by Speer, Flora
“Please,” Father Egbert moaned, “please, Edwina, I beg you, run.”
Edwina did not seem to hear him.
“I must go to Wilfred,” she insisted wildly.
“It’s too late. You can’t help Wilfred now,” Lenora cried, still tugging at Edwina’s arm, “but we can save ourselves.”
“I will try to delay that man,” Father Egbert told Lenora. “Get her away from here. God bless and protect you both.”
He dropped Edwina’s arm and moved to place himself between the Viking and the women. Lenora continued to pull at Edwina’s arm, Edwina pulling in the opposite direction with the same effort. The two girls stood balanced in their tug-of-war as Father Egbert met the Viking.
Lenora felt a flash of admiration for the fat little man, and remorse for her earlier dislike of him as he bravely faced the Norse giant.
Father Egbert spread his arms wide. His black robe billowed in the summer breeze as he looked up at the Viking, who regarded him with a cruel smile.
“I implore you,” Father Egbert began.
He got no further. With a harsh laugh, the Viking lifted a fist and punched Father Egbert squarely on the jaw. The Norseman caught the priest as he crumpled, and laid him gently on the ground, carefully straightening the black robe about his ankles. Then he turned to face the two girls.
Lenora, caught in horror, could not move. She was dimly aware, as she clutched Edwina’s arm, that her friend had gone limp. The Viking said something Lenora did not understand, and reached for the fainting Edwina.
A red mist was forming before Lenora’s eyes. Released at last from the paralysis that had held her immobilized, she flew at the man, fingernails raking his face, screaming her fury and her fear. The Viking laughed again, and then the world went black.
Snorri stood in the space between the stockade and the river, feet planted firmly apart, hands on hips, enjoying a feeling of power. His two friends, Bjarni and Hrolf, stood at his right and left shoulders. Sentries had been posted to guard against any surprise attempt at rescue of his Saxon victims, although that was not very likely. The raid, like the others on this voyage, had been stealthy and lightning quick and very successful.
As the flames roared and crackled in the wooden buildings behind them, consuming Wilfred’s tun until it was only ashes, Snorri’s men carried out the treasures they had found there. They had spread cloths and tapestries upon the ground and were busily piling onto them all the loot they had taken from the great hall and its surrounding buildings. There were silver plates, Snorri noted, and a large silver drinking cup in a style made by the Franks, and a silver crucifix and chalice from the church, as well as the priest’s embroidered vestments. A small casket filled with silver coins brought an appreciative grunt from Snorri.
His attention strayed to the women. They were a sorry lot, huddled together on the ground just outside the stockade. No need to guard them. They were too frightened to do anything more than weep or faint. He knew what they feared, but Snorri, unlike most Norse leaders, held his men under firm discipline, and allowed nothing to be done to captives that might lower the price he could get for them in the slave markets. What his men did with their personal slaves once the plunder was divided was no concern of his, but until they reached the shelter of Thorkellshavn the women would remain untouched.
So far, they had not taken any prisoners, preferring to load the Sea Dragon with the goods acquired during their raids. It was easier that way. Gold and silver did not need food and water, did not attempt to escape, did not make noises at inconvenient times. But Snorri had promised his father Saxon slave girls, and this was the last stop of the voyage. He had better choose two or three to set aside for Thorkell, and then his men could divide the rest among themselves when they got home.
Snorri moved forward, Hrolf and Bjarni close beside him as always. He stopped when he reached a pair of women a little apart from the rest. One, chestnut curls in disarray, blue gown torn and dirty, lay unconscious on the ground.
“What happened to her?” Snorri asked.
“That’s a wild woman. She tried to scratch my eyes out,” Hrolf informed him. “I would have killed her, but I remembered you wanted a few wenches for Thorkell, and I thought he might have an evening’s entertainment taming her.”
“My father is a bit too old for that sort of thing.” Snorri laughed. “But she appears to be a noblewoman and that should please him. Will she live, do you think?”
“The hilt of my sword barely grazed the back of her head,” Hrolf assured him. “And I did not harm the priest, either. The last time I killed one of those holy men, their White Christ sent a terrible storm on the voyage home to punish us, and we nearly sank. The ship is so heavily laden with treasure I did not want to chance that happening again. I left him there, on the mound. He will wake up soon.”
Snorri nodded, not really listening, his blue eyes fixed on the pale girl sitting beside the one he had been considering. His huge, heavy-knuckled hand caught Edwina’s chin and lifted her face. She stared back at him with a blank expression. Snorri was accustomed to seeing that look of hopelessness in his victim’s eyes. It never disturbed him.
“So,” he mused, “another noblewoman, and this one is the quiet type. She is too thin for my taste, but Thorkell likes blondes. She’ll be just the thing for him, if she doesn’t die on the voyage back to Denmark. She can sooth his wounds after the other one has exhausted him.” His companions guffawed at Snorri’s wit.
“You missed this,” Snorri called to the men still piling up the plunder. He grabbed at the heavy gold bracelet on Edwina’s wrist.
“You can’t have it!” Edwina jerked her arm away. Snorri, paying no attention to her words, pulled the bracelet roughly off her arm, leaving a red mark along the side of her thumb where the metal had scratched.
“Wilfred, Wilfred,” Edwina moaned, rocking back and forth, her arms crossed over her chest, tears trickling down her pale cheeks. “Oh, Wilfred, my dearest, my love.”
“Women.” Snorri shook his head in disgust and tossed the bracelet onto the last heap of loot, watching as two of his men wrapped and tied the cloth it lay on, and then struggled to lift it so they could carry it onto the ship. “Hurry up with that. We have stayed here too long. Our luck has been too good; I don’t want to spoil it. Hrolf, Bjarni, get the women on board. We sail at once.”
Chapter 3
Lenora could not remember where she was. When she opened her eyes the sky directly above her was a blue so bright it hurt her to look at it. She closed her eyes again and lay still, feeling the odd motion beneath her. It was a gentle rocking sensation, so soothing she nearly drifted off again into the velvety blackness that had held her since – since what? As memory returned, she gave a strangled cry and sat up. Dull pain throbbed at the base of her skull. She put a hand to the spot and felt a lump under her thick hair.
“Edwina?” She touched her friend’s arm. Edwina sat beside Lenora, staring fixedly ahead, apparently seeing nothing.
“Edwina!” Still Lenora got no response.
“She has been like that since before we came aboard,” said a voice.
Lenora turned to face the speaker, wincing at the pain in her head. She recognized the woman as the wife of one of her brother’s farmers.
“Maud, what happened? Where are we?”
“On the longship. Don’t you remember? The Norsemen came. They burned everything and killed – killed -” Maud gave way to loud sobs.
Lenora caught at the woman’s shoulders and shook her. She was certain the gesture hurt her more than it hurt Maud, for her head was still throbbing, and a wave of queasiness threatened to overcome her.
“Maud, tell me everything.” Lenora had to know, however much it hurt to hear the truth, no matter if Maud’s words confirmed the fear now searing her heart. “Why can’t Edwina see me? What did they do to her?”
After a while Maud regained some self-control and began to speak.
“There was a battle. Our
men fought bravely but they were all killed. Only a few women were left alive.”
“Where is my sister Matilda?” Lenora, looking around her, now saw a group of miserable women sitting dejectedly together on an oak plank floor. No, not a floor. It was a deck. They were on a ship, and there were Vikings all about them, engaged in sailing it. “Matilda?”
“She is gone, Lenora,” Maud said quietly.
“Gone?”
“I have been trying to tell you. These murderers killed everyone but the ten of us who are here on this ship. All of them. All gone.” She began to cry again.
“No!” Lenora leapt to her feet, forgetting the pain in her head. ”No! It’s not true, I won’t let it be true. It can’t be. Matilda! Wilfred!”
A heavy hand clapped her on the shoulder. Lenora spun around, nearly falling from a combination of dizziness and the motion of the ship. She looked up into the sunburned face of the Viking leader.
“Snorri,” he said, grinning at her. “Lenora. Edwina.” He gestured toward the silent girl still sitting on the deck of his ship.
He was tall, a heavily muscled, bulky man, with a thick blond beard and matted shoulder-length blond hair. He wore the same kind of rough wool jerkin and narrow breeches as his men did, with a heavy leather belt with a battleaxe thrust through it and a large broadsword hanging on the left side. Snorri did not look much different from the other Vikings on the ship, but there was about him an air of authority that made it clear that among this rough band, he was in charge. Lenora regarded him with loathing.
“What have you done to my family?” she demanded. “What is wrong with Edwina?”
“Edwina.” Snorri laughed, tapping his forehead and making a face.
“What did you do to her, you Norse murderer?” Lenora’s rage was clear in her burning cheeks and flashing gray eyes. Snorri poked a thick finger toward her chest.
“Down,” he said in a loud voice. “Sit.”
“Lenora, for heaven’s sake.” Maud pulled at Lenora’s torn blue skirts. “Do as he says or he’ll kill you. They kill so easily. Just sit down and be quiet.”
Lenora sat. Snorri grinned triumphantly, standing over her.
“Thrall,” he said in his harsh, heavily accented voice, opening his arms as if to embrace the entire group of captive women. “All are Snorri’s thralls.” He walked away, calling out cheerfully to one of his men.
Thrall. Lenora shuddered, She knew what the word meant. Slave. She was now that murdering monster’s slave, to do with as he wished. She put her aching head down on her knees and sat that way for a long, long time.
“Lenora.” Maud touched her elbow lightly and Lenora lifted her head. “They’ve given us cloaks. They must want to keep us warm and healthy for – for whatever they plan for us.” She wrapped a gray woolen garment about Lenora’s shoulders.
“Edwina?”
“Still the same. She hasn’t moved.”
Lenora could see that for herself. She and Maud wrapped Edwina’s silent form in a dark green cloak. When Lenora pulled the girl into her arms, Edwina gave no sign that she recognized her friend.
“Why is she like this?” Lenora asked.
“I think it is because she knows what happened. You were unconscious, but Edwina saw it all. It was horrible, Lenora.” Maud choked back tears. “She hasn’t spoken since Snorri took her bracelet. Look.” Maud pointed to the long scratch on Edwina’s hand.
“That filthy Norse beast. I have never hated anyone so much,” Lenora told her, indicating Snorri by the barest movement of her head. He stood toward the bow of the ship, a hulking mass of finely tuned muscle. His back was turned to them as he discussed something with his two companions. “If I had a dagger, I would kill him now,” Lenora added. “And his friends.”
“His men would kill you first.”
“Not if I were quick. I could do it.”
“Don’t think of such a thing, Lenora. You are no longer free. If you want to live, you must do as you are told. You must submit to your new master. That is what I am going to do.”
“Never!” All of Lenora’s fierce pride was in that one word. “I want revenge for what they have done to us.”
Maud was possessed of a good deal more common sense than pride. “It is impossible for a slave to get revenge. The first time you raise your hand to try, you will be killed.” When Lenora made an impatient movement, Maud leaned forward, her voice tense. “Hear me, Lenora. Don’t turn your head away and close your ears to reason. It is foolishness to die unnecessarily. It is always preferable to live, because while you yet live, there is hope. You might regain your freedom one day, and then you can think of revenge, but for now you cannot fight them. They are too strong, and you can see there are too many of them. Don’t let them destroy you.” Maud paused to take a deep breath before adding her final argument. “And if you continue to live, you will be able to help Edwina. She has always depended on you. What will happen to her if you are dead?”
Lenora did not answer, but her arms tightened protectively about Edwina. She bent her head and felt Edwina’s smooth hair beneath her cheek. She thought of the lovely, happy beginning of that day. Now everyone and everything she cared for had been taken from her, lost forever. All were gone except for herself and poor, senseless Edwina, and the eight other women who sat weeping or moaning behind her.
Throughout the long midsummer twilight that never seemed to turn into real night, the Sea Dragon smoothly sailed on, its great square blue and yellow sail taut with wind, and Lenora sat holding Edwina and staring at Snorri’s tall form, feeding her hatred and thinking of revenge. In her heart she knew Maud was right. But even as she admitted her own helplessness, something in Lenora, some undefeated corner of her being, cried out against the enormity of Snorri’s crimes against her family.
I will be patient for now, she thought, but some day, if I have the chance, even for a moment, to pay you back, Snorri the Viking, then beware of me.
Part Two
Denmark
June A.D. 867, to March, 868
Chapter 4
Thorkell the Viking chieftain had been given his lands and made a king’s jarl 20 years ago, in return for his services to King Horik. He had been charged with protecting the flat, marshy wastes of western Jutland against invasion from the sea, and from the incursions by land of the Franks and Slavs who lived south of Denmark. His prowess as a warrior and his skill as a negotiator during the civil strife that had wracked Denmark after Horik’s murder in the year 854 were legendary. Now, in his fifth decade, Thorkell ruled a strong, peaceful earldom that was almost an independent domain.
Thorkellshavn, his home, was securely situated behind wide tidal marshes and sand dunes. It lay on a gentle rise above the river, the only elevated land for miles around. More than a farm, less than a village, it consisted of a great hall built of wood, with a thatched roof that had a hole in the center to let light in and smoke out. The gable ends of the roof were finished with double carved wood representations of legendary beasts similar to those on the prows of Norse ships that were intended to frighten off demons and to protect the household.
Behind the hall, well protected from the constant westerly winds, was a cluster of outbuildings for storage of foodstuffs and the merchandise obtained on raids, and the small buildings that served Thorkell and his family as private quarters and bedchambers, for Thorkell was wealthy enough to indulge his family in the almost unheard-of luxury of privacy. The other household members – the free servants, the slaves, and Thorkell’s hird – slept on the platforms that ran down both sides of the great hall, or in the women’s quarters off the kitchen.
Spread out beyond the hall and its outbuildings were the homes of the farmers who worked Thorkell’s lands. These men and women were more fortunate than peasants in other parts of Europe, for they were not bound either to Thorkell or the land. They owed him allegiance, but they were free to come and go as they pleased, and many were the young men who went off a-viking after the spring pla
nting was done, to return before harvest with the loot that made their lives more comfortable. Thorkell’s older son, Snorri, was a popular leader; his luck was known to be good.
Nearly everyone who lived in or near Thorkellshavn was in the great hall on this day to enjoy the spectacle presented by the display of plunder from Snorri’s latest voyage, and to eye the new slaves who had just been brought in from the Sea Dragon.
“Where are we, Lenora? What is this place?”
“I don’t know, Edwina.”
They stood in a huge, wood-paneled, tapestry-hung hall. Its high roof was supported by a long double row of carved and brightly painted wooden posts, each as large as a tree trunk. Torches flared, providing light in the shadowy building. The hall smelled of wood smoke and charred fat, of boiled vegetables and damp wool, and of the unwashed bodies of Snorri’s men and their captives.
Lenora shivered. In spite of the fire burning in a stone-lined oblong pit in the center of the hall, it was nearly as cold and damp inside as it had been out of doors. Snorri’s crew had rowed through thick fog and drizzle for most of the day, bringing the longship at last to this mist-wrapped place at the edge of a peaceful river. Everyone who had been aboard the ship was thoroughly wet. The Vikings did not seem to mind.
Raising both hands, Lenora brushed back the sodden curls hanging over her forehead, feeling the water dripping off her hair and running down her back. She straightened her shoulders and stood proudly. She would not let these Norsemen see her discomfort or her fear.
At least Edwina had begun to speak again. That was the only spark of hope in a miserable world.
Upon the beaten earth floor of the hall the Vikings were spreading the plunder obtained in their raids on East Anglia. There was a lot of it tumbling out of cloth bundles and leather sacks.
Lenora recognized a few items from her own home as clothing, weapons, dishes, coins, jewelry, and gold and silver ornaments from dozens of churches and houses were displayed.