‘Oh no, Sigrid!’ Aina calls out, pointing. ‘I think my best gown is in that one!’
Her servants are struggling to calm the pony and set it on a sure footing to complete the crossing. A man reaches out an arm just in time to snatch one of the errant bags from the water. ‘I’ve got one my lady!’ he calls out.
‘And I’ve got the other!’
We turn to look downstream towards an unknown voice, and see that the monk who had been travelling ahead of us has snagged the other bag with his staff and is holding it clear from the current. Water is gushing from it and whatever its contents are they are sodden now. Aina is ahead of me, riding towards the monk, and I follow, trying to catch up with her. ‘Thank you so much, Brother!’ she calls out, dismounting to assist him in hauling in the wet bag and dumping it on the bank.
I arrive and look down on the procedure. ‘You nearly lost it, Lady Aina.’
‘I’m so grateful,’ she tells the monk.
‘It’s nothing,’ he says. ‘I am glad to help you.’ He speaks with a strange accent – unusual but familiar. I cannot quite put my finger on what it reminds me of. With Aina standing next to him, it is apparent that he is very tall. He is engulfed in a brown monastic robe, but it is a little too short for him, and I look in surprise at his boots – soldier’s sturdy boots, but then I suppose that is sensible if he is journeying out and about, crossing this soggy terrain.
Aina smiles up into his face. He is wearing a large cowl but it is just possible to see that he is young and exceedingly handsome, with brilliant pale blue eyes in a sun-browned face, and wisps of white blond hair just visible in the recesses of his hood. A shame he is a celibate monk, I think to myself, admiring his face.
‘Where are you going, ladies?’ he asks.
‘We are going to the monastery,’ Aina points to where we can see the monastery walls, perhaps ten more minutes ride away, ‘for the feast of the Apostles tomorrow.’
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘A busy feast day for sure.’
‘Oh yes,’ Aina responds. ‘There will be much feasting and many guests arriving for tomorrow’s festivities. Are you going there yourself, Brother?’
‘No doubt I will be there,’ he says.
I hear the thud of one of Aina’s servants’ horses behind me, approaching us to help his mistress. The other servants have managed to straighten out the bags on the shivering pony and reassemble the party on dry land.
‘I must be on my way,’ the monk says abruptly, turning away. ‘I have a sick old woman to visit before dark falls. Good day.’ He swings onto his donkey, his long legs dangling ridiculously from the small beast and the tips of his boots near touching the ground and turns his back, with Aina calling her thanks again to him.
We arrive at the monastery gatehouse at dusk and Aina tells the monk who shows us to the guest dormitory: ‘We are chilled to the knees from our journey. We nearly lost some of our baggage crossing a stream on the marsh.’
The gatekeeper tuts and pats her arm. ‘We’ll have you warmed up soon enough my Lady,’ he reassures her.
In the church dozens of candles are burning in preparation for the feast day, and their flickering light ranges across angel corbels and stone carvings of winged lions. Aina and I listen smiling to the monks’ beautiful singing. After the service the Abbot welcomes us and asks if we would be kind enough to visit three old men in the hospice. ‘They are waiting for death,’ he says with calm resignation. At the hospice the monk in charge tells us to find the old men in the warming room instead. They are seated close to the fire and make room for Aina and I and tell us about their former lives with their wives, children and grandchildren. The monks swish around the abbey in a state of excited preparation for the feast tomorrow when they will be able to break their fast. A board outside the refectory gives the list of their duties in the kitchen, garden or on the farm. Young monks move between the cellar in the undercroft and the refectory bringing up bottles of good wine. At the end of their labours they wash their hands in a stone trough in the courtyard with a squeaking handle that forces up a dribble of cold water.
We sit down to dine at the high table with the Abbot on their fasting fare – a good vegetable and bean soup with bread, and Aina answers his enquiries concerning her forthcoming marriage and the news in the Limousin.
‘Godfrey thinks he saw a Viking sail near Ré,’ Brother Peter interrupts.
‘Godfrey thinks so every day,’ says the Abbot.
‘Where is Ré?’ asks Aina.
‘It is an island just off the coast here,’ says Peter.
‘Let’s not frighten our guests,’ says the Abbot. ‘If Godfrey is sure – again – then we will send a lookout to report back to us.’
At the end of the meal, we watch curiously as the monks rise from their seats, each carrying a book or scroll which they place down on the carpet. Then they look around at the documents placed by the other monks and select another text for themselves. ‘We change our books each time this year,’ the Abbot says, explaining that they read one text each throughout the year. Aina pulls a face at me that he cannot see indicating how amusing she finds this, but then she assumes a serious expression, passing a heavy purse full of silver pennies to aid the poor to the Abbot.
‘Bless you, Lady Aina. The monastery’s treasure is all safely hidden below,’ the Abbot says smiling conspiratorially at her.
‘In the cellar?’
‘No, we’ll wait for the brothers to leave and then I’ll show you.’ We wait patiently as the monks file out in silence and then the Abbot directs our attention to his chair which is higher than the others, but I had assumed this was because of his seniority. He shows us how the chair can be moved aside to reveal four decorated tiles and how one of these tiles has a loose edge where you can insert your knife and it will lift on a hinge and there is a hole beneath. Inside is a lidded jug, and the jug, he shows us, is filled with silver pennies. He pours the contents of Lady Aina’s purse into the jug so that it is filled to the brim. He puts his finger to his lips and replaces the tile and chair, but then looks up with irritation as we hear footsteps running back in our direction.
The monk called Godfrey comes running breathless into the Refectory, tripping over the ragged hem of his habit, ‘The stinging hornets, the stinging hornets!’ he shouts, saliva spraying with his words. ‘They’ve brought their wave-stallions over the ocean’s back.’ He is pointing to the door behind him, his eyes wide.
The Abbot reaches out a hand and opens his mouth to calm the man, but before he can speak the bells begin to peal and the Abbot turns to us in consternation. ‘It seems Godfrey is right for once. We are indeed being raided by the esnèque – the dragon-head ships.’
‘We must get Lady Aina to safety, Abbot,’ says Father Dominic stumbling in, but the Abbot looks indecisive.
‘I will go to see,’ I tell my mistress and run outside to see what is happening. As I pass under the gateway I am in time to see a long, slender boat coming on fast. Its oars beat up and down like the wings of an eagle. Snekkja – a small warship. I count fifteen pairs of oars – thirty or more men. The ship’s elegantly carved stem has a fearsome dragon’s head with a flowing golden mane, a googling blue eye and a long curling red tongue. The vertical black, yellow and red stripes of the ship’s sail look astonishingly alien against the gentle blue-grey lapping of the sea, and the familiar tolling of the monastery bell behind me. Yet I recognize this too. A sense of home stirs within me. As a small child I must have seen such ships coming home in just such a way, bearing my father and his companions. So entranced am I by the sight that I momentarily forget that now I stand here in the attire of a Frankish woman and I am prey. Gravel and sand crunch as the boat beaches smoothly against the shore. A small boat is set adrift with flames and curls of black smoke rising from it. The fire-ship floats with a grim inevitability towards the haystacks piled on the monastery’s wooden pier. An anchor-stone splashes into the water and men in shaggy skins begin to leap over the si
des of the ship, wading the short distance ashore, brandishing axes, spears and swords. I turn and run.
My mistress is standing just in front of the gates and behind her, monks are struggling to close them before the attackers reach it. ‘Run, Aina! Get into the monastery! The gates!’ There is a confused expression on her face. She sees that I am shouting something to her but cannot hear me over the battle din the warriors are raising. They are howling like wolves and crashing their weapons on their round shields. I break into a sweat at the sound and reach Aina but see from her open mouth and shocked eyes that I am too late. I am hard gripped about my waist and two men, their arms and necks festooned with swirling tattoos, grasp Aina’s arms. ‘No!’ I scream once to the sky with all the force of my lungs. We fight and struggle as the men clasp fetters around our wrists and then metal collars around our necks that trail heavy chains. The chains link us together and we are swiftly and roughly yanked by the neck, through the advancing men, towards the ship. The leader of the men is exhorting them as we pass, pointing his sword in the direction of the monastery: ‘Drengr, flee neither flame nor steel!’ His words seem unnecessary since the monks behind us are offering only screams and prayers as their resistance.
Enslaved again! I want to cry, scream, vomit but in my shock I can do nothing but shake. The collar and fetters bite greedily into my flesh and the chain drags painfully at my neck. Two men stand guarding the ship and two more are evidently the human booty managers as our chains are passed to them. ‘Kneel down,’ one says to us in Norse.
‘Kneel,’ I say dragging my mistress down. The man nods his satisfaction, grinning and showing filed grey teeth.
‘Sigrid,’ Aina begins in a small voice but the man yanks forcefully on her chain, making her whimper, and with a fierce expression shows her the whip at his waist. I shake my head at her to be silent. We look back to the monastery where the monks have not succeeded in closing the gates in time. Shouts come from within the walls and fire spews from the roofs and windows.
Monks collared and chained like us are are being assembled outside the gates, and forced to their knees. I can see no sign of Father Dominic or any of the men who came with us from Ségur. It seems likely they have put up some resistance and not survived. I grimace for them and the wives of the men. I never liked Father Dominic and he never liked me naming me ‘damned heathen’ under his breath when Ademar could not hear, but he did not deserve to die on the end of a spear. The Norsemen move between the monastery and the ship with tapestries laden with silver chalices and plates, golden candlesticks, jewelled book covers, joints of meat from the kitchens that had been intended for tomorrow’s feast. They have timed their attack well. We turn our heads to more screams but this time they are animal shrieks rather than human, as the men set about slaughtering the monks’ livestock to restock their ship. Two men pass through the gates rolling one of the monks’ wine barrels down to the beach and I can see from the cut of some of them, that others have already sampled Saint Michel’s cellar. I notice a man carrying the jug full of silver pennies the Abbot had shown to us only a short while before and I wonder what persuasion the raiders used to make him reveal the hiding place beneath his chair.
One man, worse for drink, approaches us and begins to run his hands on my body so that I have to twist away from him. The man with the whip cracks it, shouting ‘Pilot!’ A tall man with a red beard and pale red hair lightened by the sun, turns to look at us, barks commands in Norse and the lecherous man draws back from me immediately. What had been deteriorating into chaos suddenly becomes a well-ordered loading of the ship with the plunder, wine barrel and slaughtered meat. Even the drunken man who approached me pulls himself together under the eye of the sandy-haired pilot and fulfils his part of the work. A second large barrel of wine is rolled down to the water’s edge but the pilot shouts no, the ship will be overloaded, and it is abandoned there with the surf breaking around it. There must be a firebox on the ship because there are wafts of smoke and I smell meat cooking.
The shackled monks are pushed and pulled to join us at the water’s edge and my heart turns over to see the trails of blood on their hands and habits, and the tears on their faces. I imagine the pretty church we had so recently sung in, spattered with the blood of priests and despoiled of its gleaming ornaments. Two of the monks seem to have lost control of their bladders for a Norseman throws buckets of water over them, waving his hand under his nose to indicate what he thinks about sharing a boat with such odorous cargo. The pilot comes and looks us over. ‘The women wear rich clothing,’ he says, and I am glad that I had put on one of Aina’s cast-offs for our trip here. I have not heard or spoken Norse for so long. I feel as if old chambers in my mind are slowly creaking open where I had put the memory of my language. ‘We will ransom them. Put them in the hold with the silver and goods. Where is the Abbot?’
‘Dead,’ responds one of the men flatly.
‘The rest we’ll sell on at Noirmoutier then,’ he says. ‘Set them to row.’ I look with pity on the monks as they are stripped of their habits and loaded on before us in their underclouts and in some cases naked. They are mostly young and hale, the novices and younger monks, so the Norsemen must have already sorted their human booty inside the monastery. There were around thirty monks in all in the monastery and there are twelve monks chained here. I hope they have spared, rather than killed all the old and less able-bodied monks but look back with doubt to the smouldering buildings. I think of the three small boys, the oblates, one of them blind, who I saw at the meal and the old men in the hospice who Aina and I chatted with. Surely they have spared them? None of the monastery’s serving women are here. I hope they have hidden themselves in the cellars or escaped to the woods.
We are loaded last and as we are prodded up onto the ship, balancing on the narrow oar held steady for us, one of the Norsemen waiting onboard groans, ‘Not all these red-heads and priests, surely! We will be Naglfar – the Ship of the Dead.’
‘Shut it, Toki,’ snaps the pilot crossly. ‘Haven’t I navigated your ungrateful hide safely all these years?’
I murmur quietly to Aina, explaining that redheads and priests are supposed to be unlucky onboard ship. She murmurs to me that she asked Saint Michel to intercede and save her from a boring marriage and perhaps this is all her fault. Her eyelashes are wet and her face is ashen. I shake my head. ‘It’s not your fault,’ I whisper. We are pushed down to sit in the central, sunken hold with the bundled tapestries, chests of coins and a live goat. There are barrels down here too which from the smell of them hold quantities of dried fish. Our feet dangle wet in the small pool of water gathered in the bottom of the boat. ‘Is it leaking?’ Aina whispers. I shake my head. I know that the men will bail the water when it becomes necessary. The poor young monks are chained to the cross-beams, and I feel the boat loosen from the bank and get underway.
Part Two
HOSTAGES ON THE SWAN ROAD
988–996
‘One day I wrote her name upon the strand, but came the waves and washed it away.’
France and Bretland
South West Bretland
13
Atlantic Ocean
June 988
The ropes fizz in the wind. An hour of evening sea breeze and contemplating our situation sucks fifteen years of Ségur summers from my bones. The sides of the longboat are shallow and we cringe and gasp as gouts of frigid water slop over us, with each dip and rise of the boat on the waves. It gets so that I know which dip will result in a dousing. I taste the salt on my lips and the sea washes the fear and sweat from me. Aina and I do not dare exchange words but occasionally we glance at each other, and once I manage to stretch out my fingertips awkwardly with my manacled hands and touch her knee reassuringly.
Aina has only ever been on a river boat before and she is caught somewhere between terror and fascination, looking about herself wildly at the sea, the cruel crew and the ship. For me, I struggle to keep the rational part of my mind swimming in the tid
al wave of emotions and memories that assail me. This is different I tell myself emphatically. Different from the time before, when I lost my father. I am not a child now and we are worth a ransom. Our captors have already acknowledged that. It will not do to panic, I tell myself, even as I allow myself to do so in fits and starts, to see how bad it is. But it is very bad. Panic will not help us. Panic is useless I recite in my panicking head.
I note everything around me as a means to calm myself. The crew are well practised, working together and with the ship with great familiarity, and they are well practised too in dealing with their human cargo. They have done this many times before. They talk excitedly of their success in the raid and who will have what part of the booty and I notice they are on good terms with one another. Several of them have scarred faces or are missing fingers. They are clearly a battled-hardened band. The pilot is silent, apart from the occasional order, concentrating on keeping the ship on course, but I notice how his facial expressions register that he is listening to and occasionally amused by the banter of the crew. Despite my anxiety, I am intrigued to be encountering for the first time in so long, these examples of my countrymen.
Each oar has one monk and one Norseman and if the monks are not pulling well the man with the whip moves to flog them mercilessly. One monk has been whipped more often than the others, weeping that he has great pain in his hands. After a while the man with the whip calls out, ‘No, chuck him over. It’s useless.’ The monk is uncoupled from the cross-beam and his face shows immense relief that quickly turns to terror as he is prodded to the ship’s edge and kicked hard so that he falls overboard. His sudden scream is very short. Aina jumps next to me and stares into my face. Fear grips at my stomach. Shock ripples palpably through the captives. Chained as he was the man could not possibly survive and he must drown there on that bottom and his bones in their chains will be swilled back and forth by the sea. Poor man I think. Poor man, but perhaps he has the best of it. The atmosphere shifts in the boat, as now the other monks see they could so easily follow that man to death themselves.
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