Entered through another porch, a little around the hillside from the hall, it was her and Harald’s own private burrow. The whitewashed walls were painted with biblical scenes set not in the arid Holy Land but here in Iceland’s own lush, rugged countryside, and hung with rich tapestries of such rough wool it seemed as if at any moment they might leap up and baa. The bed, to her great amusement and Harald’s delight, was shaped as a longship with the feather mattress set beneath a mock mast which Harald stroked appreciatively and determined to ‘put to good use’.
There was a copper looking-glass stood against one wall in a twisted gilt frame, and a coffer that sat on feet shaped like those of some mystical beast and – especially for Elizaveta – a music stool in the shape of a viol. It was a storyteller’s room, full of quirks and humour, and Elizaveta vowed to attempt a replica at home. For now, though, she was content to enjoy the magic where it belonged especially when, a week later, Halldor promised to take them to the ‘greatest miracle of the whole island’.
This ‘miracle’ was a whole morning’s ride from the lake but their party was eager and excitable. There were some twenty local men and women on horseback and a dozen pack ponies behind carrying ‘a little dinner’ for when they arrived at their mystery destination. No one was telling Elizaveta what awaited her there, though she’d begged for information, and her anticipation was growing. Even Aksel refused her entreaties and she could hardly wait to arrive.
‘Is this not the most amazing country?’ Harald said as they rode along together.
‘Magical, Hari. I’m so glad I came with you.’
‘So glad I permitted you to do so?’
‘Exactly that, my lord and master.’
His eyes darkened.
‘Don’t cheek me, Elizaveta, or I shall have to tie you to the mast – again.’
Her loins shivered in remembrance. His time out here had already sculpted Harald’s body as surely as if one of the fire pixies had licked his flesh away. They had feasted, yes, but he had been out every day with Halldor and Ulf, the three of them riding miles, or trekking along uphill paths and glaciers, or hunting boar and deer for the table.
Elizaveta had watched them ride in one day as she and Greta returned from moss-gathering – Greta being no keener on adding to her mischievous brood of children than Elizaveta – and had thought them all as young as they had been that first night they’d ridden into Kiev nearly thirty years past. And Harald’s spirit had honed itself with his stomach. He spoke with new vigour, laughed louder than ever, and sparkled with the glow of adventure rediscovered. Magic indeed.
‘In that case, my lord,’ she said now, ‘I fear you are grown unoriginal in your old age.’
‘Unoriginal?! You wait, Elizaveta . . .’
She grinned up at him and he leaned over in his saddle to kiss her so hard she had to grip at the reins to steady herself. They rode on together in contented silence, watching Halldor’s boisterous Icelandic companions racing each other across the open plain, before Harald said, ‘Would you travel further, Lily?’
She thought carefully.
‘I’m not sure, Hari. The idea of it captivated me, I admit, but there is only so much you can achieve in one lifetime and there is a great deal of the known world I would still like to see.’
‘You are not tempted, then, by this new land they have found?’
‘Vinland? I was drawn to the novelty of it,’ Elizaveta admitted, ‘but in truth it does not sound a very promising place.’
The explorers, to Elizaveta’s delight, had sailed into Reyjavik from their journey west just two days after their own arrival and Halldor had invited them to his house to share their adventures with his royal guests. Both Elizaveta and Harald had quizzed them in detail on the new land they had found several days’ sail west of Greenland but there had been disappointingly little to say.
‘It seems a fertile place,’ they had reported, ‘with many trees and sprawling vines and huge salmon in the rivers.’
‘We have trees aplenty in Norway,’ Harald had said. ‘Salmon too, and we can ship wine from over the Varangian Sea in just a day or two’s sail. What else does this new country have that makes it worth battling the waves to reach?’
The men had looked at each other, a little lost.
‘Space?’ one had suggested.
‘Space?!’ Harald had laughed. ‘God above, we have plenty of space. We need towns for trade, craftsmen with new goods, mines full of minerals. Have you found such things?’
‘No, Sire. The natives are nomads, a quiet people who prefer to stay in the bushes than challenge new arrivals. A man could claim rights as their king without having to lift a sword.’
‘And where would be the point in that? Who wants to be the king of a handful of tribesmen?’
‘I might,’ Elizaveta had heard their leader mumble and she’d risen.
‘Then you are.’
‘Beg pardon, my lady?’
‘What is your name?’
He’d flushed and stammered: ‘Erik, my lady, but I meant no insult, truly.’
‘And I have taken none. Rest easy, Erik. Ambition is a worthy trait and yours should be rewarded. I pronounce you King of Vinland.’
‘But . . .’
‘Sail forth and enjoy your reign.’
‘I . . . Thank you, my lady.’
Elizaveta smiled now at the remembrance of his confusion and his fellows’ uncertain congratulations. She wished them well of the place, for it sounded too dull to tempt her.
‘It seems to me,’ she said to Harald as they reined their horses back to cross a rocky patch of land, ‘that this Vinland is no match for the riches of Europe.’
‘No indeed,’ he agreed. ‘It would be foolhardy to waste good men on such an empty place. England though . . .’
‘Oh Hari,’ Elizaveta begged, ‘let’s not think of politics. We are in Iceland. There are no kings, nor queens either, and it is very restful.’
‘Restful, Lily? Has some troll stolen my wife away?’
‘You know what I mean. Look – Halldor is reining in. Are we here?’
She looked around, confused. There was nothing to mark this place out as special, let alone as a ‘miracle’.
‘My lady, allow me!’ Halldor was at her side, offering his arm with a flourish. Elizaveta took it and leaped from her saddle, peering curiously all around. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Like what, Halldor?’
‘You do not see?’
Elizaveta looked harder but the only defining feature in the rugged plain was a rough crack in the rocky ground before them, as if someone had grabbed the edges and squeezed them together, forcing them to split upwards.
‘See what, Hal?’ The others were looking gleefully at each other and Elizaveta turned to Harald as he came to her side. ‘Do you see anything, Hari?’
‘Only a crack in the ground.’
‘Only a crack!’ the locals chuckled delightedly.
Elizaveta leaned in to Harald.
‘I think maybe they are the cracked ones,’ she whispered.
‘Humour them.’
‘Come, my lady,’ Halldor was urging now, taking her arm and guiding her along the rough ridge to where it widened a little. ‘In here.’
‘In there?’ Elizaveta squeaked, peering down the jagged crevice; was this a jest?
She looked desperately around and Aksel took pity on her.
‘Allow me to escort you, my lady.’
‘Underground?’
‘It will be worth it, trust me.’
Greta was coming forward too so Elizaveta submitted, letting Aksel lift her into the mouth of the rocks. A slim corridor led downwards, twisting out of sight and Aksel, ducking low, made his way slowly along it. Elizaveta glanced back up at Halldor.
‘Are there trolls here after all?’
‘No trolls. Go!’
Elizaveta’s heart was beating with fear. The rock seemed like a great jaw waiting to close in on her but Aksel, who had tak
en a lantern off one of the serving boys, was disappearing into it so, taking a shaky breath, she forced herself to follow him. A last glance up revealed myriad faces keenly waiting – for what? – but then her foot slipped and she had to turn hurriedly back and as she did so the tight walls suddenly stretched out and there before her, rippling softly between natural ledges and pillars, was a pool. She gasped in delight and heard Halldor’s friends cheer above her.
‘Oh Hari,’ she called up, ‘come and see this – it truly is a miracle.’
She took a few more cautious steps down to where the rock flattened out into a tiny natural jetty. It was warm down here, very warm, and the water, she noticed, was steaming like the shallow bowls in a sauna. Still moving very slowly, as if this might be some kind of dream, she crouched and dipped her fingers in the water.
‘It’s hot.’
‘As a bath, my lady.’
Greta came in behind her, holding a lantern high, her eyes dancing with mischief.
‘As a bath,’ Elizaveta repeated. ‘Can we . . . ?’
‘We can.’
‘But what will we wear?’
‘Wear?’
Elizaveta’s eyes widened and she turned to Harald as he scrambled in beside her and gazed around him, awed.
‘We’re going to swim,’ she told her husband, ‘naked?’
His eyes gleamed.
‘All of us?’
Greta laughed.
‘All of us, yes, but not together. This is the men’s pool. Elizaveta, we ladies are through here.’
‘Shame,’ Harald objected but Greta was already tugging Elizaveta along the rocks and beneath a low archway through to a second pool.
Elizaveta looked around. The rocky roof was so low she could reach up and touch it and as she did so the soft mist gathered upon her fingers, coalescing into water that ran like a lover’s stroke down her arm. Through the archway a splash, then another, told her the men were not hesitating and, with a nervous glance at Greta, she reached for her brooches. Three more ladies joined them and together they shed their gowns, laying them carefully over a rock.
‘Shifts too?’ Elizaveta asked.
‘If you are happy to, my lady. I brought a spare in case you wished to preserve your dignity.’
‘Dignity?’ Elizaveta laughed and the sound carried around the little cavern. ‘Dignity is not something I am known for.’
Elizaveta cast off her shift and plunged into the water. It was deliciously warm, warmer than even the most hastily filled bath could ever be, and it moved around her as the others jumped in. Ducking beneath the surface, she opened her eyes and, though it stung a little, she saw her own dark hair floating before her and the bodies of the others fragmented by the shifting water, and she felt like one of Halldor’s mystical water sprites. She was hidden here in the breathing depths of this mystical island, miles away from anything as cumbersome as titles or responsibilities or ambitions, and as her breath caught at the thought, she broke the surface, sucking in air.
‘A miracle, Elizaveta?’ she heard Halldor’s voice calling through.
She laughed again and called back: ‘A miracle, Hal. It is the most stunning place I have ever seen.’
‘I’m glad,’ Halldor replied, his voice softer now. ‘It is my gift to you and to Harald too for releasing me to return here.’
They bathed there, beneath the earth, for a time too hazed to count and then, as Elizaveta floated contentedly lost in the waters’ embrace, she heard: ‘Lily.’ She jumped – the waters were whispering her name. ‘Lily, in here.’
She cast around, confused, and suddenly Harald’s face popped up through a crack in the back wall of the pool. With his hair slicked back by the water and his scar hidden in the low, flickering light of the lanterns he looked somehow boyish and she swam over to him, casting a quick, guilty glance towards the other ladies gossiping at the far edge.
‘How did you get here?’ she asked but Harald just dipped away.
She felt a gentle tug on her leg and, gazing down, saw a hole through the rock beneath the water. Taking a last look back at the others, she ducked through.
‘Hari.’ She kissed him. ‘You’re mad.’
‘For you, yes.’ He pulled her against him and she felt him hard beneath the water. ‘I’m so glad we came here, Lily. Who cares for law courts and mints and churches?’
‘Well, they are important, just . . .’
‘Just not that important.’ Harald pulled her onto him so the waters sloshed against the rocks. ‘I feel alive again, Lily – alive and purposeful and adventurous.’
‘So I see,’ she giggled, sensations rising irresistibly inside her.
‘I’m glad you’re with me.’
‘And I, or who knows which poor lady you would have set upon?’
‘Lily – be serious.’
He stilled, holding her close and the world receded until there were no rocks, no cave, no water, just Harald, her Harald, and she knew that the fire pixies had bitten deep into her heart – too deep even for the water sprites to cure.
‘I will always be with you,’ she told him, as he had told her once before. ‘Always.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The Brough of Birsay, The Orkneys, May 1058
Elizaveta pressed herself against the rough stone wall, desperately seeking shelter from the sharp onshore wind. Where was Harald? She had not sailed west with him just to spend long days pacing a wild seashore alone. She drew her cloak closer around her body for, although it was fully springtime, the sun held little power and the winds seemed ever to cut through any slight warmth. She was weary of battling them out here on this lonely bunch of islands and longed for Norway.
Elizaveta had loved the Orkneys when they’d sailed into the elegant harbour of Birsay last autumn. Jarl Thorfinn, as big and hairy as a bear, had welcomed her, and his wife, Idonie, Finn’s daughter, had showered her with hospitality and endless questions about the father she had not seen for years. Confessing he had shifted allegiance to Svein of Denmark had been hard but Idonie had taken it steadily.
‘Kalv was ever a troublemaker. We were glad when he left us to return to Norway. A good soldier but a hard man.’
Elizaveta had nodded.
‘That’s true but I am sorry we lost your father.’
‘Men are ever easy to anger,’ Idonie had said simply and something about the kindly woman – the turn of her nose, the timbre of her voice, the soft blue of her eyes – had been so like her cousin Tora that Elizaveta had felt at least partway home in her care.
The islands, too, had felt like a miniature Norway. She’d loved how the knife-edge cliffs gave way to soft, rolling hills and how you could see the sea all around. She’d loved Thorfinn’s courtyard of buildings, the curving timbers rising up out of the foundations of an ancient settlement built many, many years ago by Pictish natives. Most of all, she’d loved the way they were set on the Brough – a promontory that curved up out of the sea and was cut off from the mainland by the swirling tide for all bar two hours of every day.
Thorfinn and Idonie’s palace was on the lower edge of the Brough, nudged up to the sheltered harbour where the jarl kept his small but very smart fleet of ships. Behind it the land rose steadily up to the high point where Elizaveta now stood, leaning in against the stone broch, or tower, that was the only remaining Pictish structure on this part of the isles. The broch was the width of three men laid head to toe at the base, but it narrowed as it rose so that if you stood inside and looked up it seemed as if it might drop in on your head at any time. It had stood, though, for a thousand years, maybe more, and despite the few crumbling stones around the top it seemed unlikely it would pick Elizaveta’s lifetime to cave inwards.
Idonie had told her that no one knew exactly what the ancient peoples had used it for but it was believed to have been a watchtower and certainly that was why Elizaveta was drawn more and more to its proud side – watching, always watching for Harald’s ships to appear on the wide western oc
ean, his raven flying proudly before him. He had been gone nigh on three months and without him the days were stretching as far as the clouds above Orkney. His stated intention had been to sail with Thorfinn to Ireland to have talks with King Diarmid of Dublin, but Elizaveta had known his true purpose and the length of his trip should not surprise her – he had gone to England.
News had been waiting for them from Agatha when they’d sailed into the Brough – terrible news. She’d sent copies of the letter, so she’d said, to Iceland, the Shetlands and Norway in the hope of catching her sister somewhere on her travels but she must have crossed with the first for the news had already been months old and it had torn at Elizaveta’s heart to think of little Agatha suffering whilst she had feasted obliviously on Iceland’s delights.
Edward, Agatha’s dear Edward, was dead. Elizaveta had seen the words shaking on the vellum and pictured poor Agatha trembling as she wrote them, unable to believe they were true. All had been well at first, her sister had written. They had sailed into London in triumph. The people of England had lined the banks of the Thames to cheer them in and King Edward himself had been at the docks to greet them. He had clasped her Edward in his arms, acknowledging him before the whole crowd as his chosen heir, and she had wanted to weep with joy. Three days later she had been weeping indeed, but over her husband’s dead body.
Why? Agatha had raged, the words splodging with grief. Why bring us all the way to England just to strike us down? Elizaveta had felt her own anger rising but Agatha’s next words had been confused. Edward had fallen ill, she’d said. A sudden fever. Several of the crew of their boat from Flanders had suffered too and Agatha admitted that it could have been a natural illness, though she clearly did not believe so. Edward had not felt very well on the journey, she’d said, but he’d gained colour and vitality the moment his feet had met the soil of England – his inheritance. Only no more.
Elizaveta had longed to see Agatha. Her little sister had never been alone. Always, even these last years as a married woman, she had been near Anastasia and of course ever since she could remember she’d had Edward. Stuck in a foreign country with just three small children for comfort, Elizaveta feared she might be crumbling. Young Edgar had been declared ‘aetheling’ – throne-worthy – in his father’s stead, but he was just six years old. The court had made them welcome, Agatha had reported dully, but England was disappointed.
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