‘Olafr …’ It had been so long, that Aina had almost forgotten their deception and their danger.
‘Now woman! The boy will be safe but hide yourself now!’
Aina ran down to the beach and crouched behind the large boulder. Carefully she craned her neck around the edge of the rock and saw the sail of The Crane fast approaching. The sun was glinting on the blond head of the man standing on the foredeck. She looked around her wildly and then crept under the upturned hull of one of the boats. Carefully she pulled her skirts in ensuring that every part of her gown was concealed and worked to slow the sound of her breathing. Thin slivers of light knifed down through the darkness, between the planks of the boat, pinning her to the ground. She could smell the sea in here and hear its muffled rhythm. Before long she heard the crunch of the boat beaching and the voices of men, Thorgils’ shout of greeting and Olafr’s reply. If someone thought to overturn this boat she would be exposed, lying there like a woodlouse under a lifted stone.
When the voices receded Aina crept out cautiously, saw no one and sprinted to the woods, moving under the cover of the trees away from the Priory Longhouse. There were many places to hide and she knew every inch of the island. She would conceal herself with the puffins and the seals in their caves on the furthest point of the island and she would watch the boats on the beach from the high point and see when Olafr left.
‘I need you by my side now, Thorgils, now I am crowned King in Norway,’ Olafr said, seated at the head of the loaded feasting table. Thorgils had instructed the household to behave normally and they had bustled around preparing an extravagant meal, making Olafr and his men welcome and comfortable. Yet there was a suppressed anxiety in the air. Thorgils could sense it. Could Olafr? A maid at the end of the table dropped a precious goblet, smashing it. Olafr looked briefly in her direction and turned back to Thorgils. ‘And Leif here means to ask for your sister’s hand again, if she’s not wed yet. Where is she?’
‘She … is away,’ Thorgils replied, reaching for elaboration of his lie and not finding any. After the meal he gave his bed up to Olafr and as he rolled into his blanket on the hall floor, near the fire, he wondered where Aina was and if she was warm enough. She had run from the hall in only her gown, but he knew she could take care of herself. As he fell asleep he pictured her curled into a ball in a small cave, covered in leaves, her red hair loose and cladding her shoulders and back, like a beautiful magical fox in its lair.
The next morning he went out for a run with the dogs as usual and saw no sign of Aina. Returning to the hall his heart sank as he saw chaos and panic around him, and Olafr pacing in a state of fury that he knew well.
‘Brother!’ Olafr spat at him and Thorgils watched Olafr’s hand go to his sword hilt. ‘You lie and lie to me. You betray me. Your brother and your king.’
Thorgils said nothing and waited.
‘Leif here sought for news of Sigrid and heard the sorry tale of your betrayal from one of the slave-girls.’
Thorgils looked around him. Who had betrayed them? One of the girls Aina had offended in some way perhaps, or just someone jealous of their happiness, or someone hoping for advantage or freedom.
‘Where is she? The hostage. Aina of Ségur. Where is she? I mean to return her as I promised to her husband in Limoges. You dishonour my word.’ Suddenly Olafr sat down hard, exhausted by his own anger. ‘Thorgils,’ he said in a voice of great grief. ‘My dearest companion.’
Tears were swelling in Thorgils’ eyes and he sat down near to Olafr, but not too near. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I love her.’
Olafr looked up and the fury was rekindling in his blue eyes, ‘And you do not love and honour me! They will find her,’ he said, gesturing at the men strapping on shields and cloaks, forming into search parties. Thorgils looked on anxiously at their preparations. ‘They will find her and when they find her I will teach her a lesson and I will send her to Limoges, as I promised with my word.’
Thorgils swallowed, wondering how Olafr meant to teach Aina a lesson. ‘And you, brother, I will have vengeance against you for your deception. You sell our sister back to the Franks for the sake of your lust …’
‘No,’ Thorgils broke in. ‘No, I would not do that. Sigrid made the offer, for my sake, for Aina’s. She was …’ Thorgils stopped. He did not want Olafr seeking out his son and wreaking vengeance on him. ‘I was in great agony to deceive you, my drottinn, but I had already lost my woman once before, you know that, and I could not lose my woman again.’
Olafr looked at Thorgils with contempt, unmoved by his words. ‘Take him,’ Olafr commanded and two men gripped Thorgils’ arms. ‘Bind him. Odinn will have a hanging man on his tree tomorrow morning and perhaps I will hang her there too, your Frankish whore.’
‘Olafr!’ Thorgils shouted at his foster-brother’s turned back, as the men dragged him from the hall.
Aina listened to the sounds of the waves, the puffins groaning, the blow hole’s regular thump followed by the hiss of the spray on the rocks. She kept moving and laying in places of concealment, observing the parties of men searching for her. She saw men crouching in the low branches of trees hanging over the water’s edge, poking the rushes with their swords. From the corner of her eye Aina watched a green and yellow dragonfly hovering above the surface of the water at an angle, blunt-nosed, aimed at its prey, like a school master’s angry pointer at a slate.
The following morning Thorgils was dragged from his confinement in the dank cellar back into the hall fearing that he would see Aina there in chains but there was no sign of her. Ulf sat uncomprehending and unknown on Morag’s knee in a corner of the hall, and she nodded imperceptibly to Thorgils. She would keep the child safe.
‘Where is she?’ Olafr demanded.
‘I do not know, brother.’
‘Name me brother no more. I gave you gold, arms-amber, and this is what you give back to me. Drengspell! Vela! Disloyalty! Deceit! You are Nidingr! Betrayer!’
The words fell like axe-blows against Thorgils’ face.
‘I will strap you to a rock at the sea-edge that you and your betrayal might be covered at high tide!’ Olafr shouted.
Thorgils hung his head and every man, woman and child in the hall stilled their activities and drew in a breath at Olafr’s words. The only sounds Thorgils could hear were the crackling of the fire, the caws of birds outside, a dog scratching harshly at its fleas.
Olafr’s silence persisted until finally he pronounced: ‘I cannot find the woman. I cannot find it in my heart to kill you after our close adventures together.’
Thorgils kept his head down and waited. He knew Olafr was not forgiving and would not rest with frustrated vengeance.
‘I have written to the Duke of Normandy,’ he said and Thorgils looked up at Olafr’s face now. ‘Soon he and the Viscount of Limoges will know of the deception you have enacted upon me and upon them and they will take their vengeance on the person to hand,’ Olafr finished.
‘Sigrid … but Olafr you cannot punish Sigrid for my crime …’ Thorgils rose to his feet, holding out his hands in supplication.
‘She too has betrayed me. It’s done,’ Olafr said, standing, ‘and so are we.’ He gestured to the men and they began to file out of the hall and down towards the ships, many who had been Thorgils’ close friends and battle companions for years, avoiding his eyes.
‘Olafr …’
‘Don’t speak to me Thorgils. My resolve on your death is feeble. Don’t speak.’
Without words of farewell, he swung around and left. Thorgils slapped back down onto the bench. What would happen to Sigrid when the letter arrived in Limoges? How could he bear to break so with his brother who he had been bound to all his life in blood and adventure? Thorgils let out a sob.
Morag put Ulf down from her knee and rushed to comfort Thorgils, holding his shaking shoulders, looking into his anguished face. ‘He let you live. She lives,’ she said over and over, but Thorgils wept loudly and long for Sigrid and for Olafr, t
ears sliding down his face, soaking into his beard.
Olafr’s ships and men were gone and Aina came running down the hill and into Thorgils’ arms and heard the awful news. ‘We will be exposed now, Thorgils, and Sigrid too.’
‘I will write to warn Sigrid. She will have to run away. I grieve that I cannot help her but she is strong and I vow that I will find her again as I did once before.’
‘Yes she is strong.’ Aina bit her lip anxiously thinking of how Sigrid would fare, if her deception was exposed: a pagan slave purporting to be the Viscountess. Many men would burn a wife for such falseness, but Guy, would he? ‘Can’t we go to get Sigrid?’
‘No. We would all be at risk then. Once the deception is revealed they will set a trap expecting a rescue. I will send word to her to make her escape, conceal herself and tell me where she is.’
Aina looked anxiously into Thorgils’ face, holding his hand.
‘Our life here is over, Aina,’ Thorgils said. ‘We will sail to Greenland with our son and escape Olafr’s wrath.’ He thought for a while longer. ‘If there if no free land for us on Greenland we will sail on to Vinland. I will make us a knorr, an ocean-going ship for the journey.’
At night Thorgils and Aina walked hand in hand to the remote cave where she had hidden, leading a donkey laden with a chest. The full moon turned the sky yellow and grey, silvered the water and made the land black.
‘Here,’ Aina said, indicating a spot between the cliff and the gorse bushes. Thorgils hefted the spade and began to dig a hole while Aina sat on the chest, watching him. When the hole was deep they lowered the chest down between them on ropes. Thorgils jumped down into the hole and gestured to Aina to join him. He helped her half-jump, half-stagger down the mud and roots and they stood in the hole. Thorgils lifted the lid of the chest. Moonlight bounced off the jumble of silver objects inside that were embossed and punched with intricate patterns: belt buckles, coins, rings, bracelets, chains, balls, pins, brooches, clasps and various pieces of silver that had been sheared off, or bent, or broken from other objects. Aina dug her fingers deep into the silver up to her wrist and raised her arm clutching a handful of their wealth and letting the pieces drop back from her hand, thudding and spangling down into the chest, like silver rain.
‘We are in a grave, Thorgils,’ Aina said miserably, ‘a silvered grave of our life here. This shiny metal is but ashes now to me.’ She looked up at the high mud walls around them and smelt the musk of the earth.
‘No,’ Thorgils said, gazing down at the silver in the moonlight, ‘this is a dragon’s bed, Aina, and we will come to reclaim it when we are safe.’ He closed the lid on their hoard and secured the hasp, pulling himself up out of the hole and reaching down a hand to hoist Aina, her weight nothing on the corded muscles of his arm. He began to shovel the damp earth over the chest.
‘I don’t want to leave the island, Thorgils.’
‘I thought you wanted adventure.’
‘I’ve had adventure and I lost Sigrid because of it.’
‘Vinland is a wondrous place,’ Thorgils told her, ‘and the voyage will be a great adventure,’ but he saw that Aina weather did not improve with his words.
Part Three
TRUTH
997–1009
‘Only the mind knows what lives near the heart.’
26
Limoges
997
Since the elevation of the body of Saint Martial and the Peace Council pilgrims flock here in ever greater numbers. They start to come at Lent and the streets, churches and market stalls become more crowded and slower to navigate, until by Easter our visitors are a veritable tidal wave upon us and Bishop Hilduin at the Cathedral and Abbot Geoffrey at the Abbey have introduced custodes who manage the crowds at their nocturnal vigils and tell them the stories of our saints. The pilgrim ranks swell again around 20th June for Saint Martial’s Feast and yet again on 12th November when the priests commemorate the elevation of the saint’s body. For a short time between late November till early February the city seems emptied as if these wanderers have all been sucked out by a great wind and we can walk the streets recognising the majority of the people again.
I am in the early stages of carrying our fourth child and crave the warm comfort of our hall. Fulayh and I sit talking together and I ask him about slaves in his homeland, thinking how I could have been bought in Tallinn by one of the Moor traders instead of by Melisende, and how different my life would have been then.
‘Slaves are given new names,’ he tells me, ‘that are different from the names of free men and women. They are named for flowers, gemstones or other objects. The women in the harem are given very special names.’
‘Like what?’ I glance briefly away from Fulayh’s face, to look to the door where a messenger is entering, wet and muddy, and a servant goes to assist in divesting him of his sodden clothes.
‘Daw’ al-Sabāh which means light of the morning, Muntaha al-Muna, that is object of desires, Uns al-Qulub, solace of hearts.’
‘Those names are entrancing,’ I say, ‘but are those women’s lives entrancing?’
He lowers his eyes. ‘I cannot say, Lady.’
‘What would I be called?’
‘You, Lady? In a harem!’ He shakes his head with a smile.
‘Yes, if I were, what would I be called?’ I insist.
‘Perhaps, al-Zarqā, the blue-eyed woman, or Qatr al-Nada, drop of dew.’
‘My Lady,’ the steward interrupts us and I turn reluctantly to him, ‘the messenger brings a letter for you.’ He is holding it out to me.
I take it and recognise Aina’s writing. ‘Thank you,’ I tell the steward, ‘and thank you,’ I say to Fulayh, standing to go and read the letter in the privacy of my chamber.
The Annals of Guy of Limoges
+ 996 In this year Charles of Lorraine, brother to old King Lothaire and uncle to the last Carolingian king Louis, died in a Capetian prison. The sons he left lack the wealth or backing to challenge for the return of the throne. Pope John XV died and Gregory V was elected as the new Pope. Otto III became Emperor in the east. Bourchard of Vendôme allied with King Robert Capet and broke with his son-in-law, Fulk of Anjou. The old Duke of Aquitaine, Guillaume IV, died. My brother-in-law, Count Audebert of La Marche leads a triumphant rebellion against the new young Duke of Aquitaine. Audebert attacked Gençay and defeated Guillaume’s forces outside Poitiers. He joined Fulk of Anjou, who was besieged at Langeais by Eudes of Blois. Eudes fell ill and was carried to a nearby monastery where he died. Fulk and Audebert haven taken Tours, the King’s city and King Robert and Duke Guillaume struggle now trying to take Tours back again. Guy of Limoges and Aina were blessed with the safe birth of a third son, Pierre.
Guy set down his quill and looked with anxiety at the words he had written. Audebert and Fulk had been unbelievably successful in their campaign but where would it end and how might it impact on his sister and on his own family and citizens in Limoges. Fulk, with his holdings further to the north, could only gain from these military incursions but Audebert must in time, come back to his own lands on the edge of Aquitaine and would he be able to negotiate a peace that served him well? Guy heard a noise at the gatehouse below and moved to peer out of the window. He could discern a small party of horses arriving in the courtyard. The flash of a red robe suggested that it was his brother, Bishop Hilduin. He packed away his writing implements and moved to the staircase to find Aina and greet his brother.
In my room I reach my locked casket from under my bed and place it on the blanket. Kneeling beside the bed I turn a key in the small lock and lift the lid on my treasures: my Thor’s hammer, my great silver serpent, and my cache of letters from Aina, with news of her life with my brother on Kelda Ey. I insert my finger into a gap at the top of her new letter and start to open it.
‘Aina!’ Guy pokes his head around the door and is coming towards me. I drop the unopened letter into the box and close the lid. ‘Bishop Hilduin is below and wanting to speak
with us.’ I grimace. ‘I know, I know,’ he groans into my hair, where he is nuzzling the top of my head. ‘A letter from Sigrid?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is she well?’
‘Yes she is very well. We should not keep your brother waiting, Guy.’ As I rise to my feet I turn him affectionately around to face in the direction of the door. ‘I’m just coming.’ I turn the key in the casket and follow him to the door, feeling the coils of the serpent swirling cold around my limbs and neck, entrammelling me in lies.
I try to keep my face neutral as I listen with impatience to Bishop Hilduin, who is blaming the problems of Limoges on sin as usual.
‘It is near a thousand years since Christ was born and died for us,’ says Hilduin. ‘The End Time approaches. The earth is worn out and overcrowded. The world is saturated with people and nature has grown old. The cosmos is senile and the world will soon end. The dead and the quick will be judged. Many are not ready to meet their maker, steeped as they are in sin.’
Hilduin speaks of Hugh Capet’s death last year and how his son Robert has been crowned as King. ‘The new King Robert repudiated his first wife, Rozala and has illegally married his cousin, Berthe, widow of the Count of Blois and mother of the child heir to Blois.’ Hilduin’s voice is laced with disapproval.
‘Yes,’ says Guy. ‘What of it? Rozala was his father’s choice and too old for Robert. Berthe is a beauty and fertile. Besides Robert now has control of the rich county of Blois too. It was an astute marriage.’
‘She is his cousin,’ Hilduin says with heavy disgust. ‘The Pope intends to excommunicate the King and Queen for it. And this is your own sin, also brother, and that of your wife.’
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