Chapter Eight
Having discovered not only her roots but also the kind of community where her healing skills would be appreciated, it proved to be relatively easy for Fearn to keep herself occupied almost every day and to concentrate on the plight of others rather than her own.
Through Hrolf, Aric knew and approved of her involvement with the elderly English couple. He had known of them for some time but, because of his frequent long absences, had not understood the full extent of the work they were doing, only that they were Christians whose main interest was to convert the pagans of Lindholm. Aric had no problem with that. People were free to believe in whatever gods suited them best. His own half-hearted belief in Odin’s powers had stood him in good stead, so far, in getting him safely back home from each voyage. But when Hrolf informed him of the English couple’s benevolence towards those who suffered, he found this strangely moving and more useful by far than the eternal pursuit of vengeance that gave no one any long-lasting happiness comparable to a slave’s freedom, for instance.
‘They’re not trying to stop the trade in slaves,’ Hrolf told him.
‘So I understand. But you say they buy them all up? What then?’
‘They heal them and feed them. This is how the Lady Fearn helps. She gives them the kindness they need and she tends the women who give birth. The old couple find good homes for them, usually with other Christians. The men, particularly. The women are good with cloth. Marvellous stuff, it is. And the merchants buy everything they make. They’ve a very lucrative trade going there, but you should see how they care for one another. No beatings. No abuse. I’ve never seen such a happy crowd. They have a small church there, too, but no one is obliged to go. They seem to want to.’
‘So what do they do with the infants?’ Aric said.
‘The mothers are allowed to keep them and when they’re ready to go back to work, the infants are looked after by the others. There’s a lovely little blonde girl there with a twisted foot who fetches and carries all day long. You’d think they’d have thrown her to the wolves when she was born, but there she is, happy as a lark. Everybody loves her, and—’
‘Wait! How old is she?’
Hrolf levelled his hand. ‘About so high. Five winters, perhaps. Why?’
Aric did not answer except with a frown. Could it be? About five years ago? Few would have known about the events of that night except the family. Neighbours would have been told that the child had died naturally. The women never condoned such drastic action. He left Hrolf and headed for the stream where he stripped off his clothes and plunged into the deepest coldest pool, dunking his head below the surface to clear his mind of the terrible wailing and howling of his sister, five years ago. As for the English couple, would it be too great a coincidence to connect them with Fearn’s banished parents? A long way from home, certainly, but stranger things had happened. By now, Fearn would know the truth, yet it disturbed him to think that she did not trust him enough to share it with him, nor had she told him anything about the help she was giving there, or about the child with the twisted foot. But then, when had he ever given her the chance?
For once, the icy water of the stream did nothing to clear his head of the growing resentment he felt at being kept out of Fearn’s thoughts, for the more he knew of her activities, the more certain he was that the English couple must be her long-lost parents, the ones for whom she had grieved so long. He recalled that night on the longship when she had told him of her abandonment and the scar it had left on her heart. Yet now, if indeed she had found them, she was content to let him believe she still suffered. Why? Could it be that this was her way of keeping things even between them? He refusing to discuss her future? She refusing to discuss her past? Or was she afraid of revealing how it came about that she was Thored’s daughter and her mother banished along with her husband? What had happened there? Was it too shameful for her to share with him? Perhaps he ought to go and find out for himself who exactly this couple were and the child with the twisted foot, also, with whom Fearn must have been in close contact. Was that another instance of her determined effort to limit his knowledge of her heart’s pain at another child’s abandonment? Did he deserve such exclusion from her thoughts?
He stood up, grabbing his dry clothes and walking home half-naked, too preoccupied and angry with himself and his woman to care about the stares that followed him to the door.
* * *
Asked that same question, Fearn would have given a similar answer, that their night meetings were filled with a frenzy of desperate lovemaking in which the darkness seemed to conceal all other thoughts concerning the present and the future. If she found it beneficial to put her skills to work on most days, she found it far from comfortable to feel that she was being used by Aric, accepting it only because she could not accept the alternative. How much she needed the relief of making love was borne out when she kept her sharp tongue in check on these occasions, yet their daytime relationship was clouded by resentment when Aric did nothing to relieve her of the fears of uncertainty. When she went so far, once, to mention Loki’s poorly concealed liking to be near Freya whenever and wherever he could, wondering if Aric had noticed, it appeared that he had. ‘I don’t see him as much of a threat,’ he said, with his usual arrogance. ‘She can have her fling now, if that’s what she wants. Plenty of time for her to settle down, after she’s married.’
‘And that’s all you care?’ Fearn said, disconcerted by his attitude. ‘You would not want to warn Loki off?’
‘Warn him off? No, why should I? They both know the position.’
‘How very understanding you are. That means, I take it, that I can—’
Quick as lightning, his hand shot out to grasp her arm as she moved away, hauling her back to him with a snarling reply that left her in no doubt of his seriousness. ‘You can do nothing of the sort!’ he growled, glaring at her with eyes of cold steel from beneath a heavy frown. ‘You are my woman until I release you.’
‘And isn’t Freya your woman, too? You certainly give that impression.’
‘I choose to share your bed, not hers. That’s the difference.’
She glared back at him, knowing how unsettling that could be. ‘Not for long, Dane. You cannot delay your marriage for ever, you know. A woman likes to know where she stands on that kind of thing. You surely don’t expect her to wait for ever, do you?’
‘That’s my business!’ he replied sharply. Then, because she was so close and the scent of her skin disturbed him, he took her white veil and a fistful of her hair and pulled her face to his, sharing with her the kind of fierce, passionate kiss with which his night-time visits usually began before the rhythm of their loving found a more sustainable tempo.
She found that she was trembling as he walked away, her heart beating to a different pace at the anger welling up around it. On the few occasions when they talked, it was as if their mutual frustration found an outlet in harsh words when she would much rather have taken part in a rational discussion. The only person to whom she had expressed her deepest thoughts, and then only briefly, was her half-sister Elf, Queen Aelfgyfu, in the letter. Fearn had shown it, then read it, to Clodagh, who had shaken her head sadly at the contents, remarking that she wished it had been otherwise for her dearest daughter. ‘Have courage,’ she had whispered, holding her in a much-needed embrace. ‘One thing at a time. God is listening. Trust in Him, Fearn.’
The letter had been sent to Lundenburh on one of the trusted merchants’ ships, giving Fearn cause to gloat that Aric was not being allowed to share in this delicious independence. She would like to have sent a letter to Earl Thored in Jorvik, too, to say that she had found Clodagh and Oslac, and that now at last she was able to comprehend the reasons behind her abandonment. But these were not the kind of sentiments one could write in a letter to a man whose reading skills were basic. And there was a limit to the words t
hat Fearn knew to express exactly what she felt about him. It had been difficult to say to Elf how and why she was beginning to love Aric. How much more difficult would it be to tell a man of Thored’s status how she forgave him for the pain he had caused? She would like to have known if Aric’s sister Tove had fallen in love with him all those years ago. Since her own recent experiences, she now knew that this was entirely possible, despite how it must look from a Danish perspective. Clodagh had admitted it and yet, even as a Christian, had been unable to combat the trouble it had caused to her marriage. Now, more and more, the need to see her natural father occupied her thoughts without being able to see a way forward.
* * *
Although Fearn had put Freya’s case for a decision about her wedding to Aric, she had never sought Freya’s company, thinking that she herself might be seen as a threat to her happiness. She was therefore glad to find that this was not so, but rather as a woman as much at the mercy of men’s decisions as she was and therefore to be looked on as a source of mutual sympathy. So it was on a warm day when Fearn was weary with standing at the big upright loom and dropping with a clatter the flat wooden beating sword that Freya arrived to offer a reason to take a rest.
‘The time will come,’ Freya said, smiling as she handed the sword back to Fearn, ‘when some clever person will invent a way for us to sit down while we weave.’
Fearn took the sword with thanks. ‘And when that happens,’ she said, sliding it between the warps, ‘it will be the men who begin to weave. You watch.’
Relaxing against cushions on the fur-covered platform, neither of them found it necessary to say in words what both were thinking, that this meeting had not come a moment too soon and that their similarities numbered more than their differences. With an infusion of elderflowers in one hand and a hot cloud-berry dumpling in the other, they nibbled and sipped and licked sticky fingers as they watched Haesel and Eve skeining wool straight from the spindle. ‘That’s another thing just waiting for an invention,’ Freya said, nodding towards the delicate wooden spindle. ‘A thing that spins wool while you sit at it.’
‘Men have their uses,’ said Fearn, ‘but making women’s work easier is not one of them. They can invent better weapons and ships, of course.’
‘Do they?’
‘Do they what?’
‘Have their uses. I only know of one. Well, two at most.’
All four of them smiled. ‘You’re being too generous, lady,’ Haesel said.
Looking back on this episode, both Fearn and Freya thought how remarkable it was that friendship had come to them with so little effort and how easily they had slipped into the uncomplicated talk that usually took months or weeks to achieve. Inevitably, the conversation turned to their ambiguous relationship with Aric, which Fearn took to be the underlying reason behind Freya’s visit. ‘I don’t want you to see me as a threat,’ she said. ‘I am here against my will. It’s always been my wish to control my life, but so far I’ve failed miserably and, what’s more, I can’t see it happening any time soon, either. I got the impression that that’s what’s happening to you, too, with pressure from all sides. Am I right, Freya?’
In spite of her angled question, Fearn was quite prepared for some opposition to it, for even in so short an acquaintance, and knowing what she knew of Freya’s independence of spirit, she had formed an impression of a character quite at odds with her delicate appearance.
‘I don’t see you as a threat at all, Fearn. I know you’re in an impossible situation and that there isn’t much you can do about it. But I’m still free, although everyone in my family seems to think my future with Aric is a foregone conclusion.’
‘I thought so, too. Isn’t it?’
‘Not to me, it isn’t. Aric has never consulted my wishes and that makes me angry. We’re cousins. We grew up together. He assumes that, because I am part of my father’s farm, all he has to do to get it is to marry me.’ She waved her hands to show the ease of it. ‘That I’ll fall into his hands, just like that! He knows he can take concubines if he wishes and I suppose he assumes I shall not grumble too loudly.’
‘But, Freya, you could divorce him if he did. Couldn’t you? He would never risk it. Besides, if you’re thinking I might be given that role, it won’t happen. You know I must be returned to Jorvik next year and exchanged for Kean. Aric’s long-term plans don’t include me.’
‘I don’t particularly want them to include me either, Fearn,’ Freya said with a faraway look that reached beyond the bright light from the doorway. ‘I can’t discuss anything with my father or Aunt Astrid because they won’t admit there’s anything to discuss. Father is not well and he wants us to get on with it before Aric goes away again, and neither of them thinks a woman is capable of managing a stud farm without at least one of them.’
‘Could you, Freya?’
Freya’s fine fair eyebrows rose, showing eyes of a startling blue. ‘I wonder who Aric thinks has been managing the place while he’s been away. It certainly was not my father. He spends most mornings in bed nowadays. I know as much as either of them about the breeding and rearing and breaking in of horses. I’ve foaled eight mares this year without help from my father, only from the men on the farm and the slaves who work there. He hasn’t told Aric that.’
‘Aric offered to give one of them to me,’ Fearn said, ‘but I refused it.’
‘Really? Well, I’m glad you refused, because it was not his to give.’
‘I’m sorry. I should have known that.’
Freya put out a hand to rest it on Fearn’s, giving it a squeeze before removing it. ‘Don’t be apologising for him,’ she said. ‘It just highlights what I’ve been saying, that Aric assumes the farm is already his. I’m very fond of him, as his cousin, but like most men he’s so intent on what he wants that he tends to forget that others have their own ideas.’
‘Could you not tell him, Freya?’
‘Yes,’ Freya whispered. ‘Yes, it looks as if I might have to.’
It was significant, Fearn thought later, that Freya had not trusted her quite enough to share with her the friendship of Loki, which made her wonder if Loki did indeed have a place in Freya’s future or whether her silence on the matter was because she feared that she, Fearn, might let Aric know of it. It did not matter, she told herself. Everyone has their secrets. She had still not told Wenda that her child lived happily on the other side of Lindholm, for she knew from experience how it would break Clodagh’s heart to part with her now and probably little Meld’s, too. How to resolve the problem in a way that would do least damage would take more co-operation than she could be sure of at this time. Perhaps time itself would provide its own solution. Her talk with Freya had, however, given her some comfort to know that she was not entirely alone in being dissatisfied with Aric’s attitude and also that Freya did not see her as a rival or an enemy. They were both in a similarly difficult position, having their futures interfered with so seriously.
As for Meld’s future, that was precarious, too. Fearn had played with her and given her little tasks to perform, and thought what a bright and happy child she was, brimming with life and intelligence. But like her own peculiarity of odd-coloured eyes, easily recognisable by a parent, Meld’s twisted foot would only have to be spotted by any of Wenda’s family for them to know who she was. And that could so easily happen in a place the size of Lindholm. Hrolf had seen her, but would not know anything of Wenda’s loss five years ago, and Fearn had been careful not to call her parents anything other than by their Christian names, as did everyone else. Hrolf would have no reason to speak of Meld to Aric, or to know that she had found her parents.
* * *
Fearn’s extraordinary gift of healing was soon recognised by Clodagh and Oslac as being something beyond the usual knowledge of herbal remedies relied on by all good households. Even in her earliest days of working with them, she had onl
y to lay her hands upon painful knees for the aged patient to walk away without pain for the first time in years and, as on the voyage where a wound had refused to heal for months, Fearn’s hands could close a wound with a healthy scar in the space of a day. Although Aric had remembered her remarkable skills, he was far from optimistic about her offer to help his uncle, however. ‘He would not allow it,’ he said, lifting his new gerfalcon up on his gloved wrist and feeding it a morsel of meat.
‘Why?’ Fearn persisted. ‘Doesn’t he want to recover?’
‘He won’t even admit there’s a problem,’ Aric said. ‘He thinks it’s just the tiredness of old age.’
‘It is. But he has chest pains, too. Everyone can see that.’
‘Anyway, he would never accept the help of a woman. Especially not you.’
‘Why not me?’ Fearn asked. ‘He doesn’t trust me?’
‘Because you’re different. What did Freya want?’
‘To talk. Is that so strange?’
‘About me?’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ Fearn said, making the falcon flap in alarm. ‘You men have such inflated ideas about your importance to women, don’t you? No, we didn’t’ talk about you, we talked about ourselves. That’s much more interesting.’ Stomping away from him and the agitated bird, she did not see Aric’s laughing face.
They had discussed him, of course, although Fearn knew he would not have been so cocksure of his place in their hearts if he’d heard their criticisms of his manner, taking them both for granted, refusing to discuss their futures with them, and his own involvement. How far this reflected his own uncertainties they could not know.
* * *
Only a few days later it began to look as if matters might be debated at last when Uther sent for Aric for a family discussion.
‘You will come with me,’ Aric told Fearn. ‘For as long as you are in Lindholm, you are involved.’
Captive of the Viking Page 17
