by Speer, Flora
“She is with Thorkell,” Freydis replied.
“For four days and nights?”
“I think she pleases him.” Freydis went away and left Lenora to her weaving.
That night, as every night, there was a boisterous banquet in the great hall. Most of Snorri’s crew had returned to their homes, but some of them were still there, reveling in Thorkell’s generous hospitality. Bjarni and Hrolf were present, each with an arm about a serving girl, each with a huge horn of mead.
Also present were Thorkell’s hird, his personal retainers, who were pledged to fight for him unto death, and to guard Thorkellshavn. These men lived with Thorkell, existing on his bounty, sleeping in the great hall, desporting themselves with the serving women. Altogether, there were close to fifty men at each night’s meal, and nearly as many women.
There was hare for tonight’s feast, dozens of them, cooked on spits and dripping juices. There was mutton boiled with leeks, boiled cabbages and turnips, wild mushrooms, wooden bowls of fresh porridge or thick buttermilk, and baskets of fresh berries, gathered from the nearby forest. Ale and mead flowed freely for men and women accustomed to heavy drinking.
Songs and tales performed by Thorkell’s skald, wrestling contests, and an occasional drunken brawl provided the entertainment. Those who preferred quieter pursuits could play at chess or other board games, using pieces made of walrus ivory.
Lenora, having finished her serving chores, sat in her usual place next to Erik. Thorkell and Freydis sat opposite them. There was no sign of Edwina.
“Erik, do you know where my friend is? Please tell me.” Lenora looked at him with anxious gray eyes.
“I have not seen your friend,” he replied. “But do not worry. Thorkell will not hurt her.”
He slid their shared silver cup along the table toward her so she could drink. The ring he wore on the little finger of his left hand glittered in the torchlight. When Lenora touched it, trying to see the design better, Erik snatched his hand away.
“Don’t touch that,” he hissed, glaring at her. “It was my mother’s ring. It was all she had to leave me.”
“I wasn’t going to steal it,” she said.
She knew it wasn’t the ring. It was because of Snorri. Erik managed to avoid touching her at any time and did not want her to touch him. Never, when she was serving him in the little house they shared or sitting with him at each evening’s feast, did he allow any physical contact between them.
He was gone most of each day, practicing with his sword and spear and battle-ax in the enclosed yard reserved for such activities. When he was not practicing battle skills he often rode out on horseback with Thorkell to inspect some part of his father’s lands or spent time closeted with Thorkell in his private chambers, where, Freydis had told her, Erik kept Thorkell’s business accounts.
Only at night, when at last he slept rolled snugly in his own blanket, did he occasionally move near her, and she would often wake in the dark to find his warm length pressed against her back as she lay near the wall. Once or twice his arm had slipped around her. Each morning he was gone before she woke.
Fearful that after a time he would give her to someone else, she had at first tried to find ways to bind him to her, but he remained indifferent.
Two halfhearted attempts to seduce him had failed miserably. She did not really know how to go about it and she was frightened. Finally, convinced Erik would never want her, she gave up.
As she pondered her situation, Lenora became aware that Halfdan had sat down beside her. He greeted her with a smile. Lenora’s eyes widened at the red-splotched bandage on his right arm.
“What happened?” she asked. “You’re bleeding.”
“Only a little wound-dew. A small accident practicing with swords. It will be better soon.”
Lenora thought she recognized the cloth of Halfdan’s bandage.
“Did Freydis bind it up for you?”
The burly Viking’s eyes met hers, and in their blue depths Lenora saw a world of anguish.
“Freydis has been good to me,” Lenora said kindly. “She has been teaching me my duties here.”
“She manages Thorkell’s household very well,” Halfdan said in a noncommittal tone. His eyes strayed across the room toward Freydis.
Lenora saw her chance to learn more about Thorkell’s family, but she knew she must be very careful or Halfdan would not talk to her. She had noticed he seldom spoke to women at all. She decided to approach the subject in a roundabout way. She hoped her scanty Norse would be adequate. Fortunately, Halfdan, like many Danes, had some command of English.
“You are Erik’s good friend,” she began, looking at him with what she hoped was an innocent expression.
“For many years,” Halfdan told her solemnly.
“Do you live on Thorkell’s lands?”
“No.” Halfdan looked down at her with amusement. “My father is a king’s jarl, like Erik’s father. They are friends from their youth, when they went a-viking together to distant lands. Thorkell sent Erik to live at my father’s hall when Erik was very small.”
“Why did he do that?”
Halfdan glanced at Erik before answering, but Erik was apparently entranced by the song being sung by the skald. He seemed unaware of the existence of either his friend or his slave.
“Thorkell sent Erik to my father for safety after Ragnhilde killed Erik’s mother. My father lives in the far north of Denmark, by the Limfjord. It is many days’ travel from here, and Thorkell thought Erik would be safe there, with my father to guard him, and he was.”
Lenora remembered the story Erik had told her on her first night at Thorkellshavn.
“Who is Ragnhilde?” she asked. “And why did she kill Erik’s mother?”
“Ragnhilde was Thorkell’s wife,” Halfdan replied, confirming Lenora’s suspicion. “Thorkell brought Erik’s mother back from a voyage to the land of the Franks. Soon after Snorri was born to Ragnhilde, the Frankish slave gave birth to Erik. Thorkell was overjoyed to have two sons. Ragnhilde was jealous. One day Erik’s mother was walking alone by the river, and she fell in and drowned.”
“It could have been an accident.”
“No one who knew Ragnhilde would ever believe that.”
“Wasn’t Ragnhilde punished?”
“Why should she be? The Frankish woman was only a slave. Ragnhilde may have paid Thorkell some compensation out of her own money, but the matter was between the two of them.”
“Wasn’t Thorkell angry?”
“I do not think so. He cared little for Erik’s mother, and Ragnhilde was his wife. Two years later Freydis was born, so they must have been on good terms.” Halfdan’s eyes strayed across the room once more.
“But he was concerned enough about his younger son to send him to your father for safekeeping?”
“Yes. My father has no other children. He was happy to have Erik as foster son, and I was happy to have a brother. We are blood brothers now. We have sworn the pact.”
“I don’t understand,” Lenora persisted. “If Erik’s mother was a slave, wasn’t he born a slave too? How is it that everyone accepts him as Thorkell’s legitimate son?”
“I can answer that.”
Lenora swung around in surprise. Erik had been listening to her conversation with Halfdan. Lenora blushed at being caught discussing him and hoped he would not be angry. But Erik spoke in a quiet voice with no trace of irritation.
“When I was born Thorkell was so happy to have a second son that he set me free. He planned to free my mother also if I lived to be one year old. In the meantime, he hoped to have another son by her. At the yearly Assembly he sat me on his knee before the other men and legally adopted me. It was that which made Ragnhilde angry enough to kill my mother. She would have killed me, too, if my father had not sent me away from here.”
“So you are legally as much Thorkell’s son as Snorri?”
“Except that he is the older. By Odal law, when Thorkell dies Snorri will inherit e
verything.”
“What will you do then?”
“I do not know.” Erik’s green eyes rested on Thorkell a moment. “My father is an honest man who has been fair toward me. I hope he will live for many more years.”
“What finally happened to Ragnhilde?”
“She died of a wasting disease while I was away in Miklagard.”
“Where is Miklagard?”
Erik scowled at her. “You ask too many questions, Lenora. I have told you enough for one night. Be quiet.”
She obediently fell silent, and Erik began a conversation with Halfdan. Lenora did not mind Erik’s brusque order. So much new information filled her mind that she needed time to think about it.
After what Halfdan had just told her she understood better the bad relations between Erik and Snorri. She suspected Ragnhilde’s evil deed had cast a blight over Freydis and Halfdan, too, for how could Erik’s blood brother care for Ragnhilde’s daughter, how hope for a future with her? Lenora remembered part of a verse Father Egbert had once read to her from the Holy Book: “The sins of the fathers... visited upon the children.” The sins of the mothers, too, it would seem. Poor Freydis. Poor Halfdan.
Angrily, she dismissed the thought. Why should she care about the problems of these Norse? They were all heathen monsters. Let them settle their own feuds. The thing that mattered, the most important thing she had learned from her conversation with Erik and Halfdan, was that in this country slaves could be set free legally. Thorkell had freed Erik and would have freed his mother.
She would ask some of the other women about it. Surely someone would know how it could be done. She might even stir up her courage enough to ask Freydis, who, although not very friendly, was fair and honest with all of the slaves. Perhaps one day soon she and Edwina could both be free. Lenora hugged the thought close and smiled to herself, and thought of revenge against Snorri.
Chapter 7
The next morning Lenora saw Edwina again. Freydis brought her into the weaving room where Lenora was struggling with the loom, and then quietly walked away, leaving them alone.
After a tearful embrace, Lenora looked at her friend more closely. Edwina was more thin and pale than ever. Her loose, unbelted Norse clothing, similar to Lenora’s own, hung on her tiny frame like a shroud. Her honey-blond hair was pulled back and knotted, the ends hanging free down her back. The hairstyle emphasized her hollow cheeks and sunken eyes.
“Oh, my poor Edwina. Have you been ill?” Lenora tenderly stroked the girl’s cheek.
“Not ill. Only unhappy.”
“Is Thorkell cruel to you? Has he hurt you?”
“No, but I must share his bed each night. You know about that. Thorkell told me he gave you to his son. You know how it is for a slave.”
Lenora had her mouth open to tell Edwina that she was more fortunate when she remembered Erik’s threat to kill her if she told anyone he had not lain with her. She shut her mouth firmly.
Edwina wiped her eyes. “Thorkell is not unkind,” she went on. “It’s just that he is so old. He’s almost fifty.”
Lenora nodded sympathetically. In an age in which boys were considered adults at twelve and most men were dead before their thirtieth birthday, Thorkell was old indeed.
“Perhaps that is a good thing,” Lenora said, hoping to provide some comfort.
“Yes. The first night was bad, but now he seems to want me just to lie beside him. He puts his hands on me. I do not like it, but it is all he does.” She sighed deeply. “It really doesn’t matter, with my beloved Wilfred gone. I don’t care what happens to me now.”
Appalled at the change in her friend, Lenora forgot discretion in a rush of anger.
“Edwina, I can’t bear to see you like this. You were always so cheerful, always calming me when I was upset. I wish I could help you now. How I long to take revenge on them for what they have done to us. Especially Snorri.”
“Hush, Lenora, don’t say that. If anyone heard you, they would kill us both.” Edwina looked frightened. “Think about your eternal soul. Vengeance is the Lord’s. Father Egbert always said that. We must accept what has happened to us and trust in the Lord to give us strength to bear our misfortune.”
“Trust in the Lord?” Lenora asked in exasperation. “These people are heathens. They don’t know or care anything about the Lord. All they know is the law of the sword. Plunder and rape and burn and kill.”
“They are not all violent and cruel. Thorkell is a learned man. So is Erik. I have seen them working together, how they love and trust each other. They both know how to read and write, and count, too.” Edwina’s eyes widened at the thought of these accomplishments.
“Are you defending them? How can you?”
“Because they are not as bad as you think.”
“Snorri—”
“Snorri is a beast. Snorri is the worst of the Vikings. But they are not all like Snorri. Did you know Erik came to me and told me you were well and safe? Did you know he told Thorkell my betrothed had been killed, and to treat me kindly?”
“I did not know. He could have told me that you were well, but he never did. And what Erik told him did not keep Thorkell from taking you to his bed, did it?”
“No, that is true. He is an old man and settled in his ways. Owners bed with their female slaves. Thorkell would not change such things, but he is kind to me.”
“I don’t know how you can accept this misery so easily. I have tried so hard, but I will never be able to accept it. I hate them all. I wish I could find a way to make Snorri pay for killing our family.” Lenora’s eyes blazed with her desire for vengeance, her cheeks flamed.
“You will drive yourself mad thinking such thoughts.” Edwina shook her head sadly. “There is nothing you or I can do to change what is. Accept it and make the best of it. And now let me help you at the loom. You never could weave properly, Lenora.”
With this firm change in subject, Edwina went to work, quickly untangling the warp threads and setting their stone weights aright. She passed the skein of wool back and forth a few times, straightening the weft with the whalebone batten, producing a stretch of smooth, even fabric.
“You see? It’s not so different from our loom at home. Now watch as I do this. You use the weaving-comb this way.”
Lenora tried many times in the following days to change Edwina’s passive attitude toward their slavery. She had never realized how stubborn her friend could be. Edwina would not budge. She would hear no word of any scheme for attaining revenge, and at last Lenora gave up, realizing there was nothing a lone woman could accomplish against the Norse. She would have to swallow her pride and be content with survival, as Maud had once advised her.
Freydis was pleased with Edwina’s skill and speed at weaving and soon allowed her to take over Lenora’s work at the loom while Lenora did the spinning. Lenora was relieved to be free of the weaving room, and guiltily relieved to be free of Edwina’s mournful presence.
One sunny afternoon Lenora was returning to Erik’s house with a pile of freshly done laundry. She had shortened an old linen shift that Freydis had given her and then washed it, along with two of Erik’s short-sleeved linen undershirts. He wore them when at weapons practice, discarding his woolen jerkin in the summer heat, and one or two were always sweaty and dirty. After washing the garments and partially drying them in the sun, Lenora had had the unpleasantly warm job of pressing them on a whalebone board, using heavy, heated glass globules to smooth away the wrinkles. She had burned a finger and she was tired and irritable.
She stopped on her way home from the laundry house to watch the men of Thorkell’s hird at weapons practice. It was important to keep their skills finely honed so they could fulfill their duty of protecting Thorkell, his home, and his family. The practice yard was busy all day long, no matter what the weather.
Today, Asmund, a tall, red-haired man, was working with a twisting spear, which was thrown with a cord looped about the shaft so it spun as it flew through the air and hit t
he target with fearful power and accuracy. Two other men practiced with swords, attacking each other with heavy, sweeping strokes, parrying each other’s blows with their painted wooden shields. The Norse were proud of their ability to use their swords with either hand, and as Lenora watched, one of the pair switched shield and sword from hand to hand without missing a blow. Halfdan had once let her heft his sword, so Lenora knew how heavy such a weapon was. She watched the swordsmen appreciatively until her attention was drawn to a fourth man in the far corner of the yard, who repeatedly threw his battle-ax at a target, moving farther away from it each time.
When she had first come to Thorkellshavn Lenora had turned her head aside each time she passed this part of Thorkell’s domain. The sight of those weapons had stirred unhappy memories of their deadly use on her dear ones. One day she had seen Erik and Halfdan at practice with their broadswords and had stayed to watch them as they dodged and ducked one another’s blows, leaping sideways or backwards easily, laughing and joking as they worked. Erik’s lameness seemed a minor inconvenience, so skillful was he at the acrobatic style of fighting that the Norse loved. Only later did she begin to realize how much effort it took to overcome his handicap each time he took up his weapons. It was by dogged determination and constant practice that Erik had recovered and now maintained the agility, balance, and speed necessary to survive in battle.
Seeing Erik and Halfdan were not in the practice yard, Lenora walked on. As she approached the door of Erik’s house, Snorri’s closest companions, Hrolf and Bjarni, appeared before her.
“Lenora,” Hrolf said, blocking her way. He had a high-pitched, nasal voice that contrasted unpleasantly with his heavy, bulky body. It was he who, on that day she could never forget, had assaulted Father Egbert and knocked Lenora unconscious. Lenora hated him only slightly less than she hated Snorri himself.
“Let me pass,” she said coldly.