Chapter Twenty-Seven
The jarl had slept in the hall during Edin's illness and recovery. That night he moved back into his own bed. He didn’t touch her, but she was aware of him all through the night. He rose early and left without speaking to her. She fell back into a troubled sleep. Dessa woke her later, saying he’d left orders for her to dress and take her first meal in the hall with the others.
He was in his high-seat when she came out. She avoided looking at him and started for her usual position at the end of the table. Hauk Haakonsson intercepted her. She’d never received much attention from this hooked-nosed, violent-eyed Viking, and was confused when he took her elbow now, muttering, "This way." His grip was firm, and she had no choice but to go where he led her, which was to the head of the table nearest the jarl's right hand. There was a stir among the blond, bronzed, blue-eyed men there, but Hauk said to them, "Make room —the jarl's orders." Edin sat without looking at anyone, her face hot with embarrassment, her heart pounding with anxious anticipation.
The meal proceeded. The jarl was near enough to speak to her, but he didn’t. No one else did either. She fought back her terror with the useless fantasy that really nothing terribly serious was happening.
When the men finished eating, the jarl stood. The hall quieted, and he announced casually, "In two sennights I am going to spread a great banquet and take a wife. Messengers will be sent out today to invite everyone on both sides of the fjord." He didn't mention her name, and for a moment there was a waiting silence in which Edin heard the crackle of wood in the longfire. Everyone seemed nailed to their benches in astonishment, her among them. When it became clear he was not going to say more, faint toasts to his news rose up.
Olga came to Edin as soon as the men went out, "The jarl says I should ask you what to do about the cooking for the feast." It was clear she felt awkward. Technically Edin was still a thrall. It was clear the jarl was not going to free her before the wedding. Whether they guessed the reason —that as a freed woman she would refuse him —she didn't know.
While her heart held on to the possibility that this disaster would suddenly stop, turn around, and vanish, her practical mind told her she'd be wise to make the best of things in case it didn't. She said tentatively to Olga, "Mayhap we should go through the stores together and see what we have." Without ceremony, Olga relinquished to her the keys that made her the factual, if not yet recognized, mistress of the steading. It was no great transition for her. She was experienced in running a home; she'd even planned her own wedding once —before that night that had divided her life.
Once she saw that Olga was going to accept her word as law, she grew more confident. She decided what dishes would be served at the feast —excluding cabbage from the menu —then encouraged Olga to plan the cooking herself. Edin's ways were very different from Inga's. It was her wont to point out to servants what needed to be done and then step back and let them get on with it in their own best way. Olga seemed unsure at first, and kept hesitating, as if waiting for Edin to direct her every idea, but Edin refrained from giving more than reassurance.
Later she spoke to Dessa about changing the old floor rushes for much-needed new ones. Dessa said, "I could ask Blackhair for some field thralls to help us."
"Ask Yngvarr," Edin said.
"But Blackhair is the one—"
"Yngvarr is the one to ask from now on," she said with more satisfaction than any Christian woman ought to feel in an act of revenge.
When she tucked her hair into an apron belt, intending to get down to some real work herself, Ottar Magnusson, who had been loitering about the hall, suddenly claimed he had no partner to play chess with him. "Edin!" he said, "come out on the green and learn the game."
How could she refuse? She was still a thrall, and he wasn't asking but rather firmly assuming that she would do as he wanted.
They sat beneath the great, wide-spreading tree where Ottar proceeded with a slow instruction. Yngvarr, who was already organizing the cutting of the new rushes for the hall, came to her with several questions. Unlike Blackhair, no sarcasm salted his comments. He seemed eager to please, and grateful for the chance to better his position. Ottar patiently waited while Edin spoke to him, using the same technique of encouragement and reassurance. Next Dessa came with a message from Olga, and again Ottar waited. When Dessa was gone, he went back to holding up one walrus-ivory chess piece after another, laconically explaining its use in the play of the game. Edin interrupted him with, "Did the jarl order you to teach me chess specifically, or simply to keep me from doing anything useful?"
Ottar grinned. "He suggested, casual-like, that you shouldn't be doing anything too strenuous yet, and that if you were to learn to play chess it might help you pass the hours and keep you out of trouble —and then he looked at me. You know how he can look at you until you realize you've always longed to do what he's just said?"
"I know that look, yes." She'd often enough stood within the sweep of his personal aura.
There was more to the jarl's plan than just keeping her from overwork, however. It was clear to Edin that he was insuring her presence at their wedding by maintaining a rotation of Viking guards over her. Rolf would appear and politely pull her away from the foaming busyness in the hall to take her for a maddeningly pointless morning stroll in the harvested fields. Sweyn, who was becoming known as the One-armed, was learning to manage a horse again and insisted he needed her help. And so she took an afternoon ride with that awkward man through the moist, earthy, scent-laden woods. There was one whole day with Starkad Herjulsson, in which he taught her to fish for seith, "the best fish in the fjord" This required going out in a boat. At first she was nervous, but the craft he'd chosen —or had the jarl chosen it? —was very steady. And because the cliffs of the fjord were so high, breezes rarely got down to ruffle the surface of the water much. Starkad told her as he rowed them slowly along, "You need to learn to swim. People who live on the shore must learn to get along with the sea. You can't always depend on the jarl to save you from drowning."
Though her heart beat with a feeling of audacity, she said, "Actually, I've decided that the sea doesn't want me. It's had three chances at me, and tossed me back each time. I've all but lost my fear of it."
"Aye. Well then. That's good."
She felt ridiculously pleased to have gained this young Viking's approval.
And so it went, nights of intimate silence beside the man who intended to make her his wife, and days of clumsy companionship with men from whom she'd once shrunk. And meanwhile a grand preparation going on for her own wedding, despite her racing heart, her queasy stomach, her frantic sense of opposition and disbelief.
She shuddered at random instants and told herself it wouldn't really happen, right up until the day before.
She woke feeling wonderfully well, completely recovered, ripe for the world once more. When she sat up, she found on the footboard of the bed a pile of garments left offhandedly, a lady's wardrobe such as would serve a king's wife, let alone a remote Viking chieftain's. There was a gown made of red brocade from the Byzantine Empire; another of woolen fabric dyed blue with woad from Fresia; one ornamented with meticulous English embroidery; and one of shimmering patterned Chinese silk.
She found the jarl supervising the digging of the oval pit and the building of the cooking fires and great spits for the ritual roasting of the sacrificial animals. His blond hair gleamed in the silvery light, for the morning was cool and cloudy A trailing mist lay motionless across the valley, while great clouds, grey and white, hung down over the distant peaks. Edin hung about until he grudgingly took note of her presence. There was no caress, no sentiment in his greeting. He simply said, "Did you want something?"
"I . . . the clothes. . . "
His mouth thinned. "I didn't gain them by plunder. They were Margaret's, bought for her by my father."
"I didn't come to accuse you, but to say thank you."
He nodded. "You'll wear the scarlet tomorrow. It
's the traditional color for brides here."
"All right."
"You agree, then? You won't make me bind and gag you to get you through it?"
She realized that he must have been worrying about that. She saw that his eyes seemed a little bloodshot, as if he hadn't been sleeping well. She said, "I have no wish to humiliate you. And I have no taste for being made a spectacle. If you say you mean to make me marry you, then, according to all I know about you, that is what you will do." She could have stopped there, but in full obedience to her heart's most urgent commands, she dared to reach out and touch his sleeve. "Can't we talk?"
His fair brows furrowed into a deep crease. "I have something I must do today."
"Of course." She started to turn away.
His hand on her arm stayed her. "Edin" When she looked, she found his expression open. "We'll talk tonight."
Relief flooded through her. She hadn't realized how painful had been the silence between them. She nodded, even smiled a little.
***
The low hut, once Soren Gudbrodsson's, to which Inga was exiled, was to be visited regularly by supply bearers who would also see that the place was kept in good repair. Thoryn had decided to visit the place himself that day. His honor seemed to insist that he see the place and know it, but he intended this to be his first and last visit.
It was a warm autumn day, that day before his wedding. Evidently Juliana had let the fire go out in the hut, for no smoke came up through the roof hole. As Thoryn stepped off Dawnfire, he heard the two women's voices arguing about it through the low, open door. Inga tended to get frantic if anything kept her home from running smoothly. The slightest mishap bound her up into a tight-smiling fury.
Thoryn saw that the two women were facing one another like fighting cocks. Juliana's raven hair, cut short according to the custom, was in dramatic contrast to the blond head beyond her. He stood watching them, his arms folded across his chest. The thrall looked harried. She was going to suffer, no doubt, being away from the men. By spring, mayhap she would be ready to behave herself back at the longhouse. And by then, mayhap Jamsgar would have found another wench.
He'd given as little thought as possible to his mother since the night the egg of her madness had cracked open. Now the sight of her stabbed his smugness to the core. She looked diminished, hardly dangerous.
He ducked his head and stepped down through the low door, prepared to have to judge the right or wrong of their quarrel. To his surprise, he wasn't asked to take sides, however. When Inga saw him, she seemed to forget Juliana altogether. She put on that sweet, repulsive smile and said, "My son." Juliana slipped past him and disappeared outside. Inga said, "Come to the table, son, and drink your broth. I thickened it with oatmeal just the way you like it. And I have a dried onion for you; I save it especially for you."
He managed not to shudder as he sat down at the small table, momentarily amazed by the rush of mixed emotion he felt, and the force with which it wrenched up from some hidden pocket inside him. But then she smiled again and served him, and he said, "This is not broth and onions, woman; it's meat and honey ale."
"Oh . . . so it is." She sat and poured herself a cup of the ale. A mercurial shadow passed across her brow. She leaned over the board and said, "You may not want to call me mother, yet you can't stop me from knowing you as my son, Thoryn. I know the sadness in your heart at what you're doing to me, though you try to hide it." She shaped her mouth into pathos. It was soft, pale coral, atremble.
He avoided making an answer. Instead he took a deep swallow of the ale. He said, "I came only to satisfy myself that you will fare the winter satisfactorily."
"The worst thing is the bed. I'm unused to a pallet."
Guilt ripped through him.
She looked down into her cup, as if she were staring into the cup of her own brain. At last she said, in the same dulcet and winsome fashion, "You will have a son of your own come spring." She presented him a face that seemed never to have known malevolence. "The girl is with child, you know."
He said nothing, thinking this was more nonsense.
"Oh, aye, that is why I had to act when I did. She was sick each morning. Her breasts were beginning to strain at her dress. It was clear to me, to any woman who has born a child." She showed no bitterness; in fact, she said, "When he is born, bring him to see me. Bring my first grandson to me —please, Thoryn!"
The pleading in her voice touched him. His heart turned in pity and guilt to behold this formerly brisk, sturdy woman looking like a ghost of herself and pleading with him. Her face was chalky, and her pale eyes were glazed and sunken into dark hollows. They were the eyes of a farm dog not well treated. Her hair, going white now, fell from a careless topknot. Her gown was wrinkled with a spot or two down the front. There was only a trace of pride left in her: He saw it as her will to keep her stinging sense of shame hidden from his sight.
He quickly finished the rest of his ale, which tasted mawkish and dishwatery now, and rose to leave. Outside, he met Juliana again and took her arm to speak with her: "You have little to do here but care for your mistress. Can you not keep her dress clean and see that her hair is combed?"
"Master, I try." There was something new in the girl's manner. When before she'd projected an aura of boredom and sullen muteness toward him, now there was anxiety. "She orders me off and-and sometimes she makes threats."
"What sort of threats?"
She glanced nervously at her charge, who was waiting near his horse. "She says that she will kill me in my sleep, Master, and then return to the longhouse where she says she left something undone. And then she laughs —not the way a human being laughs. Master, it's the most indecent, ghastly laughing I've ever heard." He felt a sudden sympathy for this poor girl who all alone cooked and cleaned and chopped and nursed a tyrannical mistress while he was living far from her concerns. He said, "She is mad. She will say things . . . but give her no chance to handle a knife. Do you hear me?"
She nodded dispiritedly.
"Last out this winter and —" he searched for some reward suitable for such a service —"and I will let you choose a husband come spring."
Her expression lightened immediately. "Truly? Any man I choose?"
He couldn't help a rueful chuckle. "Any man who will consent to take you on."
He left and crossed to Inga and his horse. As he settled into the saddle, she said, "I know you won't bring the babe. You must forgive my asking. I think it was the honey ale talking, not Inga Thorsdaughter." Her features were now fixed in solemnity, courage, and sorrow. She was a picture of unquenched mother-love. It made a special impression on him, distinctive and strong. It said: Beware!
Though Edin had wanted to talk that night, it seemed she sensed his mood and was astute enough not to break their silence, even though he made sure he got to the bedchamber early —in plenty of time to observe her undressing. And aye, it did seem her breasts were fuller; the tips were definitely pinker. He looked back. He'd first taken her to his bed in early summer; it was now autumn, and in that time, almost a full season, she'd never once held him off with the normal feminine apology. She must have conceived during their first nights together. He felt a leap of emotion, a mix of pride and anticipation and pain and anger.
When she joined him in bed, he lay rigid and mute. She knew she was carrying his child and still didn't want to marry him. Didn't even want him to know.
When she slept, he got up to stare out the window. There would be rain within a day or two. Already clouds were gathering under the mountains, leaving only one pitiless star in all the black night.
Gradually the edges of his emotions blunted. Tomorrow he would make her his wife. She would be the recognized mistress of the steading. He was giving her back all that he'd taken from her. Surely the barriers between them would come down then. And long before spring, long before she mothered his child, she would open her cautious heart and let him in.
Bring my first grandson to me!
She says
that she will return to the longhouse where she left something undone.
He shuddered and saw in his mind the hut where Inga was kept. He saw the door opening. He watched it open again and again, but what emerged from behind it he wouldn't let himself envision. When he returned to bed, however, he positioned himself protectively around Edin and slept lightly, his ears seeming to strain for the least furtive noise at the chamber door.
***
Edin wrapped the two layers of the fine pleated gown of brilliant red Byzantine brocade about her, clipping the loop-straps at each shoulder with small golden brooches. The gown reached the sweet carpet of new rushes and had a three-foot train. Over it she wore a knee-length cape made of more of the beautifully woven cloth which when thrown back showed her bare arms.
From inside the jarl's bedchamber, she heard the guests arriving. Her nerves tightened with each new hailing. At last there came a knock on the door, and a man's imperious voice: "It's time."
It was time. She thought she would faint if her heart beat any faster. The door opened, and Kol Thurik and Magnus Fairhair stood waiting. She tried to move toward them —and found she couldn't. Her pulse was heavy in her throat. She whispered, "I-I don't think I can do this."
Kol came forward, a powerful middle-aged man. As long as he didn't smile, one couldn't see the tooth he'd broken during the stormy voyage from England, and he wasn't smiling now. He was wearing a magnificent helmet decorated with molded bronze plates; in his belt was a costly double-edged sword with ivory embedded in the hilt. He glanced down at her, at her gown, at the rich scarlet fabric against her skin. What orders had the jarl given him in case she seemed reluctant? Would he bind her? Throw her over his shoulder?
Edin's embrace Page 37