Snatching her hand away from his, she turned her back to him with a loud, ‘Tch! No, I don’t. I’ve had my fill of that kind of boasting. Go back to sleep and keep your hands to yourself.’
This time, his smile was more audible, which did nothing to soothe Fearn’s ruffled feathers, and it was some time before sleep returned, long after those conflicting emotions had been mulled over countless times. Why had her heart thudded so when he had come to the palace for her? Why had she secretly been pleased for Elf to meet him? Why had his looks of admiration mattered to her and why did she care if he had lovers, when experience told her that most men did, particularly pagans? And how would his family react to her, even over a limited time? What could she do to counter the rough ride they would be sure to give her? And how could she prevent Aric from taking the ultimate revenge on Earl Thored and doing to her what Thored had done to Aric’s sister? If she could believe that the act would be in the name of love, then she would be able to bear it. But for revenge? Insidiously, the memory of holding Elf’s infant stole into her thoughts as if to change her mind and once again her body trembled with longing. Until that moment with her own little nephew, she had never allowed the powerful urge of motherhood to take hold. And now it had, how would she manage to contain it?
* * *
Haesel’s prediction of wind in their faces came true once more as the great Viking longship ploughed its way through the North Sea, this time heading north-east with the sails billowing and men hauling on ropes to angle them precisely. There was no time for conversation, for it seemed to take every man’s concentrated effort to keep the ship on course, to look out for dangerous sandbanks, to navigate at night by the stars, to snatch food and sleep, and to avoid accidents on board. They happened, even so, when heads were clouted by beam or tackle, ankles twisted, hands cut by ropes. Then they were sent to Fearn and Haesel for treatment, always with miraculous results that kept the crew in awe of them to the point of veneration.
Yet there was hardly any contact with Aric himself who was on duty night and day, sleeping whenever he could, but not with Fearn. The difference between rowing up rivers and sailing on the open sea was now apparent to the two women and the feeling of being totally at the mercy of the elements was brought home to them constantly. Any contact Fearn had with Aric was brief, curt and impersonal. She and Haesel were no more than cargo who happened occasionally to be useful. Meals, in spite of having stocked up at Lundenburh, were spare and unpredictable, and each day spent on that leaping, bouncing ship was permanently damp, noisy and none too warm, despite the furs. And although neither she nor Haesel suffered from sickness, they were bruised by the continual lurching of their cramped quarters.
Although Aric had no time to speak to Fearn, Haesel and Hrolf managed to exchange a few words every now and then, changing the young man’s ‘protection duty’ into a pleasure that benefitted the maid in many small acts of kindness, though he, too, slept where and when he could. It was this new experience, combined with the all-consuming effort of getting through each day and night, that drove from Haesel’s mind the little scene she had witnessed at the palace when young Gemma had been, for a moment, in Aric’s presence.
So while Fearn’s relationship to Queen Aelfgyfu, to Earl Thored and to Kean was now known to Aric, Fearn herself was certain that the secret was hers. It was a disturbing element that remained on her mind constantly, for if it affected her status, it could also be seen as a danger, as Elf had pointed out.
Not surprisingly, conditions on board the sea-tossed ship were worse at night than by day, when obstacles could be seen. Once, when Fearn stumbled back to the shelter in the prow, ducking her head to avoid a diagonal rope, her foot slipped on the deck and sent her crashing down on top of a sleeping man swaddled in a walrus skin, hitting him with the empty wooden bucket she’d been carrying. Unfortunately, it was Aric who, with a loud oath and a yelp of pain, sat up to grab at her then, realising who he had hold of, struggled to his feet. ‘Ye gods, woman!’ he yelled, holding her. ‘Is this how you try to kill me?’
Furious that it was him and not one of the sixty-nine others, she fought off his helping hands while trying to find somewhere to place her feet, darkness preventing her from seeing what she was doing or how to right herself. Glimpses of his wild pale hair whipping across his face came as a shock, never having seen him without his tidy plait, and now a streak of dark blood on his forehead showed where the bucket had hit him. Resentment flared up inside her for all the times he’d ignored her needs and left her to her own devices. Lashing out at the wet face and tousled hair, she yelled back at him above the noise of the waves, venting her anger and frustration, her extreme discomfort and exhaustion. ‘If I wanted...to kill you... Dane,’ she panted, ‘I would not...choose...a bucket...would I?’
She stood no chance of fighting him off, there on the wet deck that shuddered and bucked in the dark chaos of sleeping bodies with men pushing past to loosen ropes. Completely disoriented, she was thrown heavily into his arms and held fast, with no time to see how to evade him as his mouth found hers, stifling her cry of surprise and fury and stopping her hands in mid-air, quite missing their intended target. To be kissed was the very last thing she had expected, experience warning her that any violent reaction she could offer would invariably result in painful failure, as it had always done in the past. But now, as the deck shuddered beneath her feet, she was being supported by his iron-hard arms and submerged in the cool movement of his lips over hers, removing her from the chaos as no words could ever have done.
Her mind closed to everything happening around her, bringing her senses to bear on the soft dampness of his beard on her skin, the salt taste on his lips, his loose hair lying across her eyelids and the urgency in his kiss. His grip on her was still strong as he spoke, though his voice was hoarse with tiredness and want. ‘Go back into your shelter,’ he said. ‘Go on...over there. You’ve disturbed my rest and half-killed me, so now you can offer me some compensation.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t argue. Just get under cover.’
Not understanding what he could mean by compensation, she could not believe he intended more than the comparative comforts of her fur bed, but the choice of refusal was denied her as he manoeuvred her bodily into the shelter of oiled skins where the spray missed them by a man’s length. Falling on to the damp furs beside Haesel, she found that Aric’s intention was to join her, as he had before, landing with an ungainly thud by her side and pulling her towards him as the prow rose up on the crest of a wave. Fearn felt, however, that it was rest he needed, not what his searching mouth was telling him. Nor did she intend to offer him any kind of compensation for what had been no more than an accident. Pushing him away with arms and shoulders, she made her intentions clear. ‘Get off me!’ she whispered, trying not to wake her maid. ‘Lie still and go to sleep. I do not want you, Dane. Not now. Not ever! Will it take another blow to the head to make you understand?’
His slurred words were little more than a whisper on the wind as he flopped back, half-asleep. ‘By all the gods, what was in that bucket?’
‘Nothing. Unfortunately.’
His response emerged as a squeak as he lost consciousness but not before he’d appreciated his narrow escape and the humour of it, too. But Fearn was able to see how close she had come to a danger she had been dreading from the start, which now seemed nearer after that spontaneous search for comfort when nerves and tempers were frayed by days of hardship. Lying close to him for the little warmth he could offer, she visited that brief moment again to savour the surprising tenderness of his lips that was so far from her experience, the tingle of excitement it generated against her skin, the unfamiliar desire for it to last longer, so new to her. Elf had assured her it could be wonderful with the right man. And that, Fearn supposed, was at the heart of the matter. The man to whom Elf was married loved her as an equal, whereas the man lying beside Fearn wa
s out for revenge and, for one year, they were certainly not going to be equals. Slaves had no rights whatever.
* * *
It was the sight of seagulls that first alerted the men to the fact that land was not far away, that and the long dark line on the horizon ahead. With a good chance that they would reach the Danish coastline before noon, the men began a frenzy of washing, combing hair and beards, laughing and teasing, tidying the deck and coiling ropes. Haesel hung their bedding out to dry in the wind, smiling shyly at Hrolf who helped her to lift water buckets over the side. The egg-sized swelling on Aric’s forehead had turned blue-grey under a veil of hair that he left unbound to cover it, careful not to disclose to anyone how the injury had been caused. On the few occasions when Fearn had seen him, he had not looked her way, although she had only realised how she was staring when Haesel nudged her. ‘His hair,’ Haesel said. ‘I think he’s washed it. It’s so pale. Paler than mine.’ Her own blonde curls were sticky with salt spray, framing her face like coiled springs. ‘Do you want to keep your veil on?’ she said. ‘You know the Danish women don’t wear them.’
‘All the more reason for me to keep mine. I shall not try to look like them. I shall stay as English as I possibly can.’
‘Mother Bridget said we should make ourselves useful,’ Haesel reminded her, ‘to whoever we live with.’
Fearn leaned over the side of the ship, watching the dark line of land in the distance. ‘I shall not be making myself useful to anyone,’ she said, though her defiance was lost in the thud of waves and wind. Anxious thoughts occupied her mind almost constantly, for although she knew much about the Danish ways from the women in Jorvik, hearing their language, seeing the way they dressed and ate, the anticipation that she would soon be a part of that life was less than appealing with new faces and names, new relationships, too. And although she tried to reason with herself that the expected hostility of Aric’s family was not her concern, she knew how easily she could become the target of spite. The Dane had no business bringing her into a situation so loaded with problems. His revenge would be sure to rebound on her, rather than on Earl Thored. No, she would not co-operate with him, or make herself useful. Why should she, when the Dane had ridden roughshod over her right to freedom?
No doubt sensing Fearn’s reception to any attempt to explain where they were, Aric left it to Oskar, his companion, to point out the various features as they sailed between headlands into a wide stretch of water. This, he told her, was known as a fjord. Fearn refused to be impressed. The land was flat, dotted with farms and squat, thatched dwellings. Small fishing boats rocked sleepily on a mirror of water and, on Aric’s longship, the rowers took over from the slackened sails. At last, Fearn said, the constant wind would give them some respite from its force.
‘It’s brought some colour to your cheeks, lady,’ Oskar said, smiling.
She held back the sharp retort. Oskar was a good-natured, pleasant-faced man doing his best to ease her transition into a new country. ‘Have you any family to greet you?’ she said, expecting a roll call of names.
‘Not at Aggersborg,’ he said. ‘My wife and child are at Lindholm, lady. We shall reach them tomorrow, but not on this ship.’
‘So why do we go to this...Aggersborg?’ she said, turning to him.
‘It’s a new fortress town,’ he said, ‘where some of the King’s fleet is based. The men will return home from there, like us. At Aggersborg, we shall sleep on dry land at last and eat a good meal. Then we’ll pick up Aric’s ship and sail on up the Lindholm Fjord. It’s not so far.’
Without this explanation, she assumed that Aric would have let her believe that his relatives would be there on the quayside at their first stop. There was, however, a large crowd of people there to watch the huge longship coming in, rowed precisely by more oars than they could count. Smoothly manoeuvring alongside the jetty with oars held upright, the men looked as if they’d been out on a day’s jaunt instead of battling against the ocean. Every man was well groomed and clean, helmets and swords shining, the epitome of efficiency. Fearn’s shelter had been dismantled and all her belongings stored in chests ready to be carried ashore and she as tidy as she could make herself, with Haesel’s help. She longed to take a bath, to wash away the salt that clung to every part of her.
To Aric the Ruthless, who had achieved so much on that voyage, the moment was understandably precious to him and, as the crowds cheered and crowded alongside the ship, it was not Fearn who was uppermost in his mind, but the well-deserved reception for him and his men.
Not wishing to divert the attention to herself, Fearn stayed back in the curve of the prow from where she could see how proudly he stepped on to the quay followed by his men, the hugging and backslapping, the shouts of recognition and the squeals of young women delighted by his return. She saw their smiling eagerness to make him acknowledge them, which he did, telling herself it was none of her business, yet experiencing a certain irritation that he was ignoring her, at that moment. She knew that he would, eventually, show her off as the prize he had won, to applause, curious stares and questions. They would assume, of course, that she was a high-ranking slave and he would not contradict that. ‘Haesel,’ she said, turning away from the side, ‘get ready. We’re getting off this boat our way. Look, every one of them has his back to us. We can easily climb over the side on to the quay. The gap is only small.’
It was true. With the level of the quayside considerably higher than the water level, one large stride over the side would take them easily to the back of the crowd and, while they were looking in the opposite direction, she and Haesel could stroll away towards what looked like a marketplace. ‘Right,’ Haesel said. ‘Take your veil off and stow it in my bag. I can’t stand being in this thing a moment longer.’
With everyone else caught up in the excitement of the moment, it was easier than they could have believed to clamber on to the quay and sidle round behind the seething crowd, then to saunter away, quickening their steps towards the stalls where foreign traders displayed their wares, direct from the sturdy merchant ships. In many respects, the merchandise was similar to that which they saw every day in Jorvik: barrels of wine from the Rhineland, cloth from Frisia and beautiful glass drinking vessels from the Far East. Although they were unable to trade without money, the relief of being upright on dry land, seeing familiar objects and women’s clothes instead of men’s, mixing with people other than warriors was like a drug that made them giggle at their own audacity, not caring how their freedom might end.
A group of stout merchants wearing huge fur hats caught their attention by their loud voices and waving hands as they stood almost knee-deep in furs of all colours, boxes of beeswax, barrels of honey and swords in tooled leather scabbards. Eyeing the furs, Fearn and Haesel discussed what animal had first worn them, not noticing how they were being quietly surrounded by large dark-skinned men with beards and exotic gowns, whose interest in Fearn’s beautiful black hair became obvious when one reached out a hand to touch it. He grinned broadly as she whirled round to protest. ‘Where you from?’ he said, in very broken English.
‘Lady,’ Haesel said, grabbing Fearn’s arm, ‘come away. These men are looking for slaves.’
Fearn had seen their kind before in Jorvik, but never without the Earl’s escort. In her eagerness for a few moments of freedom, she had forgotten the dangers facing young unprotected women, especially in a place like this where they were not known to anyone. ‘Leave us alone,’ Fearn said sharply to the richly dressed merchant. ‘We are with the Jarl Aric.’
The men apparently found this amusing, their laughter showing expanses of discoloured teeth. ‘Eh...no!’ one of them told her. ‘Aric...he always have the blonde women...not like you... I take you with me...yes?’ He reached out again for her, but she reacted quickly to prevent it, pulling out her knife with one hand while holding Haesel out of the way with the other. At the same time, she glared
at the man with the full force of her eyes and saw with satisfaction how his face reflected his utter astonishment, and some fear. ‘Dah!’ he whispered. ‘This one...worth a fortune!’
The situation grew more serious, for now Fearn’s most unusual feature was seen as a valuable asset and, as the danger grew, so she became more aware that the crowd of onlookers was dispersing, leaving them to deal with it as best they might. Even the other merchants were more curious than helpful. It was not Fearn’s knife that saved the situation, but Haesel’s uncanny premonition that they were at that moment being looked for and that, if she screamed loud enough, Jarl Aric, Oskar, Hrolf and Einar and others would know where to find them. Consequently, Haesel’s screams were the loudest ever heard in the Aggersborg marketplace in living memory, surprising even Fearn, who used the nearest man’s temporary shock to slash his fat be-ringed hand across the knuckles with her knife. His scream of fright seemed to echo Haesel’s, and although it seemed like hours before help came, it was only seconds before Aric himself brought a group of his men, pushing through the swarthy merchants who had ringed their prey, scattering them like autumn leaves.
Furiously angry with herself for not having the foresight to see what was a common enough problem wherever merchants came and went, but never thinking it might happen to her, Fearn could have wept with relief at the sight of Aric and his companions. She knew, however, that Aric would also be furiously angry with her and that he would have just cause to show it. So when he took hold of her firmly by her upper arm, he not only demonstrated his exasperation with Fearn, but made his ownership of her more than clear to the slave merchants.
‘Mine!’ he yelled at them. ‘Idiots! Hands off my property!’
Fearn gritted her teeth as she was hauled along beside him, recalling how she had made matters worse by not wearing her veil, as English ladies did, and by not wearing the neatly coiled plait of Danish women, either. Wearing one’s hair loose was only for very young girls and women of low morals. She made no protest at Aric’s rough treatment but, from the corner of one eye, saw how Haesel’s wrist was now in the keeping of Hrolf, whose drawn sword was ready for use.
Captive of the Viking Page 9