Viking Hostage

by Warr, Tracey;

  The first days and nights of our marriage were good. I was surprised to find how much I liked Guy, liked being his wife and the mistress of his household. Yet I remembered Aina had treated him with contempt and felt I should not show too differently or he would notice. In my ridiculous attempt to ape Aina’s disdain I drove a wedge of misunderstanding between us, and now I have to work hard to remove this and make him see, or feel I should say, because I know now he cannot see, feel how much I like him and want to assist him. Yet whatever I do or say he mirrors my first coolnesses to him and disbelieves the sincerity of my affection. The gossip that he had a mistress in the city before our marriage reaches me and I wonder if he might seek her out again. This is the harvest of my lies. I know he feels his near-sightedness as a great vulnerability and wants a place of safety from that constant defence, a safety that Adalmode gave him before her marriage and which I would like to supply, if only I could win his trust. I confuse him with the way I blow hot one week and cold the next. Sometimes my coldness comes from my very real melancholy, and is not mere playacting. When I found Thorgils, I did not think to lose him again. When I achieved my status as a free Norsewoman I did not think to exchange it for lies and guilt.

  ‘What is wrong with you this week, this month, Aina? You have been cold to me, wife, when you owe me a duty of affection.’ Guy does not shout. He never shouts at me. Instead I hear pain in his quiet voice.

  ‘Do you mean to repudiate me?’ I shout. Part of me is thinking that if he did so, I could return to Thorgils and Aina, I could marry a Norseman, but another, a larger part of me, is fearful that his answer will be yes.

  He brings his face close up to mine, and I know by now for sure that he cannot see me otherwise. ‘No!’ he says, aghast. ‘How can you even think that? You are my wife. My greatly loved wife. Unfortunately I must go now. There are visitors waiting in the hall for me and I regret that I cannot continue our discussion. I am sorry that we have argued.’

  I feel terrible shame then, for it is all my fault. ‘It is I who should say sorry. Stay a moment!’ I hang onto his hand. ‘I have to tell you … I am with child.’

  He clasps me gently by the shoulders, his face full of joy and I realise at that moment that I love him, utterly love him, but he does not even know who I am. ‘Well, that explains it!’ he says. ‘That explains your moodiness, my poor darling.’ And I feel even worse at those words, because it does not.

  I listen to my husband’s judgements in the hall, I watch how he behaves to the members of his household and especially to those who are lowly servants and each day I see a man I can admire more and more. One night as we are preparing for bed, I ask him: ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘You already do,’ he says, glancing towards the bed.

  ‘No!’ I laugh. ‘I mean with your eyes. Is there something I can do?’

  ‘Well, Adalmode used to help me before she left to marry. You could read correspondence for me when we are private together perhaps? Warn me if I am about to make a fool of myself?’

  I nod, eager that I might find ways to atone for my crimes against him.

  Who am I? To my husband and all the people around me I am Aina, a Christian noblewoman. My real self is buried and smothered more than it ever was when I was a slave. At least then I could still say my name. I am Sigrid Thorolfsdottir and I am a pagan. I am not a Christian. Now every word I speak is a lie. Every action, from my hand on my husband’s cheek to my instructions to the steward for the day, and my attendance at Christian masses. All lies. Now my silver serpent brooch is an image of my own fork-tongue, my mouth full of poisonous untruths, I am a serpent in my husband’s breast. Amidst the lies I am losing contact with myself. When I get these morose moods I think of Thorgils and Aina and their child on the island and persuade myself they are happy and I had no choice.

  Should I tell Guy? The fact that he is kind and loving towards me makes my deception all the harder. And now to compound it I have to lie to my child, my first-born son, whom we have named Ademar after Aina’s father and who will grow up thinking like his father that I am Aina, a Christian noblewoman. When I was enslaved it was important to retain myself, to find my secret rituals for the expression of my identity, to resist the pressures to integrate and comply, to continue in my difference. Now I wonder should I let her go – that Sigrid Thorolfsdottir, just lay her in the surf like an empty nightgown and let her drift away on the ebb tide. Forget her entirely and be Viscountess Aina without compromise. I don’t know how to exist otherwise. I cannot continue in perpetual misery at my deception, perpetual confusion at who I am.

  My child came fast and Guy’s anxieties about the birth proved unnecessary. Though I laboured for only a few hours, the vice-like pains were intense but I was not afraid, knowing that I was achieving something wonderful. Our baby son is a delight to us. We bathe him together in a small tub in front of the fire. Guy holds out the cloth to dry him and takes the baby from me, who is giggling and slippery wet like a pink fish. We gaze with wonder into his clear eyes and watch his discoveries of the world, dimly remembering our own.

  ‘He is perfect, Aina, he has your nose, see.’

  ‘And the colour of your eyes,’ I say, and see in his frown his fervent hope that his son has not inherited the weakness of his eyes.

  I wish I had not tried to ape Aina’s disdain for Guy in the early days of our marriage. I have tried to replace that since with affection but he is still wary even though I tell him often that I love him, and that is one sincere thing in my life. Yet he does not believe me. He feels himself to be unlovable and yet he is so dear. I bring to him both the inconsequential and the important from each of my days and share them with him at night before we fall asleep entwined. I stroke his cheek and yet always there is this mammoth weight of lies and he knows there is something, but he does not know what it is.

  I am constantly surprised at his small kindnesses. He is always thinking of me, of what I might need, how I might feel – as far as that is possible given the concealment of so much of my inner life. He looks around my chamber one day and the next I have a new tapestry on the wall where the draught had been coming in through a crack. He leafs through the small collection of books on my table and two weeks later a large case of books, to my taste, appear in the centre of the room. His gifts are based on his observations of me. I begin to see that I can be someone clearly reflected in his eyes, I can be the me that he knows and empathises with, but I have to let go of my guilt and I have to let go of Sigrid Thorolfsdottir. I mourn her – she has died too young and I am reborn as this new creature – me as Aina, as Guy’s wife, Ademar’s mother, the Viscountess of Limoges, managing a large household, advising my husband.

  Supervising the bailiff in his collection of rents from my husband’s tenants, hiring servants and then keeping a check on them are amongst the tasks that I perform for my husband. If a servant is talking or drinking too much it is my job to tell them so and see they take heed of my warning or I have no choice but to dismiss them. Sometimes I have to prevent quarrels and bad language amongst the servants or to check a man who is too free with his hands or attentions to the maids. I must take care of those who are foolish and young or those who are old and sick. I surprise myself with an avid interest in bee-keeping and viniculture.

  As the chatelaine I am expected to wear silks and brocades rather than to make them, but I am loathe to set aside the sewing that I enjoyed for so long. I begin to embroider mine and Aina’s story into a great length of linen and it is only me and my serpent who know that the Aina stepping off the boat in Normandy is me and that the Sigrid writing her friend’s name on the beach on Kelda Ey is truly Aina and I have transposed the name that is written there.

  I have a dark grey gown furred with marten and a violet gown edged with grey fur which is Guy’s favourite and so I wear it often. I run the household budget deciding what we will spend on alms, the household expenses, payments of staff, gifts, jewels and clothes. I oversee the accounts each month and m
y staff confer with me on the daily business of the castle: making candles, curing bacon, salting meat, baking bread. I send the maids shopping in the market for fish, wine, spices. I am responsible for ensuring that our beds do not need repairing or replacing, that the hangings, plate, furniture, vestments and linen of the house are all in good order. When I am uncertain I write to Lady Melisende for advice, or I store my questions up for her frequent visits.

  My time now, when I am not busy organising the household or discussing the political problems of Limoges with Guy, is spent hawking, playing chess, reading a book that is the latest fashion with all noble ladies that I might play my part with aplomb as his wife, especially when we have visitors. When there are no visitors he is happy to live simply. I am still known for my skill in telling stories, and he loves to listen to me. Walking on a high cliff edge with him one day, looking down on the steep abyss below, I suddenly feel terribly afraid, like a vertigo, at the ferocity of my love for him.

  In March I take my falx, my pruning knife, and join the workers as they set about pruning and manuring the vines. Guy laughs at me: ‘You are the only Viscountess between here and Barcelona I believe who is labouring in the garden with the gardeners.’

  ‘Do you mind it much? I enjoy it.’

  ‘Of course not Aina. You look like the goddess Flora.’

  In the spring the air is strongly scented with the aroma of the grape blossoms and we all imagine ahead to the gathering and trampling of the grapes. The bees to and fro to the rope skeps or baskets that are their buzzing cities placed on alcoves in the garden wall, with little lip platforms for them to land on. I am fascinated by the rustling, wing-lit hives and draw sketches of the bees for Guy, showing him how they have three eyes. He studies my drawings with a magnifying glass that I ordered from a Jewish merchant who does business with Melisende. It seems so strange that these fierce insects work both in dazzling sunshine and in the scented darkness of the hive, diving for an instant into flower-filled space and then plunging back into crowded blackness. Like the vineyard, the bee hives measure the passing of the year. In early spring the hives start to come alive, shaking off the torpor of winter and the bees begin to search out early violets and anemones. By April the hives are crowded with their tireless workers, arriving with their loads of pollen slung between their thighs, grateful to the generous flowers. On long summer days, the humming and flitting of the bees in their palaces of honey are as much an essential part of my surroundings as the rays of the sun, the balm of the air, the tall poplars calmly guarding the peaceful waters of the brook, my happiness with Guy and my boys. My second son, Geraud, was born this spring.

  I watch the bees circle dancing and the servants tell me they call this beating to arms. When the bee-man needs to manage the hives he plunges his arms into cold water beforehand as a precaution against the stings. I watch and listen for the moment when the bees decide to swarm, pouring out of the hive in a black jet and clustering in the nearest tree in a great pendant glob, waiting for their scouts to tell them where to go, and then they are off in an impetuous flight to their new home.

  When the time comes to harvest the honey and we must kill the bees with sulphur smoke and shake out their thousands of dead bodies to the ground, I feel grief at their ardent, disinterested work and the exposure of their golden corridors. On long winter nights, I try always to be frugal with candles for the bees’ sakes and I savour the smell of honey and wax, remembering the dozy days of summer.

  As summer draws to an end, the cooper begins the work of cleaning and repairing the big barrels in readiness for the wine. In September we savour the smell of the grape juice as every man, woman and child comes to help cut the grapes and the vineyards are humming like my beehives with their chatter. The grapes are cut and gathered into panniers and then transferred to wooden vats and trampled. I tuck my skirts into my belt and Guy hands me to step barefoot into the vat with the peasants. ‘Ooh, it feels so strange between my toes,’ I giggle to him, wiggling them up and down and lifting one foot gingerly, still gripping his hand, afraid that I might slip and fall into the ooze which would not be a decorous display for the lady of the castle.

  Guy is attuned to my moods. He can tell from the tone of my voice in just a few words how I am feeling, and then he does something about what he hears. If it is joy, he shares it with me. If sadness, then he enquires what is concerning me, looks for ways to help or take a brighter view. He is my daily touchstone. When I first married I thought I had made a sacrifice of myself for the sake of Aina and my brother, but as I grow to know Guy, I have developed a deep affection for him.

  On my birthday each year (or at least the date of Aina’s birthday), he grants freedom to two families of serfs on his land. His commands are read out in the hall: ‘Piers freed for God’s sake and for the soul of my dear wife, Damon the smith and his wife and all their children, who bent their heads for food in the evil days of hunger, freed.’

  I hope I reciprocate adequately, doing my best to understand his disappointments and anxieties, talking them through with him, trying to mitigate his problems, celebrate his triumphs. I try to support him with sympathy and advice when he tells me: ‘Every side I turn there are complaints. The churchmen complain the castellans take liberties and that religious offices should not go to noble families. The peasants complain of the albergum tax to provide food for the milites, the dues laid against their livestock and the banalities for their use of my mills and ovens. No one is ever happy.’ Little by little, as the years have gone by, I know that I can never be without Guy, will never send word to Thorgils to come to get me, will never see Aina again.

  Guy keeps annals like a monk, writing a note in his book in the library every evening on the day’s doing. I watch him hunched in a small yellow pool of candle light, his nose almost touching the parchment on the table. He records the big and the small news, as he puts it. There is grim news from the north that Charles of Lorraine, the old king’s brother, has died in Hugh Capet’s prison, and Guy makes a note of this. Sometimes Guy reads a few passages to me from these annals at breakfast, especially when he has found something amusing to record, and sometimes he flicks through several pages saying, ‘Oh no, can’t read that one, or that one, or that one. They are about you!’ He looks up impishly at me and I lunge laughing for the book, but he snatches it aloft, safe from my grasp. ‘All good, all good, of course!’ he says airily and smiling.

  This morning his mood is not so playful. The city bells are tolling and Guy is sitting with his head in his hands when I come down to the hall with Ademar, who is two years old, holding my skirts, and Geraud in my arms.

  ‘How many cases now?’ I ask. Unease and discontent have spread amongst the people. A young girl disappeared from a crowd in the cathedral and despite searches organised by Guy and his men, she was never found. In the panic when she was taken, angry fights broke out in the church and several people were killed. A storm came and destroyed a vineyard and some claimed the destruction was the work of ghost horses’ hooves. A wolf entered the cathedral and Bishop Hilduin has declared this is a judgement from God that the city is the habitation of wild beasts rather than Christian people and he is withholding the sacraments from whole communities arguing that treating them all as pagans will flush out the wicked, whereas it merely increases the distress of many innocent people.

  The harvest was poor and the people began to starve, to send some of their sons and daughters out on the road since they could no longer feed all of their family members, or to sell themselves into serfdom. The monasteries’ granaries were opened to the poor but it was not enough to see off the threat of famine. And now finally the Firesickness has come, giving men, women and children terrible burning sensations in their limbs and fearful hallucinations. The people beg Saint Martial and the clergy to intercede and help them in their suffering. And the bishops will begin to arrive in a few days time for the start of the Peace of God Council.

  ‘More than a hundred cases of Firesicknes
s,’ Guy says. ‘They are sweaty and fevered and pale and see horrors that are not there. They run around and fall down in exhaustion, still talking of what they see.’

  ‘But they do not die?’

  ‘No, none have died so far, but they are helpless and no work can be done and more fall ill to the sickness every day.’

  Guy’s brother, Bishop Hilduin, whom I dislike, has arrived early this morning and is sitting on the dais with a look of satisfaction on his face. ‘Do not despair, Brother,’ he says, nodding a curt greeting to me. ‘I will preach a sermon today in the city square and I have ordered a three day fast. This sickness has been brought upon them by their own sins and I will chastise them. Fornications, adulteries and incest are poured over the land, even by some nuns. Avarice, robberies and violence are abroad. They must beg God’s forgiveness, mend their ways, undertake pilgrimages, buy prayers and intercessions for the wickedness that has brought the sickness upon them. The wolf in the cathedral was a sign that God has forsaken those who have forsaken him, but I will bring them back to the fold, Brother.’

  It occurs to me that a wolf in the cathedral might be interpreted as a sign of a different nature, relating more to the behaviour of these Christian priests and monks, but I say nothing. I must observe the Christian rituals whilst continuing a pagan in my heart – Christmas, Easter, Palm Sunday, but many of their feasts are not so dissimilar from my own I notice – celebrating the first plowing after winter, the rites of May, the summer solstice after the sheep shearing, but I guard my tongue against speaking of Midgard – the world of men, and Asgard – the home of my gods, the Aesir.

  Guy frowns, regarding Hilduin. ‘You believe the people are to blame for their own suffering?’

  ‘Of course.’ Hilduin helps himself to a glass of wine and a chunk of warm bread. ‘And then there is the matter of the treasure that you took from the Abbey to pay for your wife’s ransom which is still outstanding.’