Captive of the Viking

by Juliet Landon

  She was helped on to the quay by Aric’s strong hand, the object of scrutiny from dozens of strangers whose smiles gave way to open stares, then to frowns and murmurs, then to hands over mouths as they saw not only her beauty but her most startling feature, to them a sign so unusual that it must mean she was an enchantress. Even the man to greet Aric first, obviously a senior relative, had a barely concealed frown for Fearn. His eyes were pale and icy, his voice heavy with suspicion. ‘Who’s she?’ he asked. ‘And where’s the boy?’

  ‘We’ll not go into that now, Uncle,’ Aric said, clasping the older man by the arm. ‘This is the Lady Fearn of Jorvik, daughter of Earl Thored of Northumbria. She will stay with us for a year.’ He drew Fearn forward by the hand, expecting his uncle to take it in his, to welcome her with a smile, at least.

  There was no contact, no smile. Instead, the uncle drew a young woman forward by the arm, though she was clearly unwilling. ‘And this is your cousin Freya, young man, or had you forgotten it in your thirst for novelty?’

  ‘Freya,’ Aric said, ignoring the cutting sarcasm. ‘Hej. Are you well?’

  ‘Never mind asking her how well she is,’ the uncle snapped. ‘Perhaps you’d better explain—’

  ‘Uncle, the explanations will wait until later. I ask that you greet our guest.’

  But Fearn had seen the distress in Freya’s eyes and knew with the instinct of a woman that she preferred not to be a part of this confrontation. Reaching out for Freya’s hand, she smiled at her stricken face. ‘You have nothing to fear from me, Freya. I am a complete stranger here, but I can understand what’s being said. We have a large Danish population in Jorvik, you know, and I would be glad of your friendship.’ She watched the relief spread over Freya’s sweet face and the warmth change her eyes to a smiling blue. Like so many Danish women, she was fair-haired and neatly dressed in a white pleated kirtle over which was wrapped a length of blue fabric held up with a pair of huge bronze brooches, and though she could not have been called a beauty except by one who loved her, her figure was perfect. It had not taken Fearn more than a moment to detect the ambition for his daughter in the uncle’s tone, a development that Fearn would do nothing to upset, if she could help it. If Freya was meant for Aric, then so much the better.

  The greeting from Aric’s brother-in-law and two young nephews was less confrontational. A bear hug from Olof, his younger sister’s husband, squeezed the air from his lungs and the squeals of joy from the two lads took no account of Aric’s guest or her strange eye-colouring. ‘They hoped you’d be bringing Tove’s lad back with you,’ Olof said, glancing sideways at Fearn. ‘Wenda’s going to be very disappointed.’

  ‘Where is she?’ Aric said. ‘And little Kol? Where is he?’

  Fearn listened carefully. Her reception was not unexpected, in the circumstances, but so many nuances of tone suggested that there were complications in these relationships no guest could foresee. Instantly, the two boys watched their father’s face to see how he would answer. ‘At home,’ Olof said. ‘Kol has been ill for months. All winter through. It’s his breathing. Wenda’s at her wits’ end.’ There was some resignation in his words that disturbed Aric. He was aware of his sister’s expectations and knew that her disappointment would be very great.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Fearn said, ‘we should go and see her and the child?’

  Understanding what she meant by this, Aric hesitated, his eyes searching hers for the optimism he hoped to see, yet knowing of the resistance they would encounter to Fearn being there instead of Kean and also the superstitious nature of his people. He thought the risk was worth it. ‘Yes,’ he said to Olof. ‘The lady is a healer. Would Wenda allow her to see Kol? Surely there can be no harm in it?’

  Olof shrugged as if the decision was not his to make. ‘I have no objection, but she might have. She’s set her heart on having her sister’s bairn to live with us.’

  ‘We’re wasting precious time,’ Fearn said, tiring of the prevarications. ‘Show me the way, if you please. Haesel, come. Stay close to me.’ Her businesslike tone seemed to motivate them and so, cutting a swathe through the crowd, Olof and his sons led the way on wood-planked pathways between the timber houses to the upper end of the settlement where the fenced gardens and dwellings were larger, many of them surrounded by outhouses, huts and paddocks. Clearly, this was where the wealthier members of society lived with servants and slaves and more space to keep domestic activities separate.

  One house of medium size had fewer extra buildings set around it and, as they walked up the pathway to the door, the two young lads burst into the house, letting out a cloud of blue smoke that made Fearn turn aside to catch her breath. Holding a hand to her mouth and nose, she followed the men inside, adjusting her eyes to the gloom in which the only source of light was the roaring fire on the floor hearth in the centre of the room, filling the place with woodsmoke. Fearn was used to the smoky rooms of Jorvik where the doors were left open during the daytime and the smoke found its way out through the thatch. Many people suffered from bronchial problems, but Fearn had seen nothing as serious as that of the red-faced child who lay in his mother’s arms, gasping for air and coughing feebly.

  Aric crouched down before his sister, pecking her on both cheeks with a smile of deep concern. ‘I’m back, Wenda. See? What’s to do?’

  Wenda’s bloodshot eyes filled with tears. ‘Kol,’ she whispered. ‘He cannot even sleep for coughing. I don’t know what else to do. Close the door, one of you. He’ll catch the cold and I’m trying to keep him warm.’

  ‘Will you allow this lady to see him? She’s a healer. From England. She can help.’

  For the first time, Wenda appeared to see the other woman silhouetted against the open doorway. When it closed, Fearn became just another shadowy figure, an adult where there ought to have been a ten-year-old boy. Wenda’s arms closed more tightly around the child, making him cough again, protesting, ‘No! No...no!’

  Tapping Aric’s shoulder, Fearn signalled to him to change places with her. Then, crouching where he had been, she asked, ‘How old is Kol, lady?’

  There was a hint of hysteria in Wenda’s frantic rocking and now the tears ran freely down her cheeks on to the child’s overheated body. ‘Three years,’ she sobbed. ‘You cannot do anything for him. I don’t know who you are. Best for you to leave.’

  ‘Never mind who I am, just tell me about your child. Does he cough blood?’

  Her head shook. ‘Just coughs. Cannot sleep nor eat. He’s slipping away.’

  ‘Will you trust me to touch him, lady? I have some experience with little ones. See, let me feel his forehead...there...like that.’ The child’s skin burned under her touch while his mother watched Fearn’s hand like a hawk. ‘Look at me, lady,’ Fearn said. ‘Look into my eyes. There’s nothing for you to fear. This is not magic, but healing. There are things the child needs, all of which are here around you. Will you let me hold the child and start the healing? See, I have no charms, no spells, only my hands. Let me take him...there...he’s quiet now.’ Gently, she took Kol into her arms and stood up, telling the dazed mother to come with her to the door, but anticipating her resistance.

  ‘No! Not outside!’ Wenda protested. ‘He’s so frail and it’s cold.’

  Again, Fearn turned to her. ‘Kol needs to breathe fresh air,’ she said. ‘Come with me. We’ll make him better together. Just do as I say.’ Soothing the mother with her voice and matter-of-fact manner, she took her and the child out into the sunshine, followed by Aric, Olof, Haesel and the boys, who watched with interest as, layer by layer, the infant was peeled of its furs, woollens and bindings that reeked of stale, eye-watering urine. As Fearn sat on a log, Kol lay quietly on her lap, gasping deep lungfuls of clean air, while his red cheeks changed visibly to the palest rosebud pink. ‘Haesel, look in my bag and find the balm we use for breastfeeding mothers. That’s it. Now, lady,’ she said to Wend
a, ‘take a good dollop of that and smear it round his little bottom where all the red is. Give him a week and this little fellow will be galloping round out here, learning to pee into the grass instead of into your best linen.’

  ‘Oh,’ Wenda said, wiping her eyes with her apron. ‘He’s stopped coughing.’

  ‘Get the boys to gather those cowslip flowers over there,’ Fearn said, ‘by the bagful. Make an infusion and spoon some into Kol three times a day. Do you have marjoram?’

  ‘Yes, it lasts all winter here,’ Olof said.

  ‘Then gather the flowering tips and infuse that, too. He can have that between meals to soothe his throat. Then, put his bed out here, wrap him loosely and let him sleep outside until he recovers. Look, he’s nodding off already.’ Sure enough, Kol’s eyes were rolling into heavy eyelids and, as Fearn re-covered him in a loose blanket and rocked him gently, the child slept at last without another cough.

  ‘And at night?’ Olof said. ‘We have to keep the fire going.’

  ‘Then find a way to let the smoke out,’ she replied, handing Kol back to his mother. ‘Feed him some gruel when he wakes, lady. Little and often until he recovers his strength. Will you allow me to come and visit you tomorrow?’

  ‘Oh, yes...would you?’ Wenda said. ‘Thank you...thank you for coming.’

  ‘I’m glad to be of help,’ Fearn said, though as she walked away towards the complex of buildings that was Aric’s home, she wondered what might have happened if she had not, if she had refused, because Kol was Aric’s nephew.

  Aric was more positive. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s at least two of my family you’ve managed to impress in the first hour of your arrival.’

  ‘Only two?’ she retorted. ‘Then I must try a little harder. Though I don’t know why I should try at all, when my only reward is captivity.’

  ‘Are you not rewarded by your success in healing the sick?’

  Fearn stopped in her tracks, whirling round to face him. ‘You must know, Dane, that there was little wrong with that child that common sense could not cure,’ she said, angrily. ‘That was not healing. That was about giving the child air to breathe, that’s all. Swaddling a child of three winters like a babe and then wondering why it cannot sleep for soreness. Keeping it in a dark smoke-filled room for three years. Why could not Olof fix the problem? It doesn’t have to be like that. Were the two boys kept like that, too?’

  ‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘Wenda is Olof’s second wife. Kol is her first child with him. She won’t take advice from anyone about rearing the babe. That’s why I’m amazed she listened to you. Perhaps now she’ll let Olof fix the smoke problem. She thinks the air is too cold for infants and Kol is not the most robust of children. You handled her with tact. That was clever of you.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said without thinking. ‘Clever of me not to have taken advantage of the situation. I might have killed the child. Is that what you’re saying?’

  Aric grabbed her arm, holding her back when she would have stalked off. ‘That was a stupid thing to say. You could no more kill a child than fly,’ he scolded. ‘Don’t put words into my mouth.’

  ‘So who did?’ she retorted. ‘Why did you introduce me to your uncle as Earl Thored’s daughter when you know that I am not?’ Did he know the truth? she wondered.

  ‘A slip of the tongue. I should have said foster daughter,’ he said, releasing her. ‘Over there, look. That large house with the shingled roof. That’s where we live.’

  She looked, but would not let him know how very impressed she was. ‘That’s where you live,’ she said, sullenly. ‘I shall exist for a year.’

  ‘That’s entirely up to you,’ he replied. ‘I don’t mind if you exist, as long as you cure us all of our ailments. And if you can control your sharp tongue, start to call me Aric.’

  Fearn had assumed that, in material and style, the houses of Lindholm would in most respects be similar to those in Jorvik, so she was not surprised to find that the long hall with the central fireplace and wooden platforms running along each side was essentially the same except for the richness of the materials. Which, she thought bitterly, they would be, wouldn’t they, with all that silver looted from England? No hard earth floor here, but smooth timber planks to walk on, timber to line the walls and a large shelf running under the roof where she saw sacks and boxes for storage. Bunches of herbs, wormwood and lavender hung from the beams, giving off a clean scent so very different from that in Olof and Wenda’s all-purpose room.

  ‘Is this where you sleep?’ Fearn said, looking round at the piles of furs and cushions covering the low platform. She thought she knew the answer already.

  ‘The servants and slaves sleep here in the living quarters,’ Aric said. ‘I’ve had more chambers built into the far end. One of them will be ours.’

  It would have been useless, she knew, to make a fuss about sharing a room with him for, in the end, that was what he intended. A middle-aged woman stood with her back to them, her hands busily working on the vertical threads of a large upright loom that leaned against the wall, her hair covered by a white scarf knotted at the back. The door at one side of her was wide open, letting in the sunlight and a couple of chortling brown hens.

  ‘Deena!’ Aric said in a loud voice. ‘She’s deaf,’ he explained to Fearn.

  The woman turned and smiled at them, placing a hand flat over her heart and looking at Fearn with interest until Aric told her, ‘Lady Fearn. English.’

  Deena nodded, then pointed a finger from one to the other. ‘Your woman?’ she said.

  Fearn’s no collided precisely with Aric’s yes, bringing a broad smile to the woman’s homely face as she understood the situation, as if it would only be a matter of time. ‘Ah!’ she said, turning back to the loom.

  ‘If you think saying it will make it happen any faster,’ Fearn said, crossly, ‘then think again. It won’t.’

  ‘She’s a slave,’ Aric said. ‘It doesn’t much matter to her one way or the other.’

  ‘It matters to me, one way or the other.’

  ‘Me, too,’ he retorted, smiling. ‘Come and see our room. Over here.’

  The chests and baggage brought from Jorvik were already in the room and, even though several chests belonging to Aric were there, there was still plenty of space for the handsomely carved bed with dragon-headed posts, several stools and a table on which rested a magnificent gold gem-studded reliquary casket, obviously stolen from a Christian monastery. Aric saw her astonishment. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s Irish. Like Deena. Amazing, isn’t it? Worth a lot.’

  ‘To those monks who made and owned it,’ Fearn said, holding back her anger, ‘it would have been beyond price. But I suppose you killed them to get it.’

  ‘Somebody did. I bought it and Deena from the same merchant. Now, I shall leave you here to arrange things as you wish while I go over to my uncle’s house. It looks as if I might have some explaining to do.’

  ‘That was inevitable, wasn’t it? So what do you intend to do about your cousin Freya? It looked to me as if you had an obligation there. Do you?’

  A mischievous look crossed his face as he answered, ‘My uncle thinks so.’

  ‘And Freya? Does she think you have? Would you marry her?’

  ‘I might. D’ye think she’d make me a good wife?’

  ‘Your own cousin? We Christians don’t advise that but, as a pagan, you’ll do whatever you wish, I expect. But if I were Freya...’

  ‘Which you’re not.’

  ‘If I were, I’d not wait for a man like you who brings home another woman.’

  Before she could turn away, he caught her round the waist and drew her in hard against his body, pressing her against the bulge of his rising desire. ‘If you were my little cousin Freya,’ he said, touching the tip of her nose with his, ‘you would do exactly as your father bids you, as s
he does. She would not refuse me, if I made a bid for her, because she goes with her father’s farm and whoever takes her takes the farm. And he wants me to do that because he knows I’m the best.’

  ‘The best at what?’ she whispered over the loud thud of her heart.

  ‘At breeding quality horses. That’s what he does. He’s not going to hand that over to a man he doesn’t know, believe me. I’ve been doing it with him since I could walk.’

  ‘So Freya doesn’t have a say in it?’

  ‘In theory, she should. In reality, no.’

  ‘I see!’ she cried, pushing at him to escape. ‘So go and make your peace with them both. I wish you well of it.’ Her struggles did not have the desired effect, for he was too strong for her and they were too near the fur-covered bed to avoid falling on to it with a soft thud, with Fearn trapped beneath him and no chance of avoiding his kisses. For her, the room darkened into the sensuous warmth of his mouth moving over hers, stopping all those peevish thoughts at the talk of him marrying his cousin, as if such an important step meant nothing more than the gain of a stud farm. Her resistance melted with a sudden sweet urge of desire when his hand strayed boldly on to her breast, possessing it, kneading it gently over the loose linen of her gown. And although memories floated through her consciousness like ghosts, she let them pass by without stopping, for this was different in every respect, especially in the tenderness that brought neither pain nor fear. It would have been so easy, then, to let him go on, to go with him to the end and to discover for herself what she had never yet experienced, for she knew now that if anyone could teach her, this man could. ‘Stop,’ she whispered, grasping his wrist. ‘Please...stop!’

  ‘Why?’ he said, kissing her neck.

  ‘Because I’m pleading with you. I’m not ready for this yet. Give me time.’

  He sighed and rolled away, leaving her empty, relieved and disappointed, too, and quite unsure of when the right time would be. Standing up, he held out a hand to pull her upright, a small gesture that had never been offered to her before, easing her again into his arms. ‘Can you feel that?’ he whispered.