‘Why do you think it is only the poor people who suffer and not any of the nobles?’ I ask, looking meaningfully to my husband.
‘Because they are steeped in sin,’ he says in an exasperated tone as if I am a school child who has not learnt her lessons well. ‘Fornication, lust, venery, pride.’
Guy shakes his head. ‘I think there is another explanation for this sickness and we must find it.’
‘The explanation is plain, staring you in the face. A large group of pilgrims are setting off from the square on pilgrimage to Compostela at noon today. Will you come to see them off and witness my blessing?’
‘Yes, if you think this will help.’
‘Look to the bread, Guy,’ I say. ‘I saw this sickness once before in Ségur. Not so many people were ill then and we managed to control it quickly, but we found that the flour had rotted or been mixed with some toxic material and this was the cause.’
‘Yes,’ says Guy slowly, ‘but how can we trace it?’
‘We need to talk with those who suffer, or their families and find out what they have in common. Are they served by the same miller or granary.’
Guy looks brightly at me. ‘You are right.’ He calls his steward to him and instructs him to carry out this enquiry, whilst Hilduin tuts at the idea that the problem can be seen in a granary, as opposed to being a spiritual failing of the people.
The following day the steward comes to report that the most likely source of the sickness is the granary at the Abbey of Saint Martial. All the families who are suffering the sickness are getting their grain from there. Guy calls his brother, Geoffrey, Abbot of Saint Martial to him. ‘You must close down your granary, brother Abbot. Issue no more flour or bread from it.’
‘This is ridiculous, Guy. As Hilduin has told you the reason for the sickness is the people’s sin, not the bread. None of the monks and priests of the abbey are suffering, because of our holiness.’
When he has left, I shake my head. ‘No, Guy. There is more to uncover here.’
‘I don’t know what to do next,’ he admits. The sickness continues to spread and more people fall ill, more cluster in the city square preparing to depart on pilgrimages. Some of the pilgrims fall ill before they have cleared the city gates and lie on the ground, frothing at the mouth and shouting obscenities as their fellows step over them, crossing themselves. I went amongst the afflicted advising them to fast and avoid bread and flour, but it is all many of them have to fill their empty bellies.
‘We have to go and look at the granary,’ I tell Guy. ‘It has been the common connection between all those who are ill. There is something there despite what Geoffrey and Hilduin say. It is too easy to explain everything as an act of God, when so many things are really acts of men.’
He calls for our horses. ‘We will go and question there discreetly then. If there is any hope that we can do something we must before the city is depleted of people who are able to function.’
‘We will bring Fulayh, with us,’ I say and Guy nods. Fulayh is a Moor and a doctor who has been valued in my household for some years now, after my son’s illness where he coughed blood and I was scared witless that he would die until Fulayh took charge of his care and saved him.
At the Abbey gates the Gatekeeper looks unhappy to open up for the Viscount and Viscountess and stares at Fulayh’s black face, crossing himself. ‘The Abbot is away dining with the Bishop, my lord, perhaps you would like to return later,’ he stammers.
‘No,’ says Guy. ‘I do not need to speak with Abbot Geoffrey but with the monk who has charge of the granary. Where will I find him?’
When Guy and Fulayh question the victualler it becomes clear that the abbey has two separate supplies of flour – one for the monks and their noble visitors, and another inferior supply which is the part of the granary the Abbey has opened to the poor. The doctor examines samples of flour from the two supplies. ‘There is ergot mixed in the poorer supply,’ he tells us. ‘This is the cause of the people’s sickness and hallucinations. It is not mixed in with the grain that goes to make the monks’ bread.’
Guy heaves a sigh of relief that we have found the answer. ‘Close this granary supply down right away,’ he orders, ‘and destroy this grain.’
‘Destroy it!’ blusters the monk. ‘But my lord the people will starve then instead.’
‘No, give to them from your good supply.’
The monk’s eyes bulge at the thought of how the Abbot will react and we hear his loud plaints behind us for some time after we have turned our horses and started back towards the Motte.
The following day our visitors begin to assemble for the Peace Council. First come the clerics: Archbishop Gunbaldus of Bordeaux and the bishops, Abbo of Saintes, Frotarius of Périgueux, Grimoard of Angoulême, Dagbert of Bourges, Stephen of Le Puy, Gilbert of Poitiers, Bego of Clermont. Hilduin is in his element, bustling around with great self-importance. And then come our noble visitors including Duchess Emma and her son, young Guillaume of Aquitaine. It is the first time I have seen them since I was a girl at Brioude. I am shocked at how aged the Duchess looks: her knuckles gnarled, her face furrowed as if a fork had been dragged down her skin. The young heir to the throne of Aquitaine is fat. He has a small coin-shaped bald patch at the back of his brown head, although he is only twenty-four. I keep my veil down and avoid their company as much as possible in case anyone should recognise me. I am so busy organising the household for these many guests that it is not so difficult to stay out of the way most of the time, although I have to sit next to Guy at the meals. Guillaume keeps close company with the young Count of Angoulême. They seem to love each other like one soul and all their speech is mutual flattery. I overhear them speaking of the Count of La Marche. ‘The man is a hair on my tongue,’ Guillaume says.
‘The portents of the End Time are dire indeed,’ Hilduin whispers loudly in the ear of the Archbishop and recounts the catalogue of crises we have weathered here: the stolen child in the cathedral, the people trampled to death, the wolf, the fire sickness. The Archbishop is nodding and frowning. ‘I have a suggestion,’ Hilduin says. ‘I suggest that we elevate the body of our saint, Saint Martial, from the Abbey Crypt and take him in procession to the hill of Montjovy and beg for the saint’s intercession and assistance with our important work in this Peace Council.’
The Archbishop nods his head again. ‘Excellent idea, Bishop Hilduin. Yes, please organise this.’
The following morning a great crowd of people swarm towards the foot of the hill of Montjovy where I stand on the summit with Guy, my children and Hilduin. The people begin to climb up, excited men, women and children in motley colours, monks in brown and black. Small bells ching and incense wafts. The people are singing sotto voce. Above their heads the startled wooden faces of the saints move jerkily as they are carried on litters on the shoulders of the people, Saint Martial keeping close company with The Virgin at the head of the procession. The statues are wreathed with flowers. Behind the procession of saints come a group of monks swathed in purple silk, their heads covered, carrying small whips with which they rhythmically flog themselves across alternate shoulders. When the throng reaches the summit they stand back leaving a clear space for the saints to be carefully set down before us. Hilduin mutters benedictions and makes the sign of the cross, repeatedly. Two oblates stand on either side of him swinging incense burners. On Saint Martial’s litter, along with his statue and reliquary, is his actual shrouded body that has been raised up from the crypt. I look with distaste at the wrapped body-shape, the once fine white linen spotted with soil and dark stains. This body of the saint, Hilduin told us, would help the people in their dark hour as the End of Time approaches us. It seems evil magic to me but I keep my face respectful.
‘Rejoice!’ shouts Hilduin suddenly, making me jump beside him. ‘The End Time is coming upon you fast when you will be judged every last one of you. The portents gather to give you final warning to set the accounts of your souls in order. If you repent you
r sins now, give your wealth and your sons and daughters to the church, then you may purchase your place in heaven, but if you continue as you are, steeped in sin, you will meet Satan in the fiery bowels of hell.’
Looking around myself I see more anxiety at his words than rejoicing. Only the grimmest beggars and those who are mortally ill look pleased. The people groan and weep.
25
Fortress of the Fishes
June 996
Jarl Thorgils’ warriors revived their skills as farmers and his settlement, clustered along the coast and islands around Dinbych-y-psygod, was flourishing. Thorgils’ fame as a shipbuilder and pilot had become so great that young men came to learn with him from the Isle of Mann, from Dublin, Orkney and even from Norway. The peace was kept between Norse settlers and Bretar, and urged on by his wife, Thorgils acquired his own skald and large household.
Today the market in the hill fort where Thorgils and Aina took tithes was crowded with people, impatiently jostling the elbows of others in their hurry or sauntering agog at the crowds. They had left Ulf at home on the island with Morag because there were rumours of a coughing contagion spreading in the settlement attacking the lungs and killing especially children and the old.
Each street in the small town houses a particular type of trader – one street of saddlers, another all bakers, and a third vintners. When they visited Dinbych-y-psygod Aina went to church and she kept the chapel on the island in good repair and prayed there, but she allowed no priests onto the island. The priest in the hill-fort told her: ‘Lady, as a good Christian woman you should bring your husband and your household to Christ.’
‘Thank you for your advice, Father,’ Aina said politely, but she had no intention of making Thorgils and his men give up their own beliefs. Each to their own was her view.
Thorgils and his men helped King Maredudd win victory in battle against the king’s nephew, despite Edwin having aid from the English king Athelred. Edwin had been forced back to the borderlands where Athelred gifted him lands in Herefordshire, intending a buffer between the English kingdom and the might of Maredudd. Yet there was never much peace, or ever like to be, for Maredudd. His other kin, the sons of Meurig, were now readying to threaten his kingdom.
A merchant knorr from Norway, trading in hides and whale oil, was moored up at Dinbych-y-psygod for the market and Thorgils invited the owner to dine with him that he might hear news of his homeland. Aina watched impatiently as the fat merchant chewed slowly through a large pile of food and refilled his goblet three times before speaking. Then Aina and Thorgils both sat back from the table in amazement, exchanging surprised looks with each other at the merchant’s first piece of news: Olafr had become King of Norway. Thorgils beamed, listening to the tale of how Olafr sailed the previous year with just five ships against Jarl Hakon who was hated by his subjects for his lascivious treatment of other men’s wives. Olafr sailed from the Orkneys and landed at Moster, moving north fast against Hakon. When Olafr was proclaimed King at The Thing in Nidaros, he repeated the actions of his legendary great-grandfather Harald Finehair, allowing his hair and beard to grow ungroomed during the months of campaigning, and then having it ceremoniously cut, washed and combed at the crowning.
Aina exclaimed, ‘He looked a beautiful king I don’t doubt.’
The merchant had more good news: Olafr was reunited with his mother, Astrid, who had been bought at the slave market in Tallinn, freed and married to a Norwegian named Lodin. Olafr and King Svein gained mountains of silver from their joint attack on London the year before, and Olafr had been able to make good use of this wealth in his first year as King.
‘I should be with Olafr,’ Thorgils said to Aina and saw her face cloud over, ‘but … I should be here too, and so here I will stay.’ The sun broke out on her face again. Her moods were as swift-changing as the weather and just as Thorgils was an expert weather-watcher so he was an expert in what he thought of as Aina weather.
Thorgils shook his head over the merchant’s final piece of information: Olafr had become a Christian, ‘Baptised by Elfheah, Bishop of Winchester and aiming to make Christians of all Norway, and even sending missionaries to Iceland and Greenland.’
‘Olafr Crowbone! I don’t believe it at all!’ said Thorgils.
‘Why do you call him that?’ Aina asked.
‘Olafr is nicknamed Crowbone for his skill with the lots, with divining, seeing omens in the birds and bones. He is half godi and Odinn’s man. I cannot imagine him Christian. There is a large pile of silver and politicking behind this somewhere, for sure.’
After Aina retired to bed the merchant told Thorgils how Olafr’s Christian mission was being enacted: ‘maimings, exiles, bribing orators, threatening to sacrifice chieftains, smashing a statue of Odinn, burning pagan magicians in a feast hall.’
‘He always had a brutal temper,’ said Thorgils, remembering how, when still a boy, Olafr had buried his axe in the head of Klerkon, who sold them into slavery.
‘Despite his Christianity he keeps to the old ways when it comes to wives,’ the merchant said. Olafr had Gyda in Ireland but that was far away when he was in Norway so he took as a second wife, Gudrun, the daughter of a chieftain he had murdered. ‘She tried to kill him as he slept on their wedding night, so that didn’t work out. Then he courted the haughty Queen of Sweden, but offended her by giving her a brass bracelet instead of a gold one. Now he is married to King Svein of Denmark’s sister, Thyra, who ran away from her old husband the King of Wendland.’
‘No doubt, she finds Olafr better in her bed,’ Thorgils said, laughing.
The day after their return to Kelda Ey, Aina sat at the trestle in the monks’ old refectory slicing easily through the hunk of raw chicken in front of her with a sharp knife and thinking of Sigrid. What was she doing now? Soon after Sigrid had been handed over at Fécamp, posing as Aina, she had written to say that all had gone well and Thorgils heaved a huge sigh of relief as Aina read Sigrid’s letter to him. Aina’s mother, after some reluctance and anxiety, had agreed to help with the deception and was supporting Sigrid in her new role. Guy accepted Sigrid as Aina and they were married – quite happily married, wrote Sigrid, and Aina grinned to herself thinking of that. Good. Thank goodness. She hated to think of Sigrid making herself unhappy in order that she and Thorgils alone could be happy. The chicken was sliced and Aina turned to the carrots and onions. There were plenty of slaves to do the work of cooking and cleaning around the household but Aina enjoyed preparing food. It gave her privacy and time for thinking to herself. It reminded her of times in Ségur with Sigrid and was the closest she could get to recreating those times.
Ragnhild approached rattling a large bowl and showed her the small white and grey frilled shells inside. ‘Do you want to do these cockles or shall I give them to Morag. It’s a smelly job,’ she smiled.
‘No, here,’ said Aina reaching out her hands to the bowl. The cockles had been soaked in a bucket of seawater overnight and Ragnhild had already drained and washed them. Aina picked through the shells discarding the ones that had opened and were dead. The sound of them knocking against each other reminded her of dice or of Olafr showing her how to shake and cast small bones to see the future.
Aina splashed apple cider into a hot pan on the embers and put the shells in, placing a lid on the top. They were steamed open in a few minutes. Then she sorted through the shells again, this time discarding those that had not opened. When they had cooled sufficiently she picked the cockle meat out of each shell and placed them in a bowl with a little vinegar made from soured beer and the pepper she bought in Tenby market.
She set the bowl on the table as she heard Thorgils approaching, whistling. He stooped to come through the doorway and she admired the muscled skin of his arms and chest, brown and shiny from dousing at the well. She smiled at him, wiping her salty, wet hands on her apron. He was cleaning his teeth with a hazel shoot and had his antler comb in his hand. He dumped a pile of his clothes down on the bench and sat down nex
t to Aina, bare-chested and bare-foot, wearing only his breeches. She took the comb and began the long process of combing through his hair and beard. She kissed the back of his neck and the rise of his collarbone, laughing at his complaints that she should comb and not kiss, and at his exaggerated yelps when the comb snagged and tugged, and then she enjoyed the way the comb slid through the silky dusky orange of his hair as the combing progressed. ‘Done,’ she said and Ulf clambered up between them, giggling as Thorgils tickled him in the ribs, and she began her ministrations on her son’s small head. Despite Thorgils’ hair colour and the dark red wine pigment of her own hair, Ulf’s was thick and blond.
She snatched a quick kiss on the top of Ulf’s head as he began to grow impatient and fidget, and was soon down from the bench and off to play with the dogs and other children. From the doorway she watched him giggling hysterically as he and two other boys rolled down the small slope with their bodies held straight, their arms pinioned at their sides. When he reached the bottom he leapt to his feet, waved to her and ran up fast to roll down again. Aina suddenly ran out, laid herself down at the top of the slope and to the astonished amusement of the boys, Thorgils and the watching women, rolypolyed herself down to the dip, and then stood, strands of her wine-red hair tangled across her pink face, dust and grass stains on her clean white apron. Thorgils shook his head at her laughing, shrugged on his marten skin jerkin, wiggled his feet into old boots that waited for him on the threshold, and strode off towards the ships on the beach. Aina, dusted herself down, washed her hands in a bowl of water and returned, smiling, to preparing the food.
‘Mad!’ said Ragnhild in admiration.
After eating the midday meal, Thorgils was back at the beach working again, and Aina sat with Ulf drawing pictures of boats and dragons. Aina heard the sound of boots running and looked up to see Thorgils bursting in. ‘Aina, hide yourself quickly! A sail’s sighted and I know that ship. It’s The Crane. It’s Olafr.’
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