped her throat in the same moment, for there, running through the valley, she saw the flickering, moving shapes of the hounds.

  She turned and plunged blindly on, scuttling from rock to rock, feeling her way with her hands. Her chest grew tight, sweat sprang on her skin and her muscles ached with effort. Chest heaving, she looked over her shoulder. The leading hound leapt to a rock and paused, scenting the air. Emer whimpered, and the dog let out a yowl of excitement. It leapt to the ground, less than fifty paces away from her. Snatching a breath, Emer turned and ran. There was no time for caution now.

  Running uphill in the dark was a risk, but she was almost at the brow of the hill. When something shifted under her foot, she cried out in dismay. First her knee and then her shoulder hit the ground. Rolling over, she slid down a steep slope in a spatter of loose stones. She scrabbled at the grass and slipped into cold rushing air.

  She landed on her back with a bone-breaking thud. Dazed and shocked, she stared at the dark sk
y above her, and then remembered the dogs. She couldn’t breathe. Pain gripped her midriff and her lungs didn’t work. Shutting out rising panic, she tried again, and a little air whispered through her throat. With each tiny intake of air, the constriction eased. Drawing in shallow, shaky breaths, expecting the rush of paws and the hot breath of the dogs, Emer knew she must get up, and run.

  Intending to push herself up from the ground, she stretched out her hand, and—Oh, dear Lord! Her fingers encountered empty space on her right. There was nothing there. She lurched back, away from the drop and her shoulder collided with the rock. Her fingers found the raw edge and the spume-misted drop into the sea.

  The smooth black shape of the cliff rose above her, and cut across the indigo greyness of the sky. The pale head of one of the hounds appeared, snuffling the air. It whined and backed away. Another came with tongue lolling, then turned aside.

  Groping, she explored her rocky shelf, and found nothing more than a few strands of grass and loose pebbles caught in the cracks. Cold, salt-laden air swirled around her, and not far away she could hear the soft shush of the sea. Chilly air breathed against her skin.

  Bruised, shocked and a little dizzy but otherwise unhurt, she gazed across the bay. The moonlight picked out Snorri’s settlement, snug beside the river and a pale beach nearby. It wasn’t far away and she wanted to reach it so very badly.

  It didn’t seem fair that after walking so far, she was trapped in a cold shadowy darkness that denied her any sight of her prison. Sweat dried on her skin and left behind a sticky dampness. The dogs whined anxiously and milled about somewhere above her head. She wondered how long they would stay. If they went back to their keeper, then come daylight she might find a way of escape the rocky ledge. If they stayed, then she would starve to death here on the cliff with seagulls pecking at her.

  She would have done better to stay with Flane. The thought came out of nowhere and startled her. If she had stayed with him, she would be safe in his bed at the steading. Better than starving to death out here in the windy darkness. He had charm, and seemed fond of her. Would it really have mattered if he didn’t marry her?