by Delle Jacobs
An odd response. "I did not mean she was useless. Not when she can weave the way she does."
"Well, she isn't."
"Of course not. I suppose you are right. She spends so much time weaving that she does not have time to do other things. And it matters not, when her weaving is so fine. Not even Flanders wool is so well done."
Arienh glared and swung her crook at a stray.
In the upper valley, short grass was already growing tall enough to graze, although snow still clung to the high slopes. Arienh chose her spot to graze on the far side of the valley from the flock of black-faces, perhaps purposely. Ronan lowered the small lamb from his shoulders to the ground and gave a swat to its hindquarters. The little creature bawled as loud as a calf, and its ewe trotted up. He had always been amazed at how a mother could identify its own.
The sheep quickly settled in to their task of devouring everything in sight, and no longer needed close watching. Arienh left the flock to its grazing and climbed a deeply worn path uphill along rocky slopes. He followed.
"Where are you going?"
"To the stone circle."
"Stone circle?"
"I must move the stones."
Ronan hadn't the slightest idea what she meant, and she obviously didn't intend to explain. He climbed after her. She reached a lightly sloped plateau, backed by a tall mount, overlooking the sea. The stiff breeze ruffled the golden curls that escaped her tight braid.
In the new green grass, tall, upright stones, mostly about the height of a man, marked a broad circle on the ground. Just within the perimeter circled another ring made up of low, weathered posts. Arienh walked up to one rotting post and picked up a red stone at its base, then paced around, counting off the posts.
"Yan, tan, tether…"
"An odd way to count," he said. He leaned back against one of the larger stones and folded his arms to watch.
"What is odd about it? That is the way we always count."
"It is not the way other Celts count."
"Well, I care not. It is how we count."
Arienh continued her count as she carried the marker stone from point to point. "I thought so," she said, and placed the stone at the base of one of the upright ones.
"Thought what?"
"With all the rain and other things, I was losing track. The equinox comes in a sennight."
"How can you tell?"
"It is the way the ancients told, before they had priests to keep the days of the year. But the priests do not often come to us, so we have kept up the old ways. I count the posts around the circle, one for each day of the year. But I have not come up here for fifteen days. Sometimes in the winter I cannot come for a long time."
The wind whipped her skirts, teased her heavy golden braid, and she seemed to meld with the ancients and the connecting force with their descendants, a vital, living link between past and present. It was important to her, this place. She was different here, softer. Yearning, perhaps. Did she not want what all women wanted, a man, a home, children? Yet she was wild and fierce, a Celt of bygone days, part healer, part warrior.
"Then what do you do when you cannot come?"
She flashed an impatient glance at him as she again paused. Then with a shrug, she continued.
"I make a mark on a wooden slab every night, so that I don't lose count. This year, I could not even come at midwinter, because there was too much snow. But in seven days, the sun will rise over the horizon exactly where the large stone pillar touches the sky. And that is spring's first day."
"Will you come to see it?"
"Aye."
"Does everyone come?"
"Nay, I am the only one. The others only come when there is something important, like Beltane. Sometimes they do not even come for Imbolc, if the weather is as bad as it was this year. They leave it to me."
"But why to you?"
"Because I am the appointed counter of days, the keeper of the stones. It is a very old custom, and I will not let it die."
She rarely looked at him as directly as she did now, and her clear green eyes dared him to scoff.
"I will come with you," he said.
"It belongs to us, not you."
"Well, I think I will come anyway. Perhaps it will belong just to us, since no one else will come."
Arienh flipped him a disgusted look and walked away, descending the slope of the hill by a path worn deep as if people had been climbing up this route since the creation of the world.
Ronan followed her, no matter that she made it clear she didn't want his company. In the valley, a small lamb bawled, and its ewe bleated pitifully, even though they had been gone only a short while. Arienh scanned around with a worried frown and scurried to a muddy hollow where the little lamb had wandered into muck and couldn't get out. Gently, she lifted the little one from the mire and wiped the worst of the mud from its hooves before setting it down.
But behind her, the remainder of the flock scattered widely. Arienh tried to direct the flock toward more concentrated grazing, but there were just too many of the beasts.
"Tanni would willingly loan you some of his dogs," Ronan suggested.
"Leave me alone. I'll do it myself."
"There is no longer need for you to work so hard, Areinh. Leave men's work to men."
Her eyes bored into him like icy knives. But even she had to know she could not manage the flock. She was just so stubborn that she would not give up until the situation was beyond hopeless.
He sighed. He hated to make her angrier than she already was, but he saw no choice, knowing she could not afford to lose any of her animals for her stubbornness. Tanni and his men and dogs had moved closer. He blew a shrill whistle that carried across the glen.
Her head jerked in his direction. "What are you doing?"
"Calling for help."
"I told you-"
"Someone's got to rescue you from yourself."
Across the valley bounded Tanni and one of his shepherds, slowing when they saw there was no danger.
"Aye, Ronan, what is it?" asked Tanni as they sauntered up.
"Take the white-faces and graze them with our flock," he replied.
"Nay! They are ours. You have no right!"
Tanni studied Ronan quizzically, then with a shrug directed the little black and white dogs that had accompanied him to round up the flock.
"We will have no trouble telling yours from ours, Arienh, as yours are all white-faces. Tanni will bring them down at night until the weather is warmer."
For a very long moment, she just glared at him, her green eyes blazing with the ferocity of a woman slapped. She pitched her crook off into the wild shrubbery. With furious strides, she left the valley and climbed back up into the hills to the grassy plateau that held the stone circle.
It would not be easy now to convince her he meant well for her. But he’d had little choice.
Heavy clouds approached, and the stiff wind wrested strands of hair free from her braid to lash her eyes as Arienh climbed the mount above the stone circle. She scowled out over the dark, sparkling Irish Sea, taking the wind full in her face, waiting for the worst of her rage to pass.
The rage was for the helplessness. If there was anything more frightening to her than being helpless, she couldn't imagine what it was. She feared it even more than the Vikings themselves. She had always thought she could depend upon herself, even when all else was lost. The entire village had learned to rely upon her, that way. Always, from the day her father had died, they had depended upon her, and she was failing them.
Now he had taken her sheep, and that meant everything. The flock was the lifeblood of her people, their food, their clothing, their very survival. Perhaps it had been true from the moment the Vikings landed their great longships, but not until he had taken possession of their flock had the point been driven home to her that the Vikings now owned the valley and everything, everyone, in it. The Celts lived and breathed at the sufferance of these heathen giants.
&nbs
p; Especially Ronan. For they all followed him.
What would happen to Birgit? To Liam? To Old Ferris? What would the Vikings do to them when they discovered Birgit couldn't see well enough to perform common, everyday chores? When they learned she memorized the patterns she wove and counted the rows in order to produce the cloth they considered so perfect?
Her rage slowly subsided, replaced by a great, empty aching, akin to an enormous loneliness. An ache for what was lost, a fear for what was still to disappear. She couldn't define it, for it seemed to be both everything and nothing, all at the same time.
It was a longing for past and future, and, yes, a yearning for a man who both beguiled and betrayed her. For some traitorous thing inside her kept letting him into her heart, no matter how hard she tried to slam the door.
Nay, she must not let him in. This last, this taking of her sheep, was just one more thing that showed his true character, no different than his thieving, marauding ancestors.
But she would not win this battle against these heathens by displaying her own temperament so openly. Arienh took a deep breath. It was not in her nature to quit.
Nay. The battle had just begun.
***
Egil reached the door of Birgit's cottage and remembered to knock. He hoped she noticed. But Birgit could see him through the open door and barked out resentful permission for him to enter. Her pale green eyes glowered as he entered and plopped his brace of mergansers down on the table.
"What do you want?" she demanded, never stopping her weaving.
"It is a gift. I have not come for anything."
"We do not want your gifts."
"Too bad. I will not take them back. You may waste them if you choose."
Egil met her glower without flinching. Liam, with his round blue eyes, hid behind his mother's skirts and peered out at him.
"Perhaps if Liam learns to hunt, he may provide you with birds, and you will have no need to accept any from me. Would you like to come hunting with me, Liam?"
"Nay." With a squeak like a hare running from the hawk, Liam ducked back behind Birgit, two fists tightly clutching the fabric of her kirtle.
Egil watched, confused. The boy seemed terrified of him, yet he had not been afraid before. Had he done something? "You don't want to go hunting? I thought all boys wanted to hunt."
"You aren't going to eat me!"
Egil stared in horror. "Eat you? Where did you get such an idea? Birgit, you did not tell him this."
"Nay. Liam, I told you not to believe that. Old Ferris is just trying to frighten you."
"Old Ferris? The old man?"
Birgit gasped and her pale eyes widened. Horror spread on her face. "I did not mean-he is just an old man-it is not his fault. It is a common belief. Old Ferris merely gave it voice, and Liam heard."
"Perhaps I should go talk to the old man."
"Nay, please, he is a harmless old man."
Did she think he meant to hurt the old man? "But it is a terrible thing to tell a child. Surely you do not believe such a thing."
"Who knows what atrocities Vikings will commit? Nay, I do not. But some do, and a child is easily frightened."
"Then I must teach him this not so."
Her old rancor returned as she stepped deliberately between him and the boy. "It is my job. You are not his parent, and I do not want him around you. Perhaps you are not as evil as those who have been here before. But you are still Vikings."
"Northmen."
"It is all the same to us."
"But it is not the same, Birgit. And I will teach you that it is not."
"I care not for that. But he is my son, and I will raise him."
Nor would it help her cause as a parent to argue in front of the child. The boy needed a father, anyone could see that, but he was young yet, and needed his mother too, and it was not good for someone such as he to question her decisions.
"As you wish," he said, and with a nod that was almost a bow, he went out the door.
If there was a way to her heart, though, it would be through the boy.
***
"Ducks?" asked Arienh. She wrinkled her nose at the acrid smell that feather-plucking made.
Birgit looked up, smiling sheepishly. With a pail of still steaming water before her, she sat in the sunshine plucking feathers from the mergansers. "You're home early. I didn't hear the sheep."
"That's because the Vikings took them away from me."
Birgit's eyes widened as her mouth dropped open.
"They say they mean to tend them for us," Arienh added.
"Do you believe them?"
"Does it make any difference? If I did, I still wouldn't have the sheep."
"Do you think it is punishment for our pranks?"
"We'll find out soon enough. I'm not through with them yet. Where did you get the ducks?"
"The Viking, Egil, brought them. It grows cool," she said of the water. "I will have to reheat it soon."
"I'll heat it, Mama."
Arienh frowned, glad in a way for the distraction of ordinary cares, but suspicious of Liam’s intentions. The boy required a lot of watching, and liked fire too much. Arienh recalled the time he had lit rags to watch them burn.
"Nay," said Birgit. "It will do for now. Put the feathers in the sack."
"Perhaps he could come along with me and watch," Arienh suggested. They had always tried to contain Liam's fascination this way. He was just too curious.
"Aye."
"I thought you weren't going to take presents from them."
"They would have gone to waste. I have had enough of hunger, Arienh. Liam, take a bucket to the creek and bring more water."
"But we have enough now, Mama."
"Do as I ask."
Liam pouted and picked up the bucket, with his lanky legs swinging and his arms feigning the heaviness of the bucket as he departed.
"What are you thinking?" Arienh asked as soon as the boy was out of earshot.
"I don't know. He wanted to take Liam hunting."
"The Viking? You didn't let him."
Birgit shook her head. "Liam is afraid of him. He remembers Old Ferris's words. I don't want that old devil to influence Liam."
"Better him than the Viking."
"I'm not so sure. I cannot see them from here, Arienh. But that is the big Viking who stands near the stream, I think."
"Aye. It is Egil."
"What is Liam doing?"
"He can't take his eyes off him. But he is trying not to get close to him."
"And what does the Viking do?"
"He is fishing, I think. He pretends not to see Liam."
"Because he knows Liam is afraid. It is the way a man coaxes a stray dog to him."
"I don't understand."
"He has a liking for Liam, Arienh. Do I have the right to keep Liam away from him?"
"Of course you do."
"But is it right? For Liam?"
"We cannot let these Vikings take over, Birgit. We will all suffer if we do."
Birgit was silent as she plucked feathers. Arienh knew she was remembering again. And she did not want Birgit to suffer any more. But what if she would suffer more if they drove the Vikings away? And what would this Egil do if he learned Birgit could not see? Birgit was not useless as his kind might think, but she was helpless alone.
She could not tell if Egil was cruel or kind. Like Ronan, he had a way about him that made one want to trust him. But Ronan had turned on her and stolen her flock. And even if he meant well, he now controlled their food supply, their entire livelihood, and them.
Visions of an ominous future fluttered before her. She pictured Birgit shivering in the cold alone, slowly dying high up on some lonely, windswept mountain, where no one could rescue her. Or Liam walking off with the huge blond Egil, never coming back. Or of her village, fallen entirely under the control of heathens, and women bending to their pagan demands, little more than slaves.
Nay, she was not through with them yet.
She looked back to the stream bank. Egil casually tossed in his fishing line and trolled through the water. Liam, his bucket forgotten at his side, hid behind the big oak tree, his eyes fixed in intense concentration on the giant Viking.
CHAPTER NINE
"Ronan, have you seen my axe?"
From where he sat planing an oak timber, Ronan turned to see Olav coming up behind him. "No, I did not have it."
"But you asked to borrow it."
"Aye, but I could not find it. But Bjorn has finished forging a new head for mine, so I do not need it anymore."
"You are sure? It was hanging on the peg on the shed post."
"But it was not there when I looked. Use mine. I am through with it."
Olav shrugged, his brow wrinkled tightly as he picked up Ronan's new axe, hefted it to test its balance, and joined the men who went to cut timbers for a new cottage.
Ronan frowned. Hoes were missing from the fields. Tongs had disappeared from the forge. And then the anvil. How in Hel's pit had those women managed to carry off Bjorn's largest anvil? Since Bjorn rarely left the forge except to eat and drink of an evening, they must have done it then. Or when the man was too deep in his cup to know anything was going on. That happened often enough.
What would the women think of next? And what was he going to do about it? He’d better think of something, because he’d seen the women quietly gathering in one of the cottages last night. And that meant more mischief coming.
Ronan returned to shaping the lintel, running his plane over its surface for the last smoothing finish. He straightened his back and stepped back to admire it. There was much old, rotten wood to be replaced here, enough to test his skills at carpentry for some time.
Close to dusk, Wynne's brass supper bell rang.
Long past the supper hour, Olav and his men had still not returned. Ronan finished off his mead and set the horn down on the slab table.
"So where are they?" he asked.