Shivering with emotion and relief, and close to tears, Haesel stood on shaking legs, then slowly made her way back down the hillside, reflecting on what she now knew and must keep secret, that some five years ago, a young lass from the settlement had rescued Wenda’s infant and that it probably still lived where it would be safe from mistreatment. Opening the wicker gate into the croft, she was relieved to see a familiar figure coming from the hall to meet her. ‘Hrolf!’ she whispered, smiling shyly.
‘Where’ve you been?’ the young man said. ‘I missed you.’ He stood before her as if to insist on an answer, then took her tenderly into his arms and held her head against his chest. ‘You’re trembling,’ he said.
‘I needed some fresh air,’ she said against his woollen tunic. ‘Will they stay in there all night?’
‘All night and half tomorrow, too, if I know anything. The Lady Astrid doesn’t do things by halves. Listen! That’s your lady tuning her harp, isn’t it?’
The hall had fallen silent as they walked in together, respectfully waiting for Fearn to listen to each string whilst twisting the pegs, then to ripple her fingers across the strings in preparation for a song. Haesel knew which one it would be, a haunting song of her Northumbrian homeland, its hills and streams, the sun and shadows on the fells, its wild moorland. Fearn’s voice was husky and low rather than bright, and there was not one who listened who could doubt her longing to be home. There was one man in particular who, instead of watching her dark head and the fall of her hair, looked down at his hands clasped together, clearly taking on the responsibility for her sadness and deeply moved by her performance. Beside him sat his cousin Freya, glancing anxiously from time to time at her hoary old father, Uther, whose fist was pressed hard against his heart, his face drawn into a frown of pain.
‘Aric’s uncle is unwell,’ Haesel whispered to Hrolf.
‘Aye, he’s getting too old for this kind of thing,’ he replied, ‘but try telling him that.’
‘It’s his heart,’ she insisted.
‘Nah! He doesn’t have one. He and his brother were a heartless pair.’
The applause for Fearn’s recital drowned out any reply Haesel could have made to that enigmatic remark, although she was left with the impression that Uther Borgsen was not well liked by Aric’s men. She and Hrolf stayed close to Fearn and her new friends for several hours after that, but the time came when the women asked to be excused, Fearn amongst them. As she rose from her cushioned bench, Aric came across to her, slipping off one of his heavy gold arm-bracelets and laying it on the table beside her beaker. ‘For you,’ he said. ‘For your singing.’
Their eyes met as others looked on to see how she would accept the gift, but Fearn simply turned away to go, leaving the gold bracelet where Aric had put it, glinting with blood-red garnets. He watched her leave the hall, then snatched the weighty gold piece and thrust his hand through it. ‘Women!’ he said to those near enough to hear, though all could see that his clumsy gesture had misfired enough to anger him.
* * *
The linen cloths that the Queen had supplied for Fearn’s monthly courses now flapped on the line round the back of the great hall, pegged there with split twigs by Haesel and the slave girl Eve, neither of them regarding this task as anything but a routine duty for their lady. But Haesel had seen something disturbingly familiar about Eve’s movements, something she could not identify except, maybe, by asking the girl about herself. ‘Do you find it hard to be a Christian amongst so many pagans, Eve?’ she said, taking a peg out of her mouth.
Eve picked another cloth out of the bucket. ‘At first I did,’ she said, ‘until I found that there are others here.’
‘Here in Lindholm? Where?’
‘Just a few. They keep it quiet. Down on the edge of the village by the merchants’ quarters. I go to see them several times a week. They’ll be glad to know we have you and the lady with us. I can take you to meet them, if the lady wishes it.’
‘I’m sure she would. But how long have you known them, Eve?’
‘Since I first came here,’ Eve said, picking up the bucket. ‘About five winters, or thereabouts. I was about eleven when I was stolen, but I can’t grumble. Life in England was a lot harder and I had less to eat. I think you might be about my age.’
‘Sixteen? Yes, something like that. Without someone to remind you of when you were born, it’s a bit difficult to tell, isn’t it? Did you wear your hair loose then?’
‘Oh, yes, like all children. But now I prefer to keep it covered with a scarf. It keeps men’s hands off it.’ She grinned. ‘One of the problems of being a slave is that men think they have a right to you.’
‘Jarl Aric?’
‘No, not him. But I hide when his uncle comes here.’
Haesel could understand it. Eve was darkly pretty, a dainty young woman with perfect white teeth and a ravishing smile, and a swinging long-legged walk that rocked her hips seductively. They walked together back to the hall, and although Haesel had not asked Eve directly if she had rescued Wenda’s child that night, she was reasonably certain that, about five years ago, that was what had happened and that it was not hard for her to guess where Eve would have taken it.
* * *
Later that day, Eve took Haesel and Fearn through the maze of timber walkways between houses and plots across to the far side of the settlement where merchants’ boats were tied up at the jetties. Hrolf was also with them, which Fearn took to be a sign that they would not be allowed to go far without an escort, but whether for their safety or as a curb on their movements she was unsure. Nevertheless, she was glad of his presence when, with a group of merchants haggling over a shipload of slaves, there was the large fur-hatted man whose hand was still bound up from Fearn’s knife-wound.
The part of the wharf known as the merchants’ quarters was a hive of activity where living went on side by side with buying and selling, storing and exchanging, making money and trading in every kind of commodity, where now Fearn could see the pathetic state of people who, tied together and half-naked, were being sold straight from the ships. Watching the scene from the distance of a large warehouse, they saw how the slaves, some children with their mothers, some women obviously pregnant, younger men and boys stumbled on to the jetties in bare feet, their hair filthy, clothes damp and dirty, eyes staring in fright or half-closed with exhaustion. Herded like sheep, they shuffled into a wicker enclosure to the sound of men’s shouts and children’s pitiful screams.
‘No, lady! Don’t go!’ Eve said to Fearn as she made a move towards them. ‘Wait, you’ll see...there...over there...those people will take them. They’re some of the Christians. Watch!’
As they watched, a group of well-dressed Danish men and women appeared as if from nowhere, the women’s long hair tied up in elaborate knots, large bronze brooches on their shoulders, fur edges around their cloaks. Three of the men were already speaking to the dealer as if they knew exactly what each slave was worth, shaking heads, walking away, returning to look again and haggle some more. ‘Will they buy them all?’ Fearn said, sickened by the sight of so much distress. If this kind of thing happened in Jorvik, she had never seen it. ‘There must be at least twenty, including babies.’
‘They usually manage it, because the slave-traders want our cloth,’ Eve said. ‘They can’t find anything like it elsewhere. See those bales on the wagon?’
For the first time, Haesel and Fearn noticed a horse-drawn wagon behind the group, stacked high with bales of cloth in a tantalising array of colours ranging through deepest blues, browns and black to every dye colour that the women knew, and more, bright reds and yellows, greens and the softer tones produced by lichen, bark and heathers. Eve explained that not only were these people expert dyers, but weavers, too, for the fabrics were of fine wool, locally grown linen and imported raw silk, skilfully woven into the expensive diamond twill pattern, embe
llished with gold-threaded tablet-woven bands and embroidered with threads made here in Lindholm by their own goldsmiths.
‘But who makes it?’ Fearn asked. ‘There must be years of work on that wagon?’
‘No, just a lot of willing hands. In exchange for their freedom, the slaves who come here from Russia, Ireland and England are happy to share what skills they have. They’re fed and clothed and looked after by the Christian couple and their helpers, and eventually they recover and set to work. Some teach the others who come and some go to work for other families.’
‘But not as slaves?’
‘No, this will be the last time they’re bought or sold.’
As they listened to Eve, the bolts of cloth were being spread on tables, billowing and shining in the sun, fine transparent linens next to the sheen of silk and the comforting warmth of lambswool, and Fearn could see by the merchants’ patting and stroking hands, their greedy eyes and fast bargaining that they found the exotic fabrics of far more interest than the miserable half-starved creatures whose bonds were already being untied. It was a busy time and not one to be disrupted by curious visitors, so although Fearn would like to have made contact with these compassionate Danes there and then, it was the poor slaves who needed their attention rather more urgently. ‘No matter,’ said Eve. ‘Now you know where they are, you’ll be able to find them on your own. But keep well away from the Russian merchant with the hat. He has a reputation.’
‘We saw him at Aggersborg,’ Haesel said. ‘But where do the slaves go to be tended? Is there a separate house for them?’
Eve pointed to a large longhouse with a series of smaller huts nearby, well back from the trading area. ‘Over there is a special place where women can go to give birth and be looked after. And anyone else who needs healing.’
They had begun to walk away, but Haesel felt a pressing need to see this place that had already taken shape at the back of her mind. ‘Might we just take a quick look?’ she said. ‘I’m curious.’
It was only a few moments’ walk to the spruce well-tended plot where boys turned the soil with spades and others gathered armfuls of young kale. Unlike the busy great hall on Aric’s plot, the interior of this one was quiet and neatly furnished with rows of beds along both sides, each one occupied by a mother and her infant, rocking and crooning, feeding or sleeping, and so close to Haesel’s vision that she had to cling to Hrolf to stay upright. ‘What is it?’ he said, supporting her.
Her face was almost white as she smiled an excuse. ‘Just women’s things.’
* * *
Later, Fearn was able to ask more, though she, too, had seen the connection. ‘Then this has something to do with us, doesn’t it? Your seeings always do,’ she said.
‘They might be glad of some help with the healing,’ Haesel said. ‘Perhaps we should go back there later on and introduce ourselves. This has come at a perfect time for you, lady. Just when you need to talk about things, as you would with Mother Bridget.’
‘Danes,’ said Fearn, dismissively. ‘A poor substitute for Mother Bridget.’
‘No, Eve told me that the couple who run the place are English, like us. That’s how she got involved. She says they’re elderly now, so they leave the buying and selling to the Danes, but they’re the ones who started it all.’
‘What else did she tell you?’
‘Nothing much. No use telling her we’re from Jorvik when she thinks that Cornwall is all there is to England. She has no idea where she is now, except that it’s a long way from home. Er...lady...’ she said, looking sideways at the figure in the doorway, ‘the Jarl wishes to speak with you, I think.’
Deliberately, Fearn took her time to adjust the gold circlet over her veil, to pull her girdle into place and to slip her feet into the loose leather sandals. She would not look at him, but sauntered past him on to the pathway, debating whether to speak, and how, and of what, when there had been only the briefest contact between them since the previous day, and that acrimonious, to say the least. Walking together in silence, they entered the paddock where four mares and foals looked up from their grazing to come to them, breaking the tension that Fearn had no wish to relieve with the slightest courtesy. Even so, it was impossible for her not to speak to the delightful foal who sniffed at her face as if to offer some comfort, her low words listened to, their tone understood. ‘She likes you,’ Aric said, pulling at the mare’s ears. ‘If I gave her to you, would you accept her? She’ll probably be a grey, like her dam.’
At any other time the idea would have given her great pleasure, never having been offered a gift of such value before. But now was too soon for the hurt to be salved by a gift of any value and she clung to her pride like a limpet to a rock. ‘No, I thank you,’ she said. ‘You have nothing I could ever want.’
The reply clearly shook him as he realised how deep the rift between them had grown and that he had no kind of policy to deal with such a calamity when he had never had to placate a woman’s self-esteem before this. Placing a hand on the mare’s withers, he used it as a prop while he groped clumsily for the right approach. ‘Fearn,’ he said, ‘last night, my attempt with the arm-ring...to thank you for...’
‘Was quite unnecessary,’ she replied, coldly. ‘Don’t give it another thought. I don’t need your thanks. Not for anything. My song was for me, not you.’
‘You are sounding more like a petulant child than a grown woman,’ he said.
‘Yes, life can be so confusing,’ she retorted. ‘Yesterday, you came to me as a man and walked away like a bewildered youth who didn’t know the value of what he’d just won. But be very sure, Dane, that you’ll never win it from me again. Or, if you do, you’ll have to fight for it, for I’ll not suffer your scorn a second time.’
‘Fearn, it was not like that. I admit I was confused. I did not expect to feel the way I did. It took me by surprise. But it was not scorn I felt. And somehow I have to win you back to me.’
‘I have never been yours. Nor will I ever be.’
‘Yesterday, there was a moment when I felt you might have been.’
‘Mistaken. That’s your arrogance speaking.’
‘And you have not been over any part of...of our lovemaking...and thought...?’
‘No, I haven’t. Your walking away was the most memorable part.’
‘Fearn,’ he said, softly, ‘you’re lying again.’
A heat rushed into her nose as tears stung behind her eyes and the foal pushed its velvet muzzle against hers, absorbing her distress. ‘It’s the truth,’ she whispered. ‘If you want to give me something, give me a boat to sail me back home.’
‘In a year, I will. But I cannot live with you for that time and not have you in my bed.’
‘And suffer all that dreadful confusion?’ she said, pouring scorn into her voice. ‘Just think what I shall have to suffer.’ If tears of anger had not filled her eyes just then, she would have moved quickly to evade him as he stepped towards her, reaching out with gentle firmness to hold her close to him.
‘This is what you will have to suffer, my beauty,’ he said, slanting her head against his to receive his kiss, so potent that Fearn felt the effects of it travel down as far as her knees. Moving, searching, this was not the attempt of the bewildered youth with which she had taunted him, but a reminder, if she needed one, of the virile male who had won her with such ease, and with her co-operation. Now, effectively contradicting all she’d been saying to him, her arms disobediently reached up to his shoulders, her fingers finding his plait of hair and holding on to it like a lifeline, bringing back to her memory certain elements of their loving that she had thought never to repeat. She did not even protest when his hand took her breast to feel its heavy roundness, so tender at this time of the month, so aching for more than he could give, so sensitive to the gentle kneading motion of his fingers. Vaguely, the picture of that mothers�
�� room with the suckling infants came and went in an instant, exciting a response from her lips like a wail of intense desire, causing a deep throb of pain in her womb, making her push at him and plead to be released. ‘No,’ she gasped. ‘No more.’ One hand pressed against her body below her girdle and immediately he knew why. Lack of privacy and two sisters had informed him well.
‘Put your arm around my neck,’ he ordered, bending to lift her into his arms. ‘Come on, it’s all right. I’m taking you back.’ Striding down to the house, he caught sight of Haesel and called to her to open the door, swinging Fearn through into her chamber and laying her carefully on the fur-covered bed. ‘Tend her,’ he said. ‘Hot drinks? Honey? Do you have charms for this kind of thing?’
Haesel smiled kindly at his concern. ‘Er...no, but I’ve just gathered some chamomile and feverfew, the first of the season. That usually does very well.’
* * *
It was not usual for Fearn to be unwell at times like this, but the last month had been exceptional in every way, and so it was a week before she felt like repeating her visit to the Christian community over on the far side of the settlement. Again, Eve accompanied them, but Hrolf had not been told of their plans so had gone with his family to the marshland to make a ritual sacrifice.
To house a new influx of slaves, tents of hide had been erected in the nearby field where the occupants had already taken on a more normal appearance, clean, better clothed and no longer half-starved. Eve took her guests into the large building, a thatched roundhouse where barefoot children scuttled between adults, fetching and carrying, stirring pots over the fire, playing board games or helping to feed several sick people who lay under furs round the sides. Near the doorway, two huge looms leaned against the walls, worked by women who did not look up from their weaving as Fearn, Haesel and Eve entered, but a call from the far side of the room was in English instead of the usual Danish. ‘Eve! We’ve missed you! What happened to you, lassie?’
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