by Joanna Bell
They knew how to splint bones – better than I did, anyway. But it was I who taught a few of the women not only to use only water that had been boiled for at least the time it took to run to the beach and back – about ten minutes – on any broken skin, but to boil the linen bandages, too, and then to hang them from tree branches in the sunshine until they dried. It was me who taught them to always keep their own hands as clean as possible when handling the bandages or tending to a wound.
As ever with these things, it was just a few of them who listened at first, those who had seen how the apprentice's burn had healed without festering. But then, as those women began to use my techniques, and to see them work with their own families, more wanted to know about them. I soon found myself working hand in hand with the healers in Haesting, and being asked about medical and health issues about which I had no knowledge.
"Ceoldor's son says his wife feels a sensation like beetles crawling across her arms when she lies in bed at night," I told Magnus one evening when he asked me how I'd spent my day. "He wanted to know what he should do about it. But I don't have any idea what it means to feel like beetles are running all over your arms! All I know is that being clean is important when dealing with cuts and wounds – that's it. And now they think I'm some kind of wise doctor!"
My husband scooped a piece of ham from his pottage and ate it. "A wise doctor, is it? You have told me about doctors before, girl. The Angles know only their healers, and their healer's herbs and concoctions. Is it true what you say of your own healers – your doctors – in your homeland? That they can infuse the blood from one man into another, who has suffered an injury and lost most of his own?"
I was never secretive with Magnus about my life in the USA. There was never a reason to be. But I was aware, even more as the years wore on and I came to understand how deeply primitive life for the Angles was, that much of what I could tell him would be so strange as to be almost incomprehensible. The idea of blood transfusions would have seemed like black magic to the Angles. Even to my Northman, after explaining them repeatedly, I could see from the look on his face that part of him couldn't believe that I spoke the truth.
"But how does the man receiving the new blood not simply lose it from the hole used to deliver it?" He asked me once, after I'd tried once more to explain.
"The hole is extremely small," I told him. "It's barely a hole. The needle is so fine the hole it makes looks like the mark left by a bee's sting."
"And how do you have a needle so fine? How do you make a needle that fine, that can still deliver blood?"
Our conversations always foundered on those rocks – when Magnus demanded more and more answers until I found I had none except telling him that the needles just were that thin. I didn't know how they were made, or where, or who made them or the technique they used – I only knew that the needles were that thin.
On the night we spoke of Ceoldor's son's wife, and her itchy arms, Magnus asked me if I wanted to look again for the tree that could take me back to where I came from.
We were in our late thirties by then – or close to it. Magnus said it was actually our late forties but he was wrong – it had not been so many years since the loss of our son. However old we were, we had not spoken of the tree for a long time.
"Why do you ask?" I replied, spreading butter over a piece of bread.
He did not reply right away, but I saw at once that he was worried, even as he tried to hide it.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"It's probably nothing to worry about," he replied, looking down at his supper. "How many winters has this estate stood now? And how many trained men does she have to defend her walls?"
"It's been a long time," I agreed. "And there are many warriors now, it's true. I heard one of the men living within the walls say that there's a rumor the King himself sees how well-defended Haesting is, and envies us our protections."
"Aye, we are well-defended."
"So why did I see that look on your face, like something bothers you? What is it?"
My husband finished chewing a piece of bread and then once again avoided my gaze. "There's word of new raids by my people – the Northmen, down the coast to the south."
I waited for him to continue, but he did not. "Aren't there often rumors of raids?" I asked, nervous to see that Magnus was truly bothered by whatever it was he wasn't yet telling me.
"Aye, there are. But these – these do not seem to be rumors. A trader from Kent who Lord Eldred says is trustworthy tells of attacks moving up the coast, and increasing in strength. He says even large villages have been burned to the ground, and that the Northmen seem to be renewing their interest in this land once more."
"A trader from Kent? Did you even speak to him yourself?"
"I did. And what I heard was enough to send me to Lord Eldred, who confirmed that he has been hearing the same."
We had been so safe for so long, and lately so secure in our ability to defend ourselves, that I actually found it difficult to imagine a raid – even of Northmen – being successful. Still, the way my husband's mouth was set meant he was taking the news seriously – which meant I took it seriously, knowing that he was more knowledgeable than me when it came to such things.
"Do you think we should move back inside the walls?" I asked.
The walls around the cottages, gardens and fields outside of the main Haesting estate were mostly stone, by that time, but they were meant to keep livestock in, not invaders out. As such they were built no higher than the height of a man's waist.
"I should have put up a palisade with Ceoldor and his sons, as we spoke of," Magnus replied. "Of course we found ourselves busy with other tasks, and now – let me speak with him, and with Eldred again. The Northmen are not upon us yet, but if there is word they approach, yes, we will move back inside the walls of the estate."
Chapter Twenty
Ora
It had been many a winter since my brief time with the Northman when Eltha's belly swelled with a child. And although I was married to one of my own people by then, and a mother to three boys and one girl, I had not forgotten my time with Asger.
We met when he found me picking oysters on the beach and he drew his sword, threatening to chop off my head if I didn't tell him if I had heard tell of a Northman and an Angle woman, traveling together in the vicinity.
When I told him – truthfully – that I'd heard of no such traveling pair, he let the tip of his sword rest in the wet sand and looked down at me appraisingly.
"Is it so, girl? Perhaps I am only inclined to believe you because you're so pretty."
I remember blushing with pleasure at the compliment, sensing almost right away that the Northman – who was without companions – did not intend to kill me. He seemed more intent on impressing me. After asking me once more if I was sure I had not seen the Northman he sought, or the woman who might be with him, he told me his name was Asger and asked me my own.
"It's Ora," I told him, only to find myself invited into the woods so we could 'talk further.'
As I said, I was innocent. But I was not so innocent that I did not know what it was the Northman wanted. He was better looking than the boys I was used to – taller and stronger, and dressed in fine leathers – and something about his attention made me smile and giggle. I agreed to go into the woods with him to talk further, and we soon found ourselves in a little glade, sitting on a fallen log.
"You distract me," he said, eying my body under my tunic. "I meant to question you about who you have seen passing these parts, but it seems I cannot take my eyes off what I can almost see underneath your dressings."
I giggled again, and bit my lip.
"Perhaps," he suggested, "I would be more able to concentrate if you were to show me what's underneath."
I would have shown him anyway, because I liked the attention he was giving me, but he reached out before I had a chance, and pushed my tunic off one of my shoulders. And then the other, until his eyes grew wide and greedy
as the linen fell far enough to reveal my breasts.
"So pretty," he whispered, taking each one in his hands at once, kneading and squeezing, his hands rough and eager. "You're so pretty."
It was only the second time a boy had touched my breasts. It happened once before, only a couple of moons before I met the Northman on the beach. One of the boys from the village found me in the field, looking for a lost pig, and we kissed a little bit. But that boy's breath smelled foul and he was pale and skinny. Asger's skin was smooth and golden with the sun, his shoulders broad and his gaze arrogant. His hands on my breasts produced quite a different feeling than that caused by the village boy.
"Take – take the rest of it off, girl. Hurry, I cannot stay for long!"
I took the rest of my tunic off. There was no ceremony. As soon as Asger saw me naked, he pushed me down onto my back and spread my legs with his hands. It didn't last long. I remember a sharp pain, and then giggling at the look on his face, and then wondering if I should be afraid by how fast he suddenly moved. And then it was over, so soon I thought maybe the deed had not even been done for him – although I remember standing up and feeling the slickness on my thighs that proved it had.
When he began to straighten his leathers out I reached out to take his hand and he brushed it away.
"Asger? Will you come back to –"
"I need to get back to my men!" He snapped. "Girl – why did you accost me so –"
"I did not accost you!" I protested, as my heart sank with disappointment to be treated so dismissively. "You –"
I didn't finish my sentence, because the Northman raised his hand, as if to strike me. "You did! You did, you dirty little wench! Ah, I suppose there are worse ways to be accosted, though, are there not? We will be here until we find the man we look for – my traitor brother – do you live nearby?"
Pleased to hear I might see him again, I told Asger where my village was and which path to take from the beach to find it. And then he left me naked on the ground, sore, and without so much as a kiss.
But he came back. He came back that same day, in the evening, and waited in the woods near my father's hut to grab my wrist and yank me unexpectedly into the bushes when I was sent to fetch some sneeps from the garden.
My scream – for I did not yet know who grabbed me – was smothered by a hand over my mouth, and then Asger himself grinning at me.
"Stop yelling, girl! It makes you sound like an old wife – and I do not need to hear such things coming from such a pretty mouth!"
"I'm sorry," I started, smiling to see him again as warmth spread across my belly to know what he had come back for. "I did not expect to –"
Asger began to kiss me. His kisses were like his hands – rough, eager, quick. That time, instead of pushing me down right away – which I would have let him do – he pulled me down next to him so we were both sitting on the ground, and pulled his leathers aside.
"Look what you've done to me," he accused, gesturing down at his cock, which I could only just make out in the fading light. A jolt ran through my belly to see the state he was in, but I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't want to upset him or make him angry again.
"Were you a maid?" He enquired, lifting my tunic off over my head and beginning to roughly handle my breasts again. "This afternoon, in the woods – were you a maid? You made a sound when I was first inside you, as if it hurt, and I was wondering if –"
"Yes," I replied, hearing that my own voice sounded strange because of what Asger was making me feel. "I –"
"Ha!" He chuckled triumphantly. "I don't know whether to call you lucky or unlucky! It isn't many an Angle who can claim a true Northman – the son of the Jarl and the future Jarl himself no less – made her a woman. You have that to boast of to your friends. But it is also true that now you are ruined for life, and will always dream of the things I did to you that men of your own kind cannot."
I didn't quite know what the Northman meant by the things he did to me that other men could not. Everything he had so far done to me seemed that it could have been done by any man. But I didn't say what I thought out loud, because even though I was young and not very knowledgeable about men and their need to feel themselves superior to other men, I sensed that Asger would not react well to questioning.
"Mmm," he breathed heavily when he pushed me back onto the ground and reached down between our bodies to join them. "You're all wet, Ora. Is that because of me? Is that because you thought all day of the things I did to you earlier?"
I smiled and nodded, which only seemed to excite him further.
It was over quickly again. Just as I was beginning to feel a strange, aching need between my legs, Asger suddenly stopped his thrusting and groaned loudly, holding himself inside me as he did.
That's how it went, for a short time. The Northman came to me daily – often more than once daily – to fuck me and then to complain to me of his father's sternness and his own lack of freedom.
"I'm young!" I remember him saying one afternoon, after he had taken me on the beach and then insisted on watching his seed run down my thighs. "Why does my father not understand that?! He expects me to think all day of strategy and tactics and swordsmanship and – ugh, I can't take it. Thankfully I have you to calm me, girl, and your sweet body to give me ease."
In truth, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the attention, as fleeting as it was. Asger was very attractive, and he had that way about him that some boys have, of never quite giving you enough of themselves to satisfy. I was always attached to boys who gave me that feeling of wanting more.
One night, after he had snuck away from the camp of Northmen, and as he had just finished himself on my breasts, he sat down with a heavy sigh and told me that his father was angry.
"Why?" I asked, because it was my role to ask Asger about himself – as clearly as it was my role to spread my legs for him.
"He worries that my brother is lost, that the rift is not one that can be mended. He rants and raves every evening, sometimes threatening to kill him, other times threatening to take him back and make him the next Jarl instead of me!"
"Is it so?!" I cried, because once again I knew it was expected of me to react with horror. "It can't be, Asger! Why would your father do such a thing?"
"Because he's a foolish old man who does not understand how it is for his firstborn son!" He replied. "He thinks only of himself, only of his 'legacy' – it's all he speaks of. All my life it has been this way, always having to meet his expectations and never quite doing so. I'm sick of it!"
After that night, I did not see Asger again. It was a quarter moon later, as I was walking through the woods one day, that I found myself yanked off the path and assumed it was him, come back to see me once more.
But it was not him. It was a Northman, but it wasn't Asger. It was his father, I knew it right away. There was a similar look to his eyes and mouth, and he was dressed in even finer leathers than his son.
"Lord," I said immediately, bowing my head respectfully as I had been taught to do when dealing with highers.
"I'm the Jarl," Asger's father replied. "Not a lord. And I need to speak with you, girl."
"Is Asger –"
"Asger is dead."
Tears immediately sprang to my eyes, and I covered my mouth with my hands.
"Yes," the Northern Jarl continued. "Dead. Slaughtered by his own brother! I came to your land not a moon ago, with two sons. Now it seems I return to the North with none. Stop your weeping, girl, I did not come to share my misery with you. I come because I need you to promise me something – and I will pay you well for your promise."
I turned my face up, then, my ears pricking at the intimation that I might be well paid. "Yes?" I asked. "What is it you –"
"You say you live near here? It is not within the walls of the estate, is it? The one just south of here?"
"Not within the walls, no. But Lord Eldred owns the land where we grow our crops, and he takes his share of them. It is he who is charged with our safety
if –"
"And my son said you are training in the healing arts – is it so?"
I wondered what all the questions were leading to, but Asger's father was a much more serious man than Asger himself, and I was too afraid to do much more than answer him. In the end, it turned out that he wanted me to keep watch for his other son, and his other son's woman. He produced a little gold trinket from one of his leather pouches, and placed it in my hand. It was worked into the shape of a wolf's head, and studded with colored stones all in a circle around the edges.
"Do you know how much this is worth?" He asked. "It is worth more than your whole family will ever own. You can trade this for grain, or livestock, or favor with a different lord, if you ever need to flee. And yet it is not a fraction of the gold I will give you if you do as I ask."
I thought at once of the little hut where I lived with my parents and siblings, and the fact that our bellies often went empty at night. I thought of how we had not been allowed to live inside the walls of the estate because we were too low in station. I thought of how it would be one thing to buy our way in and then, if what Asger's father was saying was true, that it would be quite another to afford walls of our own, and men of our own. To not need to beg favors of those who looked down on us.
"Is it so?" I asked.
"It's as true as anything I have ever said, girl. I must return to the North, but now with no sons, and no legacy, the favor I ask of you is more important to me than you can know. You must swear to me that you will do as I ask. And in return, your family will be rewarded. You will be rich beyond what you can imagine. But only if you do as I say."
