by Joanna Bell
"Don't talk about your mother."
That was it, the entirety of his response. He stood up and stormed out, heading back upstairs to his room.
Five days later he emerged into the sunlight of a Sunday afternoon as I weeded the small patch of earth in the backyard where my mother used to grow tomatoes and told me I had to go to college. That's what he said, exactly those words: "Paige, you have to go to college."
I looked up, shading my eyes from the sunshine. "I know."
"I never would have let you stay," he told me, his voice shaking with emotion. "I never would have let you stay, Paige. I know it's time for you to make your own way in the world. I'm just an old man, and I'm afraid of losing the only person –"
I had never actually seen my dad cry before that day. He went dark and silent and mournful when my mother died, but I never saw him cry. He must have, of course, but he didn't let me see it happening. So when I saw it that afternoon it was like a dam had just burst in my chest and all the daughterly love and pain at what had become of my dad poured out at once and didn't stop.
"Dad," I gasped, choking back a sob as I stood up and wrapped my arms around him. "I know. I know you wouldn't have let me stay. I know it. I know."
"I'm just going to miss you, Paige. I'm going to miss you so much. And I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, my beautiful girl. I've let you down. I haven't been a father to –"
"Stop!" I instructed, pulling away and holding my father by his once-solid but now frail shoulders. "Stop it. I may only be 17 but I'm not stupid. I know that life isn't a series of tests we all pass with flying colors and no lasting damage. Mom died. She died, Dad. In a weird way I've always thought what happened afterwards was kind of a testament to how much you loved her. To how much we loved her."
"You're a good girl, Paige," my father replied, stroking my hair and looking into my eyes for more than a second for the first time in years. "But you don't have to make excuses for –"
"I'm not, though," I told him firmly. "I'm not making excuses for anyone. She died and we fell apart. What point is there to lying about it now? To pretending it didn't happen? If I could go back would I change everything so she lived? Of course I would, but that's not how it was for us, was it?"
"OK," my dad breathed, nodding. "OK. I won't argue with you. I don't think I even know how to argue anymore. But what I'm trying to say, what I want you to know more than I want anyone else to know anything in this world, is that I'm sorry. I'm sorry I haven't been here for you. I'm sorry you've had to go through your childhood without your mother – and without me."
He meant it. I could see it in his expression, hear it in his voice, feel it in the space between us – my father was sorry. And even though at 17 I was still too young to truly understand what I'd missed out on – what we'd both missed out on – due to his self-imposed seclusion, part of me knew on some instinctive level that what my father had just done was to salvage something out of the wreckage of his – of our – current lives. Nothing was built yet, no blueprints had been drawn up, but my father had just taken a brick and held it up to me before placing it down into the soft clay between us. A gesture, a promise – hope for a future that might look different to our past.
"Thank-you, Dad," I whispered, suddenly absolutely seized with the need to let him know that I loved him, that I forgave him. "I won't be far, you know. I can come home every weekend. And holidays, too! I can do the shopping on Saturdays, I can –"
"You can come home when you need to come home," he responded. "And not before then. Your old dad is going to have to learn some new tricks. Or relearn old ones, I suppose. Either way, Paige, I don't want you going off to college with a millstone around your neck. You go and take care of yourself. You go and live your life, my beautiful girl. I'll be here when you need me, but you aren't responsible for me anymore. OK?"
"OK, Dad."
Chapter 10
9th Century
"Come on, girl!"
Hildy snaps a length of cloth at the bare backs of my legs and I jump, shrieking with pain, as it connects. She's herding us like cattle again, down to the stream to wash. And the whole way there she's complaining about how filthy we are, about how filthy the Angles are in general, how if she was blind she wouldn't be able to tell the difference between an Angle and a pig. OK, I want to yell. WE GET IT, WE SMELL!
It's been a day and a night since the incident in the Jarl's roundhouse with the guard. I haven't seen the Jarl once since then, and it would appear that I am now to be included in the rest of the group of women from Caistley. Hildy – and a couple of the women from Caistley – have chastised me a few times, told me I'm stupid for not sucking up to the Jarl or not doing whatever it is they seem to be implying I should have done. Honestly, though, it's a lot more relaxing not having to worry about whether or not I'm going to be killed or raped at any given moment. Not, I suppose, that that couldn't happen now, but I do feel a certain level of safety being in a group.
The water is cold and our skin is gray and mottled with goose-bumps when we emerge, teeth clattering, from the stream. Hildy tosses us tunics like the ones worn by the villagers in Caistley and we pull them on over our soaking wet heads. She eyes us sharply and lets a great sigh escape her lips.
"Winter's in the air and no doubt," she quips, to no one in particular. "I suppose it's time to get you some woolens, or we'll have you all freezing to death before sundown."
Twenty minutes later I'm still damp, but much warmer under a layer of thick felted wool in the form of another tunic layered over the thin linen one underneath. Hildy stands back appraising us.
"There you go," she smiles. "Those of you who don't make it through winter now are no fault of mine."
The phrase 'make it through winter' hits me like a ton of bricks, even though I'm immediately aware that it shouldn't. The only person keen to leave is me. I'm keeping my wits about me on that count, too – spotting guards, trying to pick up on the patterns and rhythms of life in the Viking camp, taking note of how far the temperature drops at night. My new woolen tunic causes a burst of optimism in my chest – it's heavy and warm and just the thing to keep me from freezing to death on the return journey to Caistley.
Now all I have to do is get out. It doesn't seem like it will be too difficult. In fact it appears to be very easy – people come and go all day, including slaves as they carry goods to and from the beach or herd animals – pigs or sheep – into or out of the camp. It's the ease itself that worries me. Surely if escaping is that possible, it indicates some confidence on the part of the Vikings that their captives won't even try to flee? Maybe it's just the natural obstacles that have been mentioned before – the cold, the distance, the fact that much of the land may be marshy and treacherous or impossible to cross? It's definitely something, though. Something is keeping the people who have been taken from other villages here with the Vikings, even as they get beaten and threatened with death for stepping out of line.
***
That night, just as I am about to settle down on the dirt floor of the roundhouse with the other Caistley women, the leather door-covering is snatched to the side and Hildy is there once again, her fists balled at her ample hips.
"You!" She shouts, pointing directly at me. "Come with me."
I stand reluctantly and follow her out into the night. She says nothing, marching down the paths worn into the earth by the camp-dwellers and expecting me to follow – which I do. Hildy is free with her slapping hand – and her kicking foot – and I don't want to get hurt again. Nor do I want to risk asking her where we're going, because she has a hair-trigger temper and as I said, I don't want to get hit or kicked.
A few minutes later we arrive at another building, circular but a bit larger than the usual roundhouses. Hildy pushes me roughly inside and I blink in the firelight, looking around. Two women who look to be a little older than me are tending a fire, and a wooden tub of some sort has been set up close to it. One of the women gestures to me to come forward and I
turn to Hildy, unsure what's happening. She shrugs angrily.
"Don't look at me, girl, the Jarl ordered it. Do as the women tell you, now."
With that, she flounces out and I realize that the annoyance in her voice is – is it jealousy? Yes, it must be. Hildy has made a number of cracks about my stupidity already, rubbing it in my face that I had a chance with the Jarl and then I blew it – and now he's paid attention to me again, singling me out? No wonder Hildy is mad. I can't help smiling a little as the women lead me gently to the tub, which I can now see is filled with steaming water. As they undress me I ask questions.
"How did you get the water so hot?"
The shorter woman, who has a pronounced overbite and who tells me her name is Gudry, demonstrates how the water got so hot, pulling a heavy stone from the fire with a pair of tongs and dropping it into the tub, where the water briefly boils and sizzles around it before falling still again.
"Is that going to burn me?" I ask, pulling back slightly as they try to get me to step into the water. "Isn't that rock hot?"
Using the tongs, Gudry reaches in and removes it with a shrug. "The others are cool enough now, you don't need to worry. We wouldn't be the Jarl's maids if we left his women all covered in burn marks, would we?"
Good point, I want to say. But instead of speaking I take Gudry's hand and step into the tub, closing my eyes and almost moaning with the simple ecstasy of being warm, just warm, after so many days of shivering. I add it – warmth – to the ever-growing list in my head of things about the modern world no one even close to appreciates.
"It's nice, isn't it?" Gudry asks, grinning at me and then grimacing as a slap lands on her cheek. "Anja!" She squeaks, looking up. "What did you do that for?"
"You're too familiar," Anja, the clear senior of the two – in rank if not in age – replies. "And I see you leaving your arms in the water for too long, silly girl. You'll drain the heat too quickly and she won't be clean. Hildy will switch us with a branch."
I open my mouth, about to reassure the both of them that I won't say anything to Hildy but something keeps the words in my throat. It's only been a short time but already I'm learning – and learning in a way I never did in Caistley, where despite my friendship with Willa and Eadgar, I was never part of the village itself, never a participant in life there – that the ways of life here are so different as to be incomprehensible to me. I have no idea if promising to keep Gudry's apparent transgression to myself will actually help Gudry or just make whatever punishment she has coming to her even worse. It already backfired a day ago when I snatched a piece of bread back from one of the younger, stronger women from the Caistley group, and returned it to the old woman she'd stolen it from. Hildy saw it happen and took the rest of the old woman's food away, throwing it on the ground and mashing it into the dirt with her feet.
"There!" She'd bellowed, looking right at me. "Keep yourself to yourself, girl, or you just make it worse for everyone."
I still don't understand why Hildy was even angry – she was the one who handed out the food, including to the old woman – why would she be upset that I was trying to make sure we each got our share?
I lie back in the tub, exhaling a long, slow breath and letting Gudry and Anja dip their little linen scraps in the water and run them over my body. Sleep is lurking, dragging my eyelids down, making my limbs heavy. But I don't give in to it – not because I don't want to but because, aside from the pure sensual pleasure of the hot, clean water – I am aware that I am being prepared for something. For someone. The Jarl.
When Gudry's hand pushes the cloth a little lower on my belly than I'm expecting, I jump slightly.
Both women eye me. "What's wrong, lady?"
"My name is Paige," I reply, shaken out of my torpor.
A pause and then Anja repeats Gudry's question, wondering what's wrong. I have no answer. It's obvious they don't understand.
"Are you having your blood?" Gudry asks, ducking out of reach when Anja moves to slap her again.
"She's not having her blood, stupid! Why would we be bathing her if she was?! Unless..."Anja looks at me enquiringly. "Did it just start?"
Briefly, I consider lying and saying it did. But I'll surely be caught in that lie, probably by Hildy and the very last thing I want to do is give Hildy one more reason to be upset with me. I shake my head.
"What then, lady?"
Why are they calling me lady? Everyone else calls me girl. No one calls me Paige.
"N-nothing," I stammer, and then don't manage to keep myself from pushing Gudry's hand away when she moves again to wash me between my legs. "I just – I don't want you to, um – can I do it? Here, give me the cloth, I'll do it. I know how to do it better than you do."
Gudry is about to hand over the cloth when Anja stops her, grabbing it for herself and moving to do the job herself. I grab her wrist, hard, before she gets anywhere near my most intimate area, and look into her eyes.
"I said I would do it myself." The coldness in my voice surprises even me, but it works because Anja lets her arm fall limp and tosses me the rag. "Fine, lady. But if the Jarl complains I'll tell Hildy you –"
"You can do whatever you want," I snap. "Me, I don't want anyone to go running to Hildy. I'd rather we just got this done ourselves and no one got switched with a branch, alright? The Jarl won't complain."
Anja and Gudry both look doubtful as I speak that last sentence, and I suppose with how defiant I'm being I don't blame them.
"The Jarl won't complain," I repeat myself, because somehow it feels like maybe if I say it enough times it might come true.
I use the cloth to clean myself between my legs while Anja works on my neck and shoulders and Gudry uses a carved bone comb to run through my hair.
"At least I don't think he will complain," I say, trying to keep the fear I'm feeling out of my voice as I say it, and hoping one of the women will have some comfort to offer, some advice. Anja picks up on it right away.
"You're a maiden, lady? It's your first time?"
I squeeze my eyes tightly shut in response as what I've been dreading is confirmed. So far I've been able to tell myself the Jarl might just want to talk to me. To court me somehow, to get to know me. But now that Anja has said it out loud I suppose I already knew it. I nod quickly.
"Yes. It is."
Gudry smiles again, before a scowl from Anja wipes it off her face, but she can't help a little excited bounce as she scoots in closer to me. "Your first time, lady! And with a Jarl! Where I grew up the girls would have torn all each other's hair out to be with a Jarl. And this one is so handsome – the most handsome I've ever seen! I was just saying the other day that his eyes are as blue as –"
Anja rolls her eyes. "Enough, Gudry. She didn't ask for you to spill your own desires, did she? She's scared – look at her. Are you scared, lady?"
Of course I'm scared, I want to spit. Instead I just nod.
"It's not so bad," Anja says, lifting one of my feet out of the tub and running the cloth between each of my toes. "It only hurts at first – and when it stops hurting..."
Hildy barges in at the moment, raising her eyebrows impatiently at Anja and Gudry.
"Is she ready? The Jarl wants her now."
It's almost an out-of-body experience as Gudry helps me to my feet and Anja wraps a linen robe around my dripping-wet body. Is this really happening? Alarm bells are clanging in my head, every instinct I have is screaming at me to run, to just push my way past Hildy and keeping going, running out of the Viking camp and all the way back down the coast to Caistley. But I can't run and I know it – Hildy and Gudry and Anja know it, too. It's a chilly evening and I'm soaking wet. I'd barely make it down to the beach before the cold made my limbs stiff and clumsy and eventually prevented me from going any further.
"Wait!" Anja calls just as Hildy is about to lead me away. She pulls a small wooden box, like a jewelry box, out of the leather pouch she wears dangling from the belt around her waist, as all the Viking women seem t
o. Inside it is a waxy substance that smells strongly of – is that roses? It's floral, whatever it is. Strongly floral. Anja dips her finger into the substance and then applies it to the back of my neck and the little spot between my collarbones. "There," she says, nodding at Hildy. "She's ready."
Chapter 11
9th Century
I follow Hildy when she gestures at me to do so and don't duck away when we reach the Jarl's dwelling.
"Here she is," she announces to the Jarl, pushing me forward.
The Jarl is seated on a wooden chair, dressed in the extravagant furs and leather I first saw him in and he appears to be sharpening the blade of a sword. He looks up when Hildy speaks and although I don't dare look directly at him I feel it as his gaze lands on me.
"She's bathed and clean, Jarl," Hildy says.
And then, for a few excruciating moments, no one says anything. Am I being inspected? I still don't dare to look up.
"Come here, girl."
Is he speaking to me? He must be speaking to me. I step forward slowly, towards the fire, thankful for the warmth but so nervous I'm shaking. The Jarl reaches out and takes my trembling hand, bringing it close to his face and then looking up at me. He's got that expression on his face again, the one that says he doesn't understand. I hear the leather door flap shut as Hildy leaves.
"You cold, girl?" The Jarl asks. "Come sit by the fire, have some oxshot."
There is another wooden seat, this one with a dark fur laid over it, next to the fire. Gingerly, because I'm not sure whether he means me to sit on the chair or the floor, I lower myself onto it. The Jarl hands me a cup of carved horn with a dark, warm liquid inside. I bring it up to my nose and sniff, immediately coughing and pulling away. It's sharp and alcoholic, but salty as well. I'm going to have to drink it, too, because even though nobody in the Viking camp has explicitly told me it isn't done to turn down offers of food or drink from the Jarl, I'm beginning to understand it anyway. I take a very small sip of the drink and fail to suppress a cough afterwards. It is alcohol. And it is salty. Oddly savory.
