The Viking and the Pictish Princess: The Rose and the Sword

by Lindsay Townsend

  “Daft wench!” He caught and rolled her in his arms, tickling her until she gasped and hissed he should stop. She lay on top of him and he stroked her hair, delighting in its silken weight.

  “Takes years to make a good horseman,” he went on, smoothing his fingers through the warm mass. “You would be too slow for a raid.”

  “I could ride with you,” she countered.

  Not on the short bandy-legged little ponies I have seen in this country. He almost spoke it, then remembered again his worse news, the fact he had to share but did not wish to. All day it had lain in his chest and belly like a stone. He clasped her elbows, wishing he did not have to speak.

  “What?” she whispered, quick as always.

  “The healer I saved, he told me that Constantine’s new mistress is with child.”

  ♦◊♦

  Beneath the weight of their bedding and cloaks, heaped together against the cold, Eithne curled her toes—it was that or clench her fists or scream, and she did not wish to disturb Olaf. She worried her lower lip, keen not to hurl out her own admission. I am pregnant, too! The words battered against her teeth, desperate to be heard.

  Because, of course, Mongfind was pregnant. Of course, her sister had stolen ahead, stolen a march and in the most personal and damning way possible. Mongfind was ripe and she herself was not sure. That little candle of hope, that she had intended to savour with her husband, that promise of new life—how could she share it now?

  It is my fate to be always second, to be the bastard, not the longed-for heir. Had she been legitimate, perhaps she and Mongfind could have been more like true sisters, gossiping about when they felt sick, or how scents seemed stronger, or how their clothes seemed too tight. Instead, because my mother was a mistress, not a wife, we are enemies. A dragging weariness that had nothing to do with winter passed through her.

  Ruthlessly, she stamped down inside, crushed the old feelings, and thought instead of Olaf. Her husband deserved better than any of her petty rivalry with her sister. Shame burned, then chilled her.

  Let me speak when I am certain, when Olaf can enjoy being a father-to-be. He would be pleased, would he not? Surely, he would be pleased. She imagined him responding, his grey eyes brilliantly soft, his strong arms tight about her, his praise.

  “Wife?”

  She had delayed her reply too long, now she raced to answer. “Is it Constantine’s?” she was glad of the dark that hid her heated blush, even as she felt a small thrill of spite at voicing the suspicion.

  Such an easy slur against any woman! That she has played her man false. Of course, with Mongfind, who knew?

  “The healer said it was believed so,” came the careful answer, showing that Olaf was less than convinced. Showing he understood the politics of royal pregnancies, he added, “Constantine is happy.”

  Mongfind will be secure at his court for now, yet even so—

  “I will not move against any woman growing with child.” The very idea of such, whether she was pregnant herself or not, repulsed her.

  “Nor would I. The babe is innocent.”

  She shuddered slightly with relief at Olaf’s ready reply, his feelings so close to hers. She felt his sigh against her forehead as he embraced her anew and realised that she had passed one of his tests in turn. Furious at Olaf for an instant, she forced herself to remain still and silent, clamping down on her anger to luxuriate in her husband’s heat. Even naked, Olaf was marvellously hot, like a kiln.

  My black Norse Viking is full-blooded and powerful, a protector to be respected. As for dealing with the princeling Constantine, well, my elder sister is not the only Pictish princess who can plan.

  ♦◊♦

  Olaf sensed his wife relaxing into sleep and breathed in a long sigh. Womenfolk were temperamental when it came to pregnancy. Rather than hurt her by saying the wrong thing, he felt it wiser to say nothing.

  Would I want a babe with a creature like Mongfind? A child to cement a place? He snorted in the dark at the absurd idea. A little one by Eithne was totally different. Welcomed. Wanted...

  He slept and dreamed of flaxen-haired babies, of his wife round with child. Even as he stirred and kissed her gently snoring form, he saw what he must do.

  A warrior’s challenge. No stalking in woods or childish wrecking of guard stones. He had no men for a siege, or battle, but champion to champion…that he could do.

  A parlay first, and then a fight.

  Use Conall as the herald, he decided, and grinned in the dark.

  “Why him?” Eithne asked later, back at the Black Broch, while he chopped firewood and she checked the fences of the sheep pen where the cow was now housed. “And when?”

  “Let your sister keep and feast him for Christmas.” As a Christian, Constantine would celebrate the same, and that was good. The priests will not let him wage any wars during the birthday of their Christ, plus one less mouth to feed here will be good. “For a parlay, what better place than the old stone circle up on the moors?”

  Eithne jammed another branch into the fence to make more secure and hammered it down with a stone. “For sure, we do not want any of Constantine’s folk here,” she observed, panting a little as she hammered and shooing the curious cow away.

  “So the old stones are a good, neutral meeting place.” Olaf swung the axe and split another log, then four more. “The snows will make it easy for him to travel, as long as he does not try to shift in a storm.”

  “Only a Viking would think snow easy.”

  He grinned and gathered up the wood, rippling his fingers at her for Eithne to join him. She did so, seeming on the edge of speech.

  “Aye?” he prompted.

  “Will... Conall, will he be safe?”

  That was not what she was going to say. Respecting her change, Olaf kept his immediate answer—“Do you care?”—behind his teeth. “He shall wear the white cloak of a herald, that serves all but the most godless as a shield and warning not to attack. He can take a cheese with him as food, wood for an evening fire and venison as a guest gift.

  “I spotted deer tracks in the forest,” he added. Eithne knew he was a good hunter, so no more need be said on that matter.

  Deer meat in a cloth, the cloth marked with the rune for fire. Even Christian Constantine should understand that silent message: fruitful fellowship between neighbours or we burn your house down.

  A Viking way of doing business.

  Eithne scratched the cow’s flank and fed her some hay, murmuring about gathering more green-stuff for Sunset from the forest. “Conall may tell my sister more than we would wish about the state of things here at Black Broch,” she went on, in a louder voice. How undefended we are, she meant, without saying. And Constantine’s stronghold only a day’s ride away!

  “Which is why I will be clear before he goes that men from Ragnar’s war band will be joining us this Yule. I do have gold for their service.” Olaf tapped his thick gold collar and armlets.

  She stared at him and he chuckled, adding for her ears alone, “By King Odin and Christ, Eithne, it will be a falsehood, a ruse to keep Constantine wary and to stop him marching here to try his luck. Ragnar’s mob would never follow me, nor would I trust them.”

  She shook her head. “When you speak thus, with your face so stern, even I believe you.”

  “Good, then Conall will also be beguiled, and he will convince others.”

  “One of your Viking gods is a trickster, aye?”

  “Indeed. Loki, god of fire and falsehood.”

  “Best pray to him,” Eithne said, stepping ahead to enter the croft first. “Just to make certain.”

  Chapter 10

  With Conall gone off to find Constantine and her sister in time for Christmas, the whole settlement seemed to breathe more easily. Eithne busied her days with foraging for the cow and digging out roots of pignuts, parsnips, and turnips for everyone.

  Olaf took her bow, a pick retrieved from her tools on Maiden Island and the shovel. He was out all day,
returning long after nightfall. When she asked after the first day if he hunted, he answered, “Making traps, like the one you caught me in on Maiden Isle. The snow makes the old paths obvious and I can work on those, digging pits to make it hard for riders.”

  She nodded, suggesting, “Why not take a few of our youngsters with you tomorrow, and have them dig?”

  Olaf handed the woodcock to the young mother, Fina, with the words, “For the little ones,” and said to Eithne, “Not tomorrow, on the eve of your Christ’s birthday. Tomorrow, I shall hunt in earnest and bring back a deer.”

  For their own Christmas feast, he did not add, though Eithne appreciated his meaning. She nodded mildly, and when the following morning promised a drizzling rain, wished him luck and waved him off.

  She set the womenfolk to steeping clothes that needed washing in their largest cauldron, with the older youngsters tipping hot stones into the mass to bring it to a seethe, adding some of her dried soapwort and lavender for cleansing. The smallest children she had sweeping the croft.

  When all were occupied and chattering like rooks, she said, “I shall get more holly and ivy from the woods, so we can decorate the house,” and left them, striding swiftly from Black Broch.

  Picking up her husband’s tracks, she followed him.

  It was not a lack of trust, she told herself. Rather, when Olaf braced his shoulders and narrowed his eyes in a way that made his eyebrows frown, she knew he was up to something. She wanted to know what, without argument.

  From childhood I have endured events, happenings I could not plan for, because I did not know. No one ever told me anything, merely gave me orders, but this is not Olaf’s way.

  “I am not ashamed,” she said aloud, stopping in the snow. “I merely wish to learn, so I may help.” Aye, I am a good wife, that is all. The justification scraped at her, but she kept walking.

  Let me be in the thick of things now, no longer an outsider, the bastard, looking in. Even as a wise-woman and healer she had sensed only a grudging acceptance from her fellow clan and a reluctance to include her.

  Olaf welcomes me. It was that contrast, no more, that made her catch her breath.

  Outside the fetid house, the scents that turned her a little sick these days, of meat, of wool, of sweaty lads and old pottage, were absent. The rain, a persistent mizzle that draped the forest and hills in a rolling fog, had made little difference to the snow, but she could step in Olaf’s tracks and made steady progress.

  Until she slogged over a hill, losing sight of the tower of Black Broch, and the footsteps changed to two long lengths, marking the landscape like a tattoo on skin. Skis, she realised, recalling her husband’s description of them and how easily they made travel in snow.

  Why did he hide them from me, she wondered, but that was easy to answer. Until she and Olaf were more secure in their place at Black Broch, any advantage they had was best disguised.

  My husband must have made them and hidden them in the woods. Of course, he can follow Conall and catch him with skis, discover what the man intends, but my idea to spy on Olaf is no more.

  “So be it! I can ask when he returns.” Eithne laughed at her own thwarted plan, the idea, which she had embraced so fiercely a moment ago, now disappearing like smoke. Blinking rainwater from her eyelashes, she turned carefully to go back to the croft. Her balance was off of late, and she was already more weary than she liked. Was that due to winter hunger, or another sign she was with child?

  She rubbed her aching back, still unsure if she wanted a babe now or not.

  To gather holly and ivy and mistletoe would be best, and to spend the rest of this drab day indoors by the bright fire would be lovely, a simple relief.

  Though I wish Olaf were with me...

  By sunset, the youngsters had decked the newly-swept croft with ivy and holly, draped steaming washed clothes over roof hooks to dry, and crowded about the fire as the crone told stories and everyone ignored the sounds of growling stomachs. Eithne watched the rising moon through the still-open door and decided she had suffered enough of waiting, at least.

  “Rain has stopped. I will climb the watch-tower to look out.”

  To look for Olaf, coming back, she meant, and everyone knew it, but no one spoke.

  The colder air slammed her into full wakefulness and roaring anxiety. She had expected him home much earlier. Perhaps he had fallen off those skis of his and lay injured under a bush somewhere. Worse, perhaps Constantine’s men had ambushed him.

  Remembering how, as a child, she had climbed the watch tower in vain after her mother Kentigerna had been torn from her, Eithne discovered she could no longer manage the steep, slippery stone steps of the broch. Instead, she fled the tower and squeezed through the gate of the palisade, too impatient to undo the ties. She scanned the forest, seeking any sign, any movement.

  Nothing, not even a hunting owl, or lurking wolf. She twisted round, looking towards the loch, and saw how moonlight revealed the shine of her hair. Swiftly, she unpinned her apron and covered her head in the hastily-made handkerchief, knotting it under her chin. Using the two brooches that had fixed the apron, she lifted her skirts to knee length, like a lad’s tunic, and fixed them at her waist.

  Now she could run, pelting over the fresh snow so as not to fall, following Olaf’s tracks like a shadow. Ahead bobbed another marker of her clan, the hawthorn that would be painted with a symbol of a white horse in midsummer by Olaf, as was fitting, both for protection and fruitfulness. She stretched out her hands to the spiny bush to greet it—

  And was bundled right off her feet. The snow rose up in a cold sheet of white and she was pinned down in its icy embrace by a heavy knee in the middle of her back. She flailed, but her arms were caught and dragged behind her and a deep voice ordered by her head, “Be still!”

  She recognized that growl and allowed herself to be roughly patted down and rolled over.

  “Eithne?” The iron grip about her wrists released, Olaf kissed, then pinched her, as if to ensure she was real.

  “Welcome back,” she said, smiling up into his wide eyes. His skis and ski poles, she noted, were flung aside against the hawthorn but the bobbing carcass of a headless roe deer was still strapped to his back. He looked red-nosed and pink-cheeked, hale and hearty. She felt her heart soar within her like a summer lark in a bright blue heaven.

  “Eithne—” Knelt in the snow, he now brought her half onto his thighs. “Are you mad?” he demanded, tracing his thumbs down her arms and legs as if still convincing himself she was truly with him. “I thought you a stranger, a lad! I could have knocked you out, or worse!”

  Before he could work into a temper, she kissed him more soundly, brushing his broad shoulders with her fingers. He grunted and relaxed slightly. “Why are you out?”

  “I wanted to meet you on the way.”

  “By posing as a boy?”

  “Nay,” Eithne countered, but instead of explaining she had hidden her distinctive hair in case of spies and enemies, what tumbled from her mouth was, “I just wanted to see you, Olaf! And have you ever tried to run in long skirts?”

  “Flattering but foolish, ástin mín.”

  She accepted the endearment and the long kiss, even allowing him to rub his stubbly cheek against hers. “Things have been good and quiet here,” she said.

  “I have more news.” His lips quivered. “I have our feast for tomorrow, as well.”

  “Aye, looks good and plump.”

  “Hey, you are staring at me, wench, not the deer on my back.”

  She laughed, aware she might win herself a snowball if she said what she thought, but why not? They were reunited and life was sweet. “If the hood fits your cloak,” she began, her answer dissolving into giggles as he tickled her.

  “Up!” Olaf surged into action and had her back on her feet in a dizzying rush. “You will pay wer-gild in kisses for that, I swear, but let us get out of this cold before my balls and toes freeze off.”

  They romped back to the crof
t and Eithne almost, almost forgot that Olaf had said he had more news. Good or bad, she could only wait now to find out.

  Chapter 11

  A strange Christmas, or Yule or Winter Feast, Olaf thought, as he baited the fish traps in the loch. They had feasted well on the deer and drunk most of the crone’s new ale. Ever-generous, Eithne had given the sad-eyed mother—whose name, she had reminded him, was Fina—the pelt of the beast and the guts to the old hound that had survived the Gaels’ attack earlier that winter, but even so—Beneath the carousing and the careful prayers to King Christ and the spirits of the place there had been tension. He saw it in the set of his wife’s shoulders, in the way the whole croft would suddenly fall silent and still, listening like a small creature beneath the wings of a hunting owl, in the soft tears of the young widow Fina as she hugged the pelt and her babies.

  We still have a long way to go and we have not even reached the hunger times of spring. We need more luck. He thought of his deception and wondered if it would be enough to make them some.

  On a straw mattress beside the fire that night, alongside the others, he did not need to wait for Eithne to notice. The moment he bared his neck she leaned closer.

  “Your torc, is it gone?” she murmured, touching his throat where the heavy gold had lately rested.

  Olaf said softly, “Payment for the Viking mercenaries,” and whispered directly into her ear so only she would hear the next, “Part of the ruse, in case of other spies.” He pressed his flank against her, so she could feel the metal tied to his loin cloth. He had removed the torc when he had set out on his trip, hiding it away to give verisimilitude to the claims he had made earlier, in Conall’s hearing.

  Eithne kissed him on his breastbone and her lips formed, “Our herald?” as she carefully did not mention Conall by name.

  “With your elder.” Olaf placed a hand across his mouth so no one would hear or see his answer. For what seemed the hundredth time this season, he wished they were back on Maiden Isle, he and Eithne. We could leave here, let Constantine add to his territory, go to Ireland or south, even at a pinch to the English kingdoms.