Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  There were at least twelve women around the room but it was to Skarga that a bowl was immediately brought. The slave delivered it, kicking chickens, dogs and piglets from his path. The wolfhound which had threatened Skarga was docile at Grimr’s feet, snout resting content against his boots. Skarga looked at the slave and the bowl of food. “Thank you, no,” she said. “I’m not hungry. Take it away.”

  The slave did not retreat. “Lady, my lord orders you eat.” He scowled and thrust the bowl at her. Skarga took it obediently onto her lap but did not eat. She felt the deep humiliation of scrutiny, men’s eyes surreptitious or openly arrogant, contempt from the women. Asved, though treated with no special honour, watched her constantly. He had not been present when Grimr had marched her naked to his bed, but many of the other men had seen her, and smiling, stripped her now, their thoughts as clear as though their hands were on her.

  Time seemed to drift while the people talked, ate and drank, laughed a little, and then bowed and took leave. Some went to the far doors and the men’s quarters at the back of the hall. The pale boy had remained silent and alone all evening. Now he stood, stretched, and followed the men. Ingmar took Asved’s arm and they crossed the hall together, disappearing with the rest of Grimr’s retinue. Others returned to their own homes, scurrying off into the sudden chill of the night. The slaves stayed, clearing and cleaning. A little water was thrown on the flames to douse the fire, the cooking pots were swung wide on their chains and pulled up into the higher shadows where the sides of pork were hanging in the dark smoke. The reeds and rushes were spread evenly again and two slave boys crawled, hands and knees, collecting chicken droppings and animal excrement in buckets. Aud began scrubbing the benches. Her water was soapy and smelled sweetly of wild mint and thyme. She used the remaining water to sluice down the corners where the men had pissed, shaking out her bowl and scattering the herbs. The dogs wandered free, nosing for scraps of meat and discarded bones.

  Grimr sat for a little while, relaxed in the central chair, watching the fizzle of the dying flames. Unsure where to go, Skarga waited. She thought he was drunk. When he rose at last the dogs watched him expectedly, then returned to their scavenging. Grimr walked directly to Skarga and stood for a moment looking down at her. Then he stretched the fingers of one hand hard around her neck. He wrenched her chin up, forcing her to look at him. “When I give instructions for you to eat,” he said, very softly, “in future you will eat.” His expression and voice remained perfectly calm but his grip was brutal.

  With the calluses of his palm against her throat, Skarga dropped the bowl. Held only by the neck, Grimr dragged her to her feet. She tripped and stumbled and for a moment hung limp in his clasp. Then she struggled, flailing out to scratch him and kicking wildly. His fingers pressed tighter. She wondered how long it would be before she was unable to breathe and would faint. Then he began to force her downwards, finally to her knees onto the rushes beside the fallen contents of the broken bowl.

  “Eat,” he said. Her hands were flat on the ground amongst the slime of cold stew. Grimr stamped one boot hard onto her open fingers. His fist was on the top of her head, still pushing down. Skarga surrendered, nauseas, and her head dropped. Her one hand remained trapped, her knuckles beneath Grimr’s heel. Knees curled to her belly, she reached her other hand, picked up a wedge of turnip from the reeds and put it into her mouth. It tasted of stale coals, snail silver and dog piss. She chewed very slowly, and did not spit it out. “No,” said Grimr, and stamped his other boot onto her other hand, straddling her. “As the dogs do.”

  Both hands held immovable, Skarga’s head was forced ever closer to the floor. Her lips were pressed into the wet reeds slippery with spilt gravy, her nose squashed against boiled onions. She was aware of passing feet, the patter of the servants. One slave boy leaned close to her and scooped up a splatter of dog shit by her elbow, then silently moved off again. She ate, forced, and choked. Then Grimr’s boot was on the back of her neck and he kicked, sending her sprawling. “In future,” he said quietly, “you will obey orders. Now wash your face and get to bed.” He indicated a bowl of water left on the hearth, smelling of mint. Skarga crawled to the spit of the ashes and carefully washed her face and hands. Then she rose, shaking, to her feet and walked over to Grimr’s bed. When she opened the sliding door and climbed in, he followed her.

  She had moved to the far wall, crouching beneath the covers. The skirts of her new tunic were wet and grimed with stew and prickles of rushes. Grimr stretched back against the pillows. It was dark but she saw the glitter of his half closed eyes and knew he watched her. After a few moments he said, “Take your clothes off.”

  Skarga sat very still and shook her head. She expected violence. She expected to be forcefully undressed and then brutalised, but he was drunk. He might be inept. He might fall asleep. At least she could refuse to co-operate.

  “It seems you are a very slow learner,” he said.

  The materials she wore were too strong, too well woven to tear easily and if he meant to strip her, he would have to use a knife. That might be more dangerous and she was frightened. But she was surprised when he did nothing. He merely continued to watch her, his head at ease against the softness of the pillows. He was fully dressed himself and had not even removed his boots. “I do not,” he said finally, “intend to fuck you. Does that encourage you to obedience?”

  She kept her teeth clenched, not to show fear. She said, “I don’t want to obey you in anything.”

  “I know,” he answered. “That is the only reason you are still alive. But you will learn to obey me for all that. You will begin now. Take off your clothes.”

  She moved back further, pressing against the solid wooden wall which enclosed the bed. The slap from the back of his hand was so fast that she did not feel it coming and did not escape it. He cuffed her as he might his dogs, and the great black jewel from his finger ring scraped her cheek. “You bleed easily,” he said, smiling. “But you continue to soil my bed. Now, if you do not take your clothes off, I shall cut them from you.”

  So there was a knife. If he had a knife, perhaps she could find it once he was asleep. Very slowly, still huddled away from him, Skarga undressed. He watched intently but did not move towards her. When she had removed the shift and tunic, folding them neatly by her feet, the belt curled on top, she stretched out each leg and rolled off her stockings, facing partly away from the man and keeping her thighs tight together. Finally he said, “Now the bandage.”

  She stared, expressionless, and said, “You don’t like me bleeding on your linens.”

  “You will have stopped bleeding by now,” he pointed out. “I want to see it.”

  Sitting already quite naked beside him, it was pointless to refuse anything else. She unknotted and unwound the strips of cloth with which the slave girl had bound her breast and shoulder and ribs. Then she sat and stared rigidly over Grimr’s head into the far shadows, the bloodstained bandage crumpled in her palm. As he leaned forwards she cringed back, but he raised only one finger, gently following the scar over the swell of her breast to the outer aureole of her nipple and down across her ribs. His finger traced up again, then down, caressing as if aroused. Skarga flinched. Unhealed, the track remained painful. He did not touch any other part of her and eventually sat back, allowing her to crawl quickly under the covers. He said, quite gently, “You are too thin. You are not attractive. The flesh over your ribs is so sparse the bones remain prominent. Your breasts are too small. Your belly is too flat and your thighs are neither wide nor soft. You will eat and drink everything I order sent to you. Nor have you yet learned cleanliness. You are not smooth and glossy as a king’s woman must be, but ugly and dirty as a piglet runt. When you have improved sufficiently, then I will start to teach you the other skills I want you to practise.”

  Skarga closed her eyes, turning away. She wondered if he was mad. Grimr sat up abruptly, kicked off his boots, rolled over and within two breaths was asleep. Both boots, crusted with
mud from the fields and trodden food from the hall, lay on the rich silks where he tossed them uncaring, not minding his own soiling of the bed. She could not sleep and after some time she leaned over and wondered if it would be safe to search him for his knife. Then, sighing and hating herself for cowardice, she moved back. She could try again another day.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The days and nights that followed were drearily similar. While the sun was up, Grimr was out. By the smell of him he went riding, but he was fastidious, changed his clothes often, always appeared washed, hair shining straight and cut neat, meticulous in each detail. He demanded the same from Skarga. She was frequently hauled out of bed early while slaves turned the mattress, four pairs of hands shaking out the clumped feathers, brushing down the accumulation of dust and crumbs, clean covers brought and the bed remade. Skarga herself was given clean clothes, water to wash thoroughly every morning and a female slave, usually Aud, to watch and make sure she obeyed. The slave brushed her hair for her and cleaned her finger nails with a small splinter of antler. Once, cross and embarrassed, she was thrust to her back and Aud used scissors to trim the tiny hairs in her nostrils and comb her eyebrows. Her feet were scrubbed, her toe nails cut, and her teeth brushed with a hazel twig and sea salt. She was given the best mead to drink and above all else, she was encouraged to eat. She was, she thought, shamed and disgusted, being prepared and fattened like a pullet for the pot.

  She saw mercifully little of Asved. He went out hunting with Grimr and the jarls. The days were frost bright as summer slumped into a russet autumn, and when the men brought their families to eat in the great hall each evening, the talk was of threshing and ploughing, wood felling and clearing the land, gathering, hoarding and the drying of straw and beans, the slaughter for the winter’s salting and smoking, the new churns for butter and the new stores ready for brewing. Grimr did not interest himself in the cultivation of his land. Even when the sleet struck the hall like a sword slice, sluicing through the window slits and sending the servants scampering for rags, straw and buckets, Grimr still rose early for the hunt. She discovered that his routine was strictly routine. Grimr liked repetition, rigid familiarity, discipline and systematic control. Avoiding contact, scrutiny and dawn’s cold, Skarga stayed in bed until she knew he had gone.

  Then one dark morning, Grimr ordered that in future Skarga be dragged out to attend his departure. Wrapped in wool but shivering, she watched as first the pale child, a boy of eight years no more, was brought by a slave to stand before his master. Grimr inspected the child carefully, assessing each morning’s appearance. Then he would nod, and the boy would move to the side. The other jarls, including Asved, would come over then, testing the strings of their bows and the fletching of their arrows, buckling their swords and sliding their knives into the pouches of their belts. As Grimr’s frown folded outwards into lines of smile and approval, the jarls began to talk, discussing the previous day’s quarry, the projected direction already planned, the weather and the wind.

  The dogs clustered around the men’s legs, but the huge wolfhound Bram would sit before Grimr’s feet, eyes fixed hopefully on his master. Sometimes Grimr nodded and the dog bounded avid as a puppy to his heels. If Grimr shook his head, the animal’s ears slunk down, its tail thin between its hind legs, and it would slouch off and sink to the reeds beside the fire hearth, closing its eyes as if struck. When Grimr raised a hand, a slave rushed forwards with a full cup of ale. Lifting the cup high, Grimr swallowed, draining it entirely, and threw the empty beaker to the straw for the slave to scrabble. Grimr then marched to the doorway and the hunt began. Each morning’s ritual was exactly the same.

  But one or twice Ingmar stayed in the empty hall and talked to Skarga, asking casual questions and sometimes speaking of Grimr. She realised he’d been instructed to question her, encourage her trust and get her talking but she made use of his willingness, collecting the information she thought might be useful. “My brother?” she demanded once. “Why is he here? None of them could be called congenial but Asved is the least pleasant of all my family. Why has he come?”

  “Is it so unusual for one lord to invite another to his home?” Ingmar shook his head. “Are they not related? We are only a few days ride from your father’s longhouse.”

  “So he came back here with you, when Grimr rode off to follow me?” Skarga said.

  “As an honoured guest.”

  “Or as a witness to my death?” Grimr had promised her father a guarantee. Proof of her murder. So Asved expected to watch.

  “Lady, you’re also a guest. Why expect death?”

  “Grimr makes no secret of it,” said Skarga.

  Ingmar shook his head again. “Our lord likes – his games. But whatever his plans, I know nothing of them. As far as I know, you’re a guest here, as your brother is.”

  Skarga doubted it. He certainly knew she was a prisoner. “Once long ago, you warned me about sharing Grimr’s bed. You said your own would be warmer and safer.”

  Ingmar smiled. “I’ve no memory of saying such a thing, lady. I’ve the greatest respect for our lord. I would never speak against him.”

  Skarga said, “So there’s not much point talking at all.”

  He continued to smile as if to a child he wished to indulge. “I’m a patient man, lady, and there are many subjects I’m sure we can happily discuss. And if you’re curious about our lord Grimr, then I’ll be pleased to answer your questions, as I have before.”

  What she wanted to know, there was no point asking. “I’m tired,” she said. “And I miss fresh air. So either let me walk outside, or let me go back to bed.”

  “I can’t let you leave the hall, lady,” he said. “You know that.”

  “So much for the honoured guest,” said Skarga.

  But she was taken outside sometimes, accompanied by two female slaves and watched by the woman Aud. She could walk as far as the midden heap, and straight back again. She was taken four times a day, no more, no less, and had no privacy on any occasion. Sometimes it was raining. Only once it was hot and the midden heap steamed. Usually the autumn mist sailed down from the mountains and hung in low tattered cloud, streaks and billows, always damp. Some distance from the longhouse, the midden stank, but often Grimr ordered the refuse burned, then buried deep. That was something Ogot had never bothered to do.

  The nights were equally monotonous but better monotonous than violent. Grimr came late to bed, usually drunk but never staggering. Flinging off his tunic, he slept in britches and shirt. He never stripped further. Skarga never willingly undressed. Usually he ignored her and she was allowed to sleep uninterrupted. She kept tight to the wall and as far from his reach as possible, but even in the restlessness of sleep he did not fling out an arm, or roll, or touch her at all. His touch, being infrequent, was always purposeful and calculated. When he ordered her to undress, he would finger the wound across her body, admiring the raised scar and marking its track. He would poke quite suddenly, a finger pressing the soft curve of her belly or a palm rolling her over like a stone, then cupping her buttocks. He pinched her breasts, stared into her eyes, and pulled his fingers through the curls of her hair to test cleanliness and grooming. Once he did the same with the thick curls at her groin, as if looking for lice. He would sit forward on the bed, gazing at her. “You are improving,” he told her once. “But not enough. I want you smooth without the sharp angles of an old sow not worth the slaughter. So eat. Eat more.” And the next day he ordered her rations increased.

  She did not count the days or the nights. Although she noted the passage of the moon through its stations, the division of the days accounted to each god seemed not worth the noticing. Aud said, “You know today is the day allotted to Freyja. You must wash your hair again and take extra time cleaning your teeth and nails.”

  “I didn’t know it was Frey Day,” Skarga sighed. “They’re all so exactly the same. Why does it matter?”

  And Aud folded her arms across the wedge of her bosom
and scowled. “I’m authorised to punish you, girl, if you disobey me, or become too impudent,” she said. “I shall do it too. You know full well how Freyja must be honoured on her own day, as the Lord Grimr must be honoured every day.”

  Even each separate moment passed interminably slow and the world shrank to Grimr’s demands. Her dreams became dark and she remembered nothing except sadness when she woke.

  She was trudging back from the midden heap one day and it was raining, but the sun cut a small, bleak shaft through the cliff pass beyond, sending the snows into a sudden glorious arch of colour, a rainbow of unusual magnificence. The span of colours glimmered and as she looked up, Skarga saw an eagle sitting on a jutting ledge of rock high above. It seemed to be watching her. Skarga stopped and stood still. Staring up into the silver rain mist and the hovering colours, she shook the fogs from her mind. The eagle, huge wings folded, bent its neck and gazed down on her, unmoving. It was some time, busy concentrating on her own depression, since she had thought of Egil. She had never accused Asved. He would not have denied it, but simply laughed, saying any slave was his to do with as he wished. Ogot’s promise to set the child free did not bind him, and once Skarga was gone, her slave was forfeit.

  “Hurry, girl,” said Aud, “no loitering,” and dragged her arm, pinching her. At first Aud had never dared hurt her. She had rarely threatened nor ordered nor risked being rude. Aud was the slave keeper but Skarga was no slave. Now something had changed and Aud treated her roughly and with contempt. Skarga knew it to be her own fault. She had been frightened into obedient. Grimr had cowed her so completely that she acted like a prisoner and thought like a prisoner, which was worse than being a slave. She had been passive for too long.