Viking Hostage

by Warr, Tracey;

  ‘Me you mean?’ asked Adalmode and he flicked a spray of water at her, leaving damp circles on her skirt.

  ‘What was it like in Limoges, when you saw the Duke?’

  ‘Oh you know. Terrible as always. Father asked for the return of his rights – not with much grace I must say – the Duke was rudely forthright and rapid in refusing him.’

  ‘Despite the prisoners?’

  Guy nodded.

  ‘Did you see Ademar of Ségur there, our cousin, who rules in Limoges in our father’s stead?’

  ‘No, he was away on one of his trading trips in the north but his little daughter was there, a red-head, accompanied by Ademar’s steward. The Duke made a big fuss of how pretty she was.’

  ‘Aina isn’t it?’

  Guy nodded again.

  ‘Ademar has no sons. That’s something.’

  Guy shrugged. Sons could come after all.

  ‘I’m worried about your military prowess,’ said Adalmode, laying heavy sarcasm on her final word, hauling herself up onto a large flat rock, determined to talk through her brother’s problems.

  Guy grimaced.

  ‘If Father isn’t convinced you can command the men,’ Adalmode told him, ‘you’ll find yourself in a monastery and Hildegaire will be the new Viscount in waiting.’

  ‘Do we have to talk about this again,’ groaned Guy. ‘It’s such a lovely day. Look at that eagle soaring there.’

  ‘It’s a cormorant, Guy,’ she said exasperated. ‘Do you want to be a monk then?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Guy said, finally serious.

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘What can I do though?’

  Adalmode looked at his thin body stretched out next to her. He was all knobs of bone: elbows, knees, wrists. Her own limbs were muscular, rounded and tanned a golden olive colour, whereas Guy’s skin was pinkish brown in places, burnt and peeling in others and shockingly white in the rest. Physically he took after their mother and not their rugged warrior father. Their mother sometimes referred affectionately to Guy as a long streak of nothing. ‘You need to bulk up,’ Adalmode said without conviction, ‘but you already eat like a goat. More meat perhaps?’

  ‘I doubt if eating more or exercising more is going to transform me,’ said Guy. ‘I’m just hopeless at the quintain.’ They laughed, remembering his latest humilation with the shield and dummy suspended from a swinging pole. Guy managed to charge and hit the shield but then failed to avoid the rotating arms with their heavy sandbag that so frequently winded him and knocked him from the saddle.

  ‘You’re hopeless at all of it,’ Adalmode interjected affectionately.

  ‘Yes, but I can’t see the quintain at all, not until my horse is more or less right underneath it, so I completely fumble that, and of course, then there’s the archery …’

  Adalmode smothered a yelp of laughter remembering how her brother had been forced by Hildegaire to the game of penny prick last week, shooting an arrow at a hanging penny coin, but accidentally shooting his arrow into the rump of a passing horse.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ he remonstrated, ‘I spent all night in the stable with that poor horse and his groom, dressing the wound and trying to say sorry.’

  ‘You are safe, for now,’ said Adalmode, ‘because of the capture of Helie of La Marche and your advice to Father. He appreciates your political astuteness and we must hope that taking these prisoners will pay off in time.’ She closed her eyes and lent back basking on her elbows, thinking about the blue gaze of the black haired young man in the dungeon, a contradictory gaze full of laughter and desperation.

  Guy looked around. Everything was a green, blue-grey blur. He knew that the green was the bushes, trees and grass and the blue-grey was the water, the rocks and sky, and he could discern the brilliant blonde head of his sister in the vague wash of his vision, but there was no detail. He could not see the contours of her face unless he brought his own up very close to hers, and he had learnt not to do that in public.

  3

  Hedeby

  September 972

  To be clean and fed by Lord Ademar and Lady Melisende should feel marvellous after the horrors I have been through, but I am numb at the loss of my brothers. The day after the slave market I wake in the saddle, held to Melisende’s breast, covered by her warm cloak. I tried not to sleep, to look and look at everything we passed, hoping I would remember the way back when I escape to search for Thorgils, but I was so bone-tired that eventually my eyelids drooped and I dreamt I was home in Viken playing and my father was calling us in to come and eat. Waking, I feel devastatingly miserable as the knowledge of my losses floods back upon me. Seeing that I am awake, Melisende kisses the top of my head and strokes my cheek. She smells of lemons.

  At the port Ademar concludes his business with the Estonian merchants, aided by his servant, Phillippe, a big man with a bushy brown beard. Phillippe smiles often in my direction and eventually he comes and gives me a sweetmeat. I pop it whole into my mouth where it swells my cheek. ‘She’s a little beauty, my Lady.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Melisende.

  ‘The face of a cherub and the mien of a matron,’ says Phillippe, and I pretend not to understand him, whilst Melisende laughs, amused at his assessment.

  Ademar and Phillippe are overseeing the unloading of barrels of salt and wine from Ademar’s ship. In exchange he is loading goods from the Estonians to take back to his homeland. Sometimes the barter is unbalanced on one side or the other and Phillippe weighs out silver in the scales to conclude the deal. Melisende leads me to a stack of chests and opens one, showing the marvellous coloured jewels inside – white, blue and gold with pictures of men, women and horses. ‘Enamels,’ she tells me, ‘from Limoges.’ She lifts the lid of another chest from Ademar’s stock and I see translucent green drinking vessels packed in straw. Melisende draws one out to show me how it glints in the sun. I admire its funnel shape and the air bubbles captured inside the glass as she twirls it carefully around. She leads me to the goods that Ademar has purchased to take back to Francia. Several chests stand open, filled with furs and skins – lush brown and white bear skins, red-brown hides of elk and reindeer. I put out a finger to stroke the white fur that reminds me of home, and all the while I am looking around for any sign of Olafr or Thorgils. ‘Here, look,’ says Melisende showing me a chest with hundreds of walrus tusks, and another gleaming warmly with blocks of amber, like a vast vat of honey. The final chest is full of tiny soft feathers, pale grey and white, for stuffing into pillows. A few escape and flit away on the breeze. The unloading and loading and the checking and negotiations take several hours. I know that soon I too will be loaded onto a ship.

  When we go on board I step carefully around the cargo that has been stowed in the sunken centre, around the mast. Old skins are tied on top to protect Ademar’s goods from sea spray and rain. A goat is led up the plank to provide us with milk for the journey. The large square sail is striped yellow and black and whips back and forth in the wind that sings zinging in its rigging.

  After we leave the port and make for the open sea, Melisende suffers with sea sickness and Ademar holds her head, keeping her hair and veil from her face as she vomits from the side of the ship. Recovering from the latest bout of nausea, Melisende is propped against the side of the ship and looks to where I stand in the bow of the boat, staring back to the coastline, trying to memorise the outline of the port, imprinting it onto the map in my mind, the map back to Thorgils and Olafr. I curl my palm and fingers around the sharp edges of the serpent brooch in my pocket, pressing its unyielding points into my soft flesh. I know that a slave crouches at the very bottom of the social order but I will never forget that I am the daughter and sister of noble men. I will harbour my worth secretly between me and my silver serpent. Thorgils will find me.

  Now that we are on the boat, Ademar has removed the rope from my ankle. A heavy grey cloud hangs over the roofscape of Tallinn. I think that if the cloud comes down a few inches lower to be pierced by
the needle of the tallest church spire, then it will rain.

  ‘Look how well she rides the sea, Ademar, on her Northchild legs,’ says Melisende.

  I do not acknowledge her comment, but I feel the up and down swell of the sea in the balance of my feet and hips and that, at least, makes me feel at home and in control of something for myself.

  At night I sleep with Melisende and Ademar, wrapped in a reindeer skin cocoon. Waking in the mornings in ‘snuggle warmth’ as my father used to call it – the night’s accumulation of body heat – it is hard to emerge out of that chrysalis into the cold air. The September days are warm but the nights at sea are chill. In the morning I grip the gunwale watching the rosy sun coming up like a great fiery ball, reminding me of reflected firelight slinking across Thorgils’ red hair. Without my braid I cannot even pull my hair over my shoulder to look at its colour and remind myself of my brother, and without my braid, my head and neck are cold in the wind.

  We sail within view of the coast on our left and some nights the sailors use the oars to bring the ship closer in and anchor off a beach, so that they can go ashore in a small boat, pitch tents and build a fire. There are five crew members: the helmsman, the lookout, two to manage the sail and one bailer. Phillippe and I help the bailer. We form a chain with me in the middle and two buckets passing up and down the chain, one empty and one full. Phillippe dips a bucket in the water swilling in the hold, passes it to me and I pass it to the bailer who throws it over the side. Phillippe and the other man sing songs to help them keep a rhythm and I join in which makes them laugh kindly at me. I am used to sailors singing at sea and I sing my own words to their melodies. My lyrics are words of sorrow at the loss of my freedom and my brothers.

  Ademar and Melisende regard me singing. ‘She has a voice, then,’ says Ademar.

  ‘A sweet, sad voice,’ says Melisende.

  After three days at sea the ship is rowed up the estuary of a broad river: ‘The Schlei,’ Phillippe tells me. Then we reach a shallow lake and approach a town built on the shore. I stare in amazement at the largest settlement I have ever seen. ‘Hedeby,’ Phillippe says, noticing the change in my expression.

  The town is surrounded by an enormous semi-circular earthwork at its back that runs down on both sides to the sea. On the side nearest to us it continues into the sea as a wooden structure. There are wooden watch-towers at intervals along the earthwork and beyond that, there is a vast ditch.

  ‘They’re protecting it from your relatives,’ Phillippe laughs.

  As we round the palisade arm and pull towards the wooden pier I see a stream running through the centre of the half-circular town, crowded with small boats. The stream’s banks are covered with wooden planking and on either side are many, many houses laid out in straight lines with narrow streets running between them. Many of the houses are large with curls of grey smoke escaping from holes in their reed-thatched roofs. Some houses are built from timber planks and others have timber frames and wattle panel walls daubed with clay or dung. Near the water’s edge I can see the fire and smoke of blacksmiths at work and hear the chang! chang! of their hammers. The crew sling and knot the ship’s ropes to the bollards and hand us onto the pier.

  Melisende has succeeded in persuading Ademar not to rope me again. ‘Do not humiliate her so,’ she begged him on the ship. I kept my eyes down, pretending not to understand or care what they said. I have hidden my serpent again in the hem of my chemise where its ostentation will not attract the attentions of a thief. I run my fingers around its curves through the flimsy material. Upside down, its shape is the same as the first letter of my name. Leap from the fetters! If I lay my hand flat against it, it is as big as my hand and I can feel one edge against my wrist and touch its top edge with the tips of my longest fingers.

  ‘Is your silver serpent safely hidden away?’ Ademar asks, noticing its absence from my belt.

  I nod once.

  ‘Good girl. That is sensible when we are travelling and amongst strangers. Was it your father’s?’ he asks me gently, but I give him no response.

  At the port the business of unloading Ademar’s goods for sale begins again, supervised by Phillippe, whilst Ademar and Melisende take me with them to find lodging for the night and to buy horses. The house they choose to stay in has a timber-lined well and a bread oven out the back. On either side are craftsmen’s houses – one working with textiles, and the other with metal. I can hear snatches of my own language being spoken around me. I wonder if I might escape like a rat down one of the narrow alleys between the houses but everything is so hemmed in, I fear I would soon be cornered and decide to wait for a better opportunity. When Ademar has settled Melisende to her satisfaction, and seen to the stabling of their new horses, he goes out again to assist Phillippe. The women of the house roll out dough for bread and prepare food in a cauldron suspended above the hearth on chains from the roof beam. The houses are crammed so close together that I can hear two women next door arguing about whose turn it is to carry in wood.

  When Ademar and Phillippe return, Ademar has gifts: an amber necklace for Melisende which she exclaims over with pleasure, trying it on, and a glass bead necklace for me. I stare down for a long time at the complex patterns of orange, yellow, black, red and grey running through the string of beads that Ademar loops over my head. I look up at him at last and smile my thanks, and he briefly cups my chin in an affectionate gesture, choosing to ape my mute communication himself.

  ‘Did you get something for Aina?’ asks Melisende and he nods patting the scrip pouch at his waist.

  Our host hands round wooden bowls filled with mutton stew and cabbage, peas and onions. The firelight plays on the circle of faces around the hearth.

  ‘A welcome change from salted fish,’ declares Phillippe.

  Melisende passes me a horn filled with mead. ‘Take a little of this Northchild,’ she says. After the stew, come bowls of sweet berries which I eat so quickly that all the people in the house laugh at me.

  The other travellers staying here are all men. As the beer passes round, the conversation grows louder and several men are staring at Melisende. Phillippe leans forward suddenly and tells them in Norse, ‘Be cautious with beer and another man’s wife.’ The conversation quietens down again after that and Melisende and Ademar lead me with them to a separate room that the hostess has prepared. Melisende takes a round polished metal mirror from her baggage and holds it up to smile at the amber beads against her black hair and then she turns it around so that I can see myself. My shorn red hair caps my head like a helmet, emphasising my wide face and high cheekbones. My blue eyes swim in the blurry mirror, chiming with the central blue bead on my necklace.

  The next morning breakfast is chunks of warm bread with goose eggs cooked in soapstone bowls placed in the embers of the hearth. Ademar’s chests and barrels of goods are carefully packed onto carts drawn by oxen and Phillippe sets off with a train of loosely roped pack-horses, carts and wagons, and an armed escort along the road to the west, turning in the saddle to wave goodbye to me. ‘Where is Phillippe going?’ I ask in a flat voice. Ademar turns to me. They are the first words I have spoken since Tallinn and I pronounce the strange Occitan carefully. I conceal my smugness at his surprise.

  He answers quickly as if he is afraid I might lose the power of speech again. ‘Phillippe will go with the carts ten miles to the River Treene, then onto the River Eider and then out onto the North Sea. He will ship the merchandise to Quentovic where he will take on wheat, wool, tin and silver from England in trade for more of my salt, wine and drinking glasses and then sail towards Noirmoutier, down the Loire and meet us again eventually at our home in Ségur, God willing.’ He stops, waiting to see if I will say anything more in response but I just nod my head and look at him, expressionless.

  ‘We are journeying on the Haervej road towards Aachen,’ says Melisende. ‘Our journey is a pilgrimage as well as for trade. Ademar and I need a son and we are going to pray at the shrine of Charlemagne and lay
hands on all the marvellous holy relics there to entreat for the saints’ help.’

  I guess that Melisende is speaking of her gods and I touch the Thor’s hammer on the thong around my neck. Klerkon dropped it over my head before the slave market began and placed similar pendants on Olafr and Thorgils to show we were heathens and could legitimately be sold as slaves to Christians. Melisende glances at Ademar. ‘We must see to the Northchild’s religious instruction when we reach home.’

  In my mind, I promise the Aesir that I will never be untrue to them and adopt the Christians’ god, if they will only help me get free and rejoin my brothers.

  4

  Montignac

  August 973

  Audebert woke and looked at the empty corner of the dungeon where his brother had been. He slapped his thighs and jiggled his knees to try to get the blood warmed up, before rising painfully to his feet to begin his morning walk, as he called it, to amuse himself. A few months ago a new jailor arrived and this one talked to them. A change came over Helie who sensed something that might be used to his advantage.

  ‘Yer father’s died,’ the jailor told them abruptly one day.

  ‘That makes me the Count of La Marche,’ Helie called up, ‘and rich.’

  Little by little each day Audebert saw that Helie was priming the jailor to help him escape, and one morning Audebert woke to find his brother gone. Just like that. No message, no words of farewell. It was possible that Helie had been taken out and hung, but it seemed more likely that the courting of the jailor had borne fruit and Helie had not seen fit to include his younger brother in either his escape or his plans.

  Audebert knew the surface of the rock in the pit as if it were his own skin, every crack where a morsel of glistening brilliant moss clung, every fissure where insects scurried, every smooth projecting round stone that he could wrap his hand around, every jagged edge. Some days he studied the pit and its minimal lifeforms: the ants, lichen and mosquitos. He traced with his finger a thin, pale pink vein that ran through the damp, dark rock, close to the ground, rising upwards shaped like an eyebrow. Some days he sat and stared at the circle of sky and the infrequent events there: the brightening of dawn, the flight of birds and clouds, the darkling of twilight, and once in a while he saw the moon there – beautiful, beyond reach. Some days he kept his eyes shut and watched the play of light blobs and sparks floating behind his eyelids, or he remembered, or he imagined. Whatever he did, in the end it led to grief, the knowledge that the world was going on without him. The worst thing was not touching anything warm and living – no person, no hound, no horse, not being in the proximity of anything else breathing. He longed to hold someone in his arms – his mother, his little brother Gausbert, but mostly Adalmode, and feel the heat of their warm skin against his cheek. He longed for a bath to ease his knotted muscles and his joints stiff with inactivity and cold. He longed for a bed since he never truly slept here, only slipped into unconsciousness, waking slumped painfully against rock and fetters.