I blink and sniff away sea-spray and the watering of my eyes, wishing my hands were free to wipe at them. The wind is billowing in the great striped sail that is criss-crossed with a network of ropes. The sky is a spectacular expanse of blue and the pink and red streaks of sunset, the sun a blinding red ball low on the water horizon. Aina and I shiver in our damp, thin gowns, and I look with concern at the gooseflesh on her arms. We are making good headway, so that often the monks are ordered to pull in and rest at their oars as the wind does the work for the pilot. I notice, though, that the ship is battered and has seen recent storms. Some of the planks are loose from their lashings and nails. There is a great rip in the sail that has been hastily and imperfectly repaired so it is not holding the wind as well as it ought. The long, slender yard that the sail is suspended from is splintered in two places and held together with rope bindings. The mast shudders even though the wind is not particularly brisk. I hope we will not see bad weather since this ship is no gazelle of the storm. I keep my thoughts to myself, not wanting to worry Aina.
The Norse soldiers’ shields hang on rails near the stems at either end of the ship and the setting sun glints on them, turning them from silver to gold. The cook works on the firebox and delicious smells tantalize my stomach. A boy working with the cook passes chunks of meat to the Norsemen, starting with the pilot and then moving around the boat to serve each of the crew. By the way they eat I guess they had been hungering for many days when they landed at Saint Michel en l’Herm. I know there is a limit to how much dried fish anyone can consume. The boy passes round beakers of ale. They offer no food or drink to us or the labouring monks who are sweaty and bloodied from the whip. Their hands seep blood from the blisters of this unaccustomed labour. One crewman is evidently satisfied with the exertions of his monkslave. He passes him two cloths and indicates he should wrap them around his hands to ease the pain of his blisters. The monk complies gratefully and the other monks look at these rag hand protectors with jealousy for they are offered none and must row on in pain or loose the skin off their backs. So swiftly are all our fortunes changed utterly, when rags seem like riches.
This leg of the journey does not last long. After a few hours the pilot calls commands preparing to beach and Aina’s shoulder jolts painfully against my breast as the ship’s bottom skims the ledge of the shore. We are pulled up onto the deck where we watch the monks being led off the boat, wading to the shore. Several lose their footing in the water and splutter fearfully, dragged down by their chains, until the laughing Norsemen right them or simply drag them onto the sand like beached whales. It was only a few hours rowing and I know the Norsemen can do a great many more hours at the oars, but the monks, terrified, without water and unaccustomed as they are to this hard physical labour, are exhausted and broken already. The compliance and silence of the captives is strange, but harsh whipping, chains and the sight of one man casually killed has been enough to cow them, and besides only I here understand the Norsemen’s speech and only I could make myself understood. Why have I not spoken? Perhaps it is an ingrained response like the first time I was enslaved when I remained mute a long time with Aina’s parents. Or perhaps my instincts tell me I must learn the situation first, save that small power I have to understand what they say and to communicate with them if it should become necessary to save myself and my mistress.
There is a small boat lashed to the side on the deck above our heads and opposite, on the other side of the ship, a hide-covered bundle is similarly lashed. This bundle is unrolled by two of the Norse crew and we watch as a large canvas is erected on the deck, slung over the dropped yard arm. One of the men prods Aina and I towards this tent, and before dipping my head to enter, I glance over my shoulder to see the sorry line of naked monks disappear with their cruel guards into dark trees lining the beach.
‘Sit!’ our guard indicates and I pull Aina down. He gives us a beaker of water which we pass between us, drinking gratefully, our chains clanking and awkward. He lifts the tent flap and calls out: ‘Food, Pilot?’ I cannot hear the muffled response but am glad when the man passes us two pieces of dried fish. He sits watching us eat, a gleeful expression on his face, his eyes roaming over our bodies and faces.
‘Don’t make eye contact with him,’ I mutter to Aina. From my own sidelong glances I have seen how big the man is. Everything about him is big: his legs and arms are unexpectedly long and covered with thick fair hair contrasting with the dark brown of his skin, and his chest is barrel-like, thrusting out at the top. Even his head is big. After some time the pilot lifts the tent-flap and jerks his head to indicate to the man that he should come out and we are left alone but chained and fettered, helpless to attempt escape.
‘Can you understand them?’ Aina asks in an urgent whisper.
‘Yes, they intend to ransom us, which probably means they will treat us well.’
‘Treat us well!’ Aina exclaims raising her voice and her shackles.
‘Sshh!’ I hush her. ‘Compared to those poor monks who they are selling into slavery.’
Aina bows her head. ‘Yes. Those poor young men and the Abbot dead, Sigrid! And do you think Father Dominic and the men from Ségur too?’
I nod and grimace sympathetically as her face crumples.
‘What do they talk of?’ she asks.
‘Of their success in the raid, the treasure they have taken, the wealth they will have from the sale of the monks. They are predators, Aina,’ I say with disgust.
She nods and bites her lip. Outside the familiar sounds of night are beginning. Cicadas, creaking frogs hoping to mate, a man snoring gently somewhere nearby, the sea lapping at the sand. ‘We should sleep,’ I say. ‘We don’t know what is coming next and sleep is our best friend to deal with it.’
‘I can’t sleep,’ Aina says, but awkwardly with my fettered hands I lay her head on my shoulder and recite my serpent runes softly over and over: ‘Leap from the fetters. Escape from the foes. Leap from the fetters. Escape from the foes.’ Within minutes Aina’s breath comes slow and regular. I close my own eyes, thinking again, we do not know what is coming next.
I sit up, woken abruptly by a loud bark of laughter. Sunlight is streaming through the open tent-flap and standing there, I recognise the comely tall blond-haired ‘monk’ who helped us retrieve our baggage from the water when we crossed the marsh to the monastery a few days before. The man is staring at us, standing alongside the sandy-haired pilot. He is dressed in the weaponry and armour of a rich soldier, and is clearly no monk. A small crowd of muscled, grimy crewmen are gathered behind them at the tent-flap, craning around each other to be entertained by this encounter, early sun glinting on the swords and axes slung against their hips. Aina is struggling to consciousness more slowly beside me, her headdress awry, and then she is staring with her great grey eyes at the blond man who is finding us hilarious. He is slender but well-built and looks strong. Without the monk’s cowl we can see him clearly now: blue eyes, high cheekbones, a straight nose, thin lips and white blond hair that curls and reaches to his shoulders. His even white teeth are revealed by his amusement at us.
‘You!’ Aina breathes in disbelief.
‘Well done, well done, my friend!’ he claps the pilot on the shoulder. ‘Look at this. You have caught in your net those two red-heads I spoke of.’
‘Yes – they are noblewomen. They will bring a ransom,’ the pilot says. The blond man approaches us and swiftly pulls off Aina’s headdress and then mine. ‘Young red-heads!’ he exclaims, delighted at the sight of our bare heads.
I look steadfastly into his handsome face. It will not do to show our fear.
‘I am noble-born,’ Aina says angrily. ‘You should treat me with respect.’
‘Well, my lady,’ he says, bringing his face close to hers, and she holds his eye and does not attempt to shift away from him. I hear the growl of the crew’s low laughter behind him, and one man grabs at his own privates suggestively. ‘I don’t understand all that you say, but I unders
tand your tone. Here’s a riddle for you: I grow very erect, tall in a bed, and bring a tear to a maiden’s eye?’
‘Keep your dog on a lead,’ I shout at him in Occitan and a small man standing behind the blond leader, translates my words into Norse.
The man raises his eyebrows gleefully and laughs heartily at me, falling back on a chest behind him, slapping his knee. ‘Listen to this brave one!’
‘Let the women be,’ calls out the pilot. ‘They will only be worth something if they come to no harm.’
The blond leader moves away from us for the time being, gripping the pilot’s shoulder and turning with him to the opening of the tent, speaking of their plans.
‘He’s the handsomest man in all Norway,’ the small translator whispers to us in Occitan. ‘Every female breathing, from the teenagers, to the wives, to the old toothless hags, would go with him if he asked them. He’s a hot rabbit. I doubt you’ll have your virginities when we next pitch on dry land.’ He grins unpleasantly through flaky lips.
Aina looks anxiously to me. ‘Take no notice,’ I say. ‘He is trying to scare you. They won’t harm us.’ But I feel no certainty of this. These men are a long way from home, a long way from any wives they have. I am conscious of how many of them there are, how large and vicious they are and that all there is standing between them and us is the flimsy promise of a ransom. I pray to Thor to make their venery stronger than their lust.
The blond man returns to stand looking us over. His long sword hangs unscabbarded from his belt and is engraved with words. I read the runes: Hugin and Munin – Odinn’s ravens. The man’s cloak is pinned with an enormous circular gold brooch with the longest pin I have ever seen. If my hands weren’t shackled I could get close and grab that brooch and use that long, sharp pin as a dagger.
‘The master wishes to know your names,’ says the translator.
‘I am Lady Aina of Ségur, betrothed to Lord Guy, heir to the Viscounty of Limoges,’ Aina tells him, ‘and this is Lady Sigrida, my companion.’
The translator communicates this information to the blond leader whose eyes light up at the words Viscounty and Limoges. ‘Ask them will this Lord Guy pay their ransom,’ he says.
We wait for the question to be translated.
‘Yes,’ Aina tells him, ‘if no harm comes to us, Lord Guy will pay your ransom demand.’
I am proud of her arrogant assurance as she speaks to him.
‘The question is how much to set it at,’ I hear the leader say to the pilot as they leave the tent, the translator stepping close behind them.
As soon as they are gone, Aina bursts out: ‘It’s my fault, Sigrid! All my fault. I prayed for something to halt my marriage. I told that blond man of the feast at the monastery when he was pretending to be a monk and that is why they raided it when they did! All those men dead, those monks enslaved.’ Her face is distraught.
I take her hand, shaking my head. ‘Sshh! It’s not. It’s not your fault. They probably already knew about the feast. They will have had spies out for days scouting the defences and finding out such things. All that we did in that encounter when he saved our baggage, was show him there would be rich visitors, worth stealing away.’
‘My mother will be so distraught when the news reaches her.’
‘Yes. If word has not been sent from the monastery,’ (in my mind’s eye I have an image of that ravished place with nothing but dead bodies to tell the tale) ‘then Guy will certainly tell and comfort her when he receives the ransom demand. They will waste no time sending the money I am sure.’
‘Will they keep us here then, while they wait for Guy to pay?’
‘I do not know, Aina. We shall see.’
Soon after we are pulled roughly from the tent, chained again in the hold and watch the tent being taken down, folded tightly and lashed to the side. Only the Norse crew and the small boy are onboard, together with the blond leader. The boat shifts rhythmically in the surf. I breathe in deeply, savouring the salt of the morning sea. On the beach the line of chained monks who have slept in the trees, are being assembled to march to the slave market. Along the shoreline small, green trees lean far over the water’s edge. I watch entranced as the light reflects off the water, rippling and shimmering across the green undercroft of branches and leaves. Another day this sight would be an idyll. Today, there is the same beauty, the same water and light, and such grief and pain.
I notice the monk who had wrapped the cloths around his hands as he rowed. He is standing in the shade whilst most of the other monks are near to naked in the burning sun and even from this distance I imagine their sweat and heat exhaustion. Perhaps the monk in the shade will survive his enslavement and humiliation and find his way back to freedom. As the Norsemen bark orders for them to start shuffling off, the monk looks back to Aina and I on the ship and I raise my hand to him.
From the calls between men and the sounds of other oars I can tell we are moving off from Noirmoutier in the company of another ship. The blond man hangs from the rigging yelling across to the pilot of the other boat: ‘Brittany, then Syllingar, then Lundy,’ he calls out. ‘If there is a storm and one of us is blown off-course we will wait for each other at Lundy. We are heading for Kelda Ey.’
Apart from Brittany, I do not recognize any of the names he calls across, but I guess he might be making for the islands route towards Norway threading up between Ireland and the west coast of Bretland. ‘I think we are going to Norway,’ I tell Aina.
‘Really?’ She looks excited.
‘Aina, how can you look as if this is a pleasure trip after what we witnessed at the monastery and the fate of those poor monks.’
She looks down chagrined.
‘And Aina the fact that you are noble and they have sent a ransom note for you, is no guarantee of your safety.’
‘We have another card up our sleeves,’ she says eagerly. ‘They don’t know you are Norse and can understand everything they say.’
‘Yes, but there is no reason for them to treat us gently just because I am Norse. I have no living kin in Norway or anyone who might offer us protection. Many ransom victims have died in the ‘care’ of the Norsemen. There is no law or custom that prevents slavers from preying on their own kind.’
She nods but my words do not rob her of an inappropriately blithe expression as she looks out to the vast sea spreading before us, gulls shrieking and wheeling around the mast. I shake my head. ‘Aina, I think you should have been born a Norsewoman with your love of venturing.’
‘Better a Norseman,’ she says, looking with admiration at the blond leader who stands in the bow with his legs apart, bending confidently with the regular lurching of the ship.
14
Brioude
July 988
It was a bright morning and the sun streamed in through the narrow window slit in Adalmode’s chamber in the Motte Castle of Limoges as she sat combing out her hair. She could glimpse the green of the fields below, beyond the city walls. Her father had refused Audebert’s request for her last month for the sixth time. She was getting no younger and if this persisted there would come a time when he would no longer want her, when she would be past desiring and he would find himself another wife, or take one of her sisters as her father frequently and stubbornly offered every time.
She and Guy attempted subtle persuasion, and even her mother tried to sway Gerard but Adalmode saw his continuing refusal was double-edged. On the one hand he was flattered by and desirous of the mooted alliance with the Duke of Aquitaine’s family, and on the other hand he wanted to affront Audebert, in payment for the affront offered to him by the Count of Anjou over Audebert’s release, and there had been no amelioration of his resentment over the years.
Adalmode sighed and held a thick bunch of her hair up to the light, watching the sun dazzle in it. Would she be white-haired before it was resolved. The marital discord between Emma of Blois and her husband had given Adalmode a reprieve from the mooted marriage to Guillaume of Aquitaine when Emma
left her husband and returned to Blois, taking her son with her, but Adalmode’s father still stubbornly persisted in his resistance to Audebert.
‘Adalmode!’ her mother called up the staircase. ‘Are you coming down? Your father is waiting to speak to you.’
‘I’m coming now!’ She tied a bow in the laces at the top of her gown and put her ivory comb – a secret gift from Audebert – into the small chest beneath her bed, lifted her skirts with one hand and tripped down the steps to the hall, breathing in the scent of freshly baked bread. Her father was sitting with a scroll in his hand and looking impatiently towards his eldest daughter.
‘You’re late down,’ he said curtly.
‘Sorry Papa, I was daydreaming.’
‘Well,’ he said, mellowing, ‘it’s unusual enough for you.’
She took her seat and her mother returned to her own. Adalmode smiled across to Guy, but said, ‘Morning darling brother,’ in case he could not see her smile.
‘Good morning darling sister,’ Guy responded but Adalmode noticed there was no smile in his voice.
‘I’ve a letter from the Duchess of Aquitaine just come,’ her father said. Adalmode’s mood plummeted. She stared down at the yellow and white eggs and bread before her with disgust.
‘The Duchess has lately returned to the Duke and commands that I bring you to the Poitiers Assembly at the end of this week.’
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