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

by Lindsay Townsend

  “No, Olaf, no.” She took him in her arms, as if he, rather than their boy, needed a mother’s comfort and warmth. “No, husband. Never think that.”

  He could breathe again. He did so as she deftly plucked Arne, fox-fur hood and all, off the nest of their cloaks and placed the tiny, demanding life into Olaf’s own arms, letting him feel their child’s warmth and smell his fresh, milky scent.

  “By all the Gods.” His feet almost gave out from under him in sheer relief.

  “It bites, does it not?” Eithne understood, of course, she always did. “The care of being a parent.”

  “So why not return to Black Broch? Would our son not be safer there?”

  The corners of Eithne’s expressive mouth turned down. “If we do not go to the Queen’s Pool, all of us, including Arne, may be in more danger.”

  “Why, then, is this the first I have heard of this pool?”

  Eithne coloured up in a pink and rosy blush. “To tell truth, I have avoided thinking of it for years. It is a healing place meant to be known only to those of full royal blood,” she added, her voice sharpening as if her tongue had grown fangs.

  Not bastards, like myself and Eithne, then. Olaf said nothing, merely rocked Arne in his arms.

  “I followed Mongfind to the pool, one time!” his wife burst out, growing even more red. “I was thirteen, and still as skinny as a twig and she, she had blossomed into womanhood. Every maid, mother and crone who came to Maiden Isle for my healing help would remark on Mongfind’s beauty and how she would brag that her lack of spots was because of the holy waters of the Queen’s Pool. A pool only those of full royal blood could bathe in, and still live.”

  “And you could not resist the challenge and so followed her,” Olaf guessed. “Did she see you?”

  Her eyes flashed anger at his question and he had his answer. No, Mongfind would never have noticed you, had you not wished to be spotted, I vow.

  “I bathed there, yes; and no, I have not died. I found its waters of no great virtue, and so have ignored it. But Mongfind and my full royal kindred, they believed.” Her face became shuttered. “They would go there instead of asking for my help, though I was healer for everyone else at Black Broch by age thirteen.”

  Olaf traced Arne’s skull gently with a finger. Will the waters hurt him? He wanted to ask, but the words felt like the worst bad luck, so he said nothing.

  “We have to go to the Queen’s Pool. I have to see.”

  “What, Eithne? See what?”

  “I have a sense, nothing more.” She waved her hand. “Instincts. You use the same in war, yes?”

  Olaf nodded, wishing she would speak more clearly, yet aware she might not be able to. Foreshadowing was a strange thing. “Once, when I was alone in a guard duty in Constantinople, I ducked behind a wall, although no one was visible. The instant I moved, an arrow fell from the sky and pierced between the cobbles where I had been. I raised the alarm, and the attack was routed.

  “To this day, I do not know what prompted me to act as I did. I called it the Breath of Odin when I spoke of it later to Karl. A battle sense.”

  Eithne’s eyes had widened as he spoke, and now they shone. “It is the same, or almost! I know we should visit the healing pool, though why, I cannot see as yet.” She shrugged. “I cannot see or say, but there is a need. In my time as healer I have such moments when I sense a wanting. I made my traps on Maiden Isle because of that instinct. When Fina was pregnant, I sensed when she needed me. Each time, I knew it.” A little of her glow vanished.

  Fina has served her lady very ill. Stifling a growl, Olaf chose not to speak of the Pictish woman. “How far to this pool?” he asked instead, preparing for a trek.

  ♦◊♦

  The Queen’s Pool, hidden in the woods in a tiny gully less than a half-day’s walk from Black Broch, was a spot suited to a troll, Olaf decided. The rocks of the gully loomed, hemming him in as he and his little family picked a way along a thin path, at times slippery with moisture, at times easier where ancient steps had been cut into the living stone.

  “Nowhere to swing sword or axe,” he grumbled at another twist in the gully, stopping while Eithne swapped Arne and his carrying sling to ride on her other hip. It was darker here, more shadowed, and the trees above swayed like old ship masts, only these were rank with hanging lichen and decay. For two spits he would have herded his wife out of here but guessed from the set of her shoulders that she was determined. “The stones deaden all sound.” An attacker could be on us and I would be late to defend us.

  Standing so near that he could feel her breath on his back and side as he half-turned, Olaf watched as Eithne patted Arne on his fat loin cloth, a gesture clearly meant to comfort both their son and herself. Her voice was steady as she said mildly, “This is a healing pool. The only weapons drawn here should be those to be gifted to the spirits of the water.”

  Believe that if you wish, Olaf almost countered, but kept his mouth shut and strove to listen more intently while they edged along this funnel of rock and glistening mosses. He hated it that they had to walk in single file. When the gully widened slightly, he clamped down on his warrior instincts—instincts, again—and had Eithne go first. He could see over the top of her head if any came at them from the front and, most vitally, guard their backs.

  Step after step they clambered down to the bottom of the ravine. Here, where the track was wider, one rock wall vanished, the gully opening to a width of two spear lengths on his right side, with the other rock wall scraping their left flanks. Olaf kept close to the left, frequently holding out his arm to remind his wife not to be drawn too close to the right. On the right below them now, the waters of the pool gleamed as thick as ship-tar. Olaf flicked a pebble in and it sank instantly with scarcely a ripple.

  I could throw anything into the water from here, he thought, and suppressed a shudder. They edged on from the natural platform overlooking the pool and finally reached the bottom of the gully.

  Olaf swiftly turned about, assessing dangers. Set in the hollow, Queen’s Pool was reached by the single path he and Eithne had been on, with no other way in or out. It put Olaf in mind of defending a bridge, or the pass that the Spartans defended in stories he had heard in Constantinople. That tale had ended badly, when the Spartans had been betrayed. Would they be the same?

  Not if I have anything to do with it.

  From habit, he glanced about the hollow tower of rocks, thinking it was much like a broch, only this was made by other forces than man’s. The pool filled most of the space but there were clumps of vegetation around the edges, especially a stand of elder bushes, ripe with green berries, and two rowans whose red berries added a welcome brightness.

  He nudged Eithne before she fussed afresh with Arne, or started to pray, or some other custom of the Picts. “Let us go there.” He indicated the rowan trees. “Holy to my folk,” he added, when she looked as if she might protest.

  She nodded and allowed him to take her cool hand in his, following on as he guided them carefully around the water’s edge to the trees. There, beneath the rowans, honeysuckle tangled and flowered, adding a welcome sweet scent and more welcome still, thick cover.

  They settled behind the canopy of blossoms, sitting down on grass that had not been trampled. Good. No one else has been here of late. Eithne accepted a drink from his flask and put Arne to her breast, frowning slightly.

  She must be hungry, as well as thirsty. That, and I know her nipples are sore. Who would be a woman? He checked his weapons afresh and relaxed a little, content to wait while Arne took his fill. A chaffinch darted closer in a blaze of colour and bathed at one edge of the pond. Olaf closed his eyes, thinking for the first time in hours that perhaps this was a healing pool. Eyes still closed, he touched his armlets and traced them with his fingers, wondering if the Pictish gods here would accept tribute from a Viking.

  Perhaps he slept, for the next time he heard anything was his wife’s low voice in his ear. “The need I sensed was not for
healing, as I hoped. They are coming.”

  His eyes flew open. The sun was still high, the chaffinch still bathed in the pool. A deep thudding sounded on the edge of his straining ears. Men on horseback, armed warriors. And Eithne knows it, too.

  “They are distant yet. We can leave.”

  “And be run down in the open by those men on horses? Is that any kind of a plan, or just one for a Viking? Do you want to watch me fight for my life?”

  Sitting close enough to brush against her while she tended Arne, he felt Eithne stiffen and knew his mistake at once. He had virtually accused her of leading him into a trap.

  “Wife, I meant nothing,” he began, his explanation fading when he saw the shattering hurt in her eyes. “Fighting talk, no more,” he tried again, wishing he could drown himself in the pool. “A poor jest.”

  “The warrior code, to laugh in the face of death.” Her voice and face were as colourless as imperial glass. “Say no more—please.”

  The final plea hit him like a blow.

  Arne stopped feeding and wailed. For once, Eithne did not attend him instantly, which again told Olaf how much he had hurt her. Sitting side by side, both of them fixed upon a dragonfly flickering over the ruffled waters, he felt her draw in a breath.

  He braced himself, but her words were just. “That you thought such of me, however briefly, tells me that we are not as close, husband, as I believed and hoped we were. No matter. If stepping beyond this pool brings danger, although I believe we have a better chance to go now, what is your counsel? May I remind you, that you have the speed and guile to escape alone.”

  “No.” The stark answer rose from him like the stones around them. “We have had words on this before.”

  “Very well.” She accepted his reply with the formality of princes. “It seems we are both hasty and misguided in our speech today. But what do you advise? You are the fighter.”

  “We stay.” Olaf thought of the Spartans again and the narrow funnel leading to the Queen’s Pool. He could defend them here. Against all comers, it seems, except my own stupid mouth.

  Her words, we are not as close, husband, as I believed and hoped we were stung in his mind afresh. With Karl he could have wrestled, Karl might have given him a punch and a thick head, and it would have been over. But women were not like men.

  He prepared a space, hidden by the honeysuckle, for Eithne and Arne, and readied himself. Eithne meanwhile would not look at him and fixed solely on their son. It would have been beguiling, were it not for the sudden winter between himself and his wife.

  My wife! I have hurt my wife! Are my stupid, thoughtless words to be paid for only by blood? He prayed not—unless the blood was his, or the blood of enemies.

  But the riders, it seemed, were not coming, or at least not at once. No scrape of blades as men jostled down the steep funnel path, no snorting of horses left tied and unattended.

  “Take care!” Mongfind shouted, from the top of the path. “If I tumble, our lord will have your heads!”

  “Courteous as ever,” Olaf muttered. He spun about, sword raised, his ears and face burning when he realised Eithne had left the honeysuckle and stalked towards him. “Be safe and stay hidden,” he tried to warn her, but even to himself he sounded weak.

  His wife flicked him a glance and returned her attention to the path.

  “Mongfind must not have had her baby yet,” she remarked, speaking as if of fine weather. “I know I had Arne a little early, but she now is late. She will have travelled to the Queen’s Pool to offer treasure for her own safe delivery and a healthy son.”

  “Travel, and across rough country with possible enemies, so close to her time?” Olaf gave a low whistle. “Even with waggons and litters, is that wise?”

  “She will be growing desperate,” Eithne said quietly. “As shown in her plot against me and my son.”

  “Where is our son?”

  “On my back.” Eithne turned to show Arne sprawled asleep in his carry sling.

  “You should hide.” Olaf tried again.

  His wife shook her head. “I am done with hiding.”

  A Pictish warrior, tattooed from head to toe, was walking backwards down the slippery path. Fina came next, her two bairns bobbing behind her like ducklings. She looked proud and excited, touching the rock walls as if they spoke to her. Mongfind came after, still pregnant, now as large as a barrel and clumsy in movement, shuffling as if each step caused her pain. To Olaf it seemed she had lost some of her beauty, she looked strained and weary, her black hair hanging in limp curtains on either side of her puffy face.

  Before her half-sister could draw closer, Eithne plucked a pebble from the edge of the pool and threw it. The stone smashed against the rock wall behind Mongfind’s head and the small party stopped, frozen on the track like roe deer scenting a predator. They were on the natural platform directly above the pool, Olaf noted, and his ears and fingers tingled, a sign of action or trouble to come.

  “Go back to where you came from, and live in healing and peace,” Eithne said, pitching perfectly so all could hear. She scooped water from the pool and let it trickle through her fingers. “Go back, Mongfind, Giric’s daughter, and be delivered of your child. You, also, Fina. I see from the new kin-marks on your arms, that you and yours are now fosterlings to Mongfind. Return with her and live well.”

  Fina appeared stunned for an instant, staring at Eithne as if she had never truly seen her before. Perhaps she has not, Olaf thought, sensing the still power of the moment. His wife was no longer a princess. In this instant, in this place, sheathed by the stones and with the rowan berries flaring on each of her shoulders like rubies, with her shadow tall and stately behind her and her hair a crown of silver and gold, she had become a queen.

  Wide-eyed no more, Fina began to weep. Eithne allowed the pool water to drip from her hand. Her voice was gentle, but relentless. “You have made your choice, Fina. Go back.”

  “Never!” shrieked Mongfind, and before any could stop her, she snatched the smaller of Fina’s twins off the track and tossed the howling youngster straight into the pool. “I give sacrifice!” she yelled, above the clamour and panic of her new foster-sister Fina. “My son shall conquer all of you!”

  “No!” Eithne shouted, and Olaf heeded his wife, understanding her desire without any more words between them. Not a glorious battle-clash like the Spartans. A saving of innocent life, like my son.

  Sprinting, Olaf dropped his sword and dived into the pool after the child, vanishing from sight.

  Chapter 18

  Eithne felt as if her heart had stopped. She stared at the churning waters, thinking only of the foolish quarrel between herself and Olaf earlier. I cannot lose him now, please no—

  The pool spurted, its darkness parting like ripped clothes, like a water-horse, a kelpie, surging from the foam. In the midst Olaf, her husband, her Viking, rose up with Fina’s child safe and gasping in his arms.

  “Not as cold as a fjord,” he said, after he had reached Eithne. “Or the loch last winter.”

  Warmed by the reference to when they first met, Eithne bowed her head. “Olaf.”

  As she had hoped, his eyes and face brightened further at her use of his name. Still with the lad in his arms, he turned towards the track. On the natural platform above them, the knot of bodies there remained still, only Fina had moved. She had dropped to her knees, her sharp-featured face blank with horror as tears streamed down her cheeks and she stared at the darkly shimmering water, her remaining bairn weeping by her heels.

  “You, come fetch him.” After he had retrieved his sword, Olaf beckoned to the tattooed warrior. “The rest of you, begone. This is a healing, sacred pool, not a midden slop.”

  Sunlight lit him as he spoke, showing off the trails of water-weed coiled about his waist and shoulders like the black mane of the kelpie. Tall as a spear, powerful as the earth itself, he was Viking and Pict. The royal healing pool itself had spared him and anointed him.

  Even after Mongfi
nd’s affront in bringing strangers to the spot. Only those of royal blood, indeed! Yet Olaf fits and fills this place as if he has always known it.

  And he was hers.

  He scanned those on the trail, dismissed them, and again met her eyes. Eithne? he mouthed silently, as if unsure of his welcome.

  She wound an arm about his middle and leaned in, glad of his solid, shielding weight.

  He might be blunter than an old nail at times, but he loves me. In acts and sometimes in words, he loves me. And after all, a deeper part of her thought, Would you want a man more nimble in speech than yourself?

  Olaf cared. That was all that mattered.

  She ignored the departure of Mongfind and Fina, of their whimpering, of Fina’s clinging, desperate reunion with her children. She looked through the warriors who had come with her half-sister, feeling only a slight satisfaction when these would not hold her gaze.

  She was only a little sorry for Fina’s water-logged boy, who had only just stopped sobbing.

  They are all finished. Mongfind, she knew, could threaten her no more. What fate her half-sister and Fina and Conall would have with Constantine was no longer her concern.

  Finally, the troop was gone. The waters of the pool lapped against her feet and the stone walls soothed all sounds. She brought Arne out of the sling and, after checking Olaf’s upper body was now clean and dry, laid him into his father’s arms.

  “Our son.” Olaf kissed Arne and then kissed her. “I think the Queen’s Pool will accept my gold armlets, in thanks. Why not?” He winked at her. “Viking gold is as good as Pictish.”

  “Yes, Olaf,” she said, and prepared for the walk back to Black Broch.

  Going home. She and Olaf and Arne were going home.

  Eithne smiled.

  About the Author

  Lindsay has been writing stories since she was six years old. History and the past have always intrigued her, and writing stories about heroes and heroines overcoming massive problems and finding love as they do so is a wonderful way to earn a living!