“By the time we reached Hrorik’s lands, I was already speaking halting phrases in the Northmen’s tongue, and such was Hrorik’s eagerness to converse with me that my knowledge quickly progressed under the constant practice he gave me. He took great delight in simple things, such as teaching me the names for plants and trees, for different beasts, or foods, or farm implements. So obvious was his pleasure in speaking with me, and so gentle and kind his manner, that I, too, came to enjoy the times we spoke together, though I felt guilt that I could feel anything but hate for the man responsible for the death of my father.
“As my understanding of his tongue grew, Hrorik told me about his own life. He talked with great pride of the accomplishments of his two young children, Harald and Sigrid, and he told me of their mother, Helge. Hrorik and Helge had known each other since childhood, and their families had always expected that they would marry. From what he told me of her, Helge was a merry-spirited woman, whom he had enjoyed and respected greatly. She died of a fever when Harald and Sigrid were five years of age, during the winter before the raid on Ireland when I was captured.
“My duties at Hrorik’s farm were light. Primarily, I was to be as a mother to Harald and Sigrid. I found that caring for them was no burden, for they were sweet and affectionate children, and over time I gave my heart to them completely. I could do so without guilt, for unlike their father, their hands were not stained with blood. So I was a mother in Hrorik’s family, but no more, for by his manner toward me, Hrorik acted almost as a brother would toward a beloved sister, with great kindness and affection, but nothing more.
“Then came the night that changed everything. We had had a merry dinner, with much laughter and too much drink. When there were no guests, as on that night, Hrorik would insist that I eat at table with him, though I was but a thrall. That night Abbot Aidan had joined us, too. It was his telling of tales, some quite bawdy, from his days as a Frankish merchant-sailor that had caused our merriment.
“I put Harald and Sigrid to bed while the kitchen thralls cleared away the remains of the supper. When I was done, I saw Hrorik still seated at the table, now alone, and I went to him. His expression had turned somber.
“‘Where has your recent mirth departed to?’ I teased.
“‘My thoughts are better left unspoken,’ he replied, ‘lest they be misunderstood.’
“The jollity of the evening, and perhaps also the amount I had drunk, had left me bold. ‘Misunderstood?’ I asked. ‘Do you still consider me so poor a pupil of your tongue?’
“‘It is the language of my heart I would have you understand,’ he replied. He took a deep breath and released it slowly. ‘Derdriu,’ he asked, ‘will you come to my bed this night?’
“I felt startled and frightened by his words. My face must have shown it, for he looked away as though dismayed. When he turned back toward me, he kept his eyes downcast. ‘I must know,’ he said. ‘What thoughts filled your mind at my words, and made you look so?’
“I searched my thoughts and heart carefully before I answered.
“‘The first thought that entered my mind,’ I told him truthfully, ‘was a recollection of the day I was stolen, and how I feared that day that I would be raped, and hated you and your men for what you had done and what I feared you would do.’
“Hrorik pounded his fist upon the table, and Abbot Aidan, from across the hall, looked over in concern.
“I was silent after that for a time,” Mother said, “as I searched farther through my thoughts and deeper into my heart. I marveled as I realized that the anger I’d long felt toward Hrorik, because he’d stolen me from my home and caused the death of my father, had faded.
“‘The other thought that now enters my mind,’ I told him then, ‘is to wonder what has taken so long for you to ask me?’
My mother smiled, and I could tell that for a moment she wandered in her memories.
“That night,” she said, “was one of the sweetest of my life. And there were many more nights, and days too, over the next three years that were as sweet as honey. You were born during that time, less than a year after I first came to Hrorik’s bed.”
“What happened?” I asked her. “What changed?”
“I thought Hrorik would marry me. I believed he would free me and we would wed, and you would stand next to Harald as his son. But then he led a great raid on Dorestad, the Frank’s trading center on the coast of Frisia, using knowledge of its defenses he’d gained from talks with Aidan about his life among the Franks. Dorestad was captured and sacked, and all who went on the raid won much wealth. Men began to flatter Hrorik, telling him that if he continued to grow in wealth and renown as a chieftain, he was surely destined to someday be made a jarl by the king and rule over a district.
“Alas, their words of flattery went to his head. A chieftain named Orm had been killed in the Dorestad raid, leaving a rich widow. Her name was Gunhild, and she was the daughter of Eirik, a wealthy jarl who lived on the island of Fyn. All of Eirik’s son’s were dead, and it had been widely believed that when Jarl Eirik died, Gunhild’s husband, Orm, would be appointed jarl by the king to replace him. Although he loved me, Hrorik paid court to Gunhild and wed her to gain the wealth of her dowry and the hope of her father’s title.
“My heart was torn apart the day I saw Hrorik and Gunhild wed. It should have been me, not her, standing by his side. It should have been you, not Toke, her son by her first husband, who was accepted into Hrorik’s family as a son. But instead we remained thralls.
“Poor Hrorik. Jarl Eirik still lives, but now Hrorik is dead. He sacrificed our happiness but never gained his prize. Though he treated Gunhild with respect, it did not take her long to realize that his heart belonged to another. She argued often with him that he should sell me, but he would not. After a time, he began visiting my bed again. I think he hoped to recapture the happiness we’d known, but that part of my heart that had once held love for him was now filled with only bitterness.”
My mother paused then, and caressed my cheek softly with her hand.
“And now, my son,” she said. “You understand the truth of the lives that your father and I have shared. Because he is your father, much of him is in you, so it is good you know the tale.”
She was wrong. I had heard my mother’s words, but I still did not understand. As far back as my mind could find memories, I had known love for my mother, and she had always shown her love for me and tenderly cared for me. That kind of love I understood. Even thralls, who possess almost nothing, can feel such love. But I did not understand what could ever cause a woman to feel aught but fear and loathing for a man who’d stolen her from her home, killed her father, and made her a slave. I did not understand how my mother could ever have come to love Hrorik. To me, it seemed obvious he had never truly loved her. If he had, he would not have betrayed her by marrying Gunhild, and dooming Mother and me to lives of slavery. That was no way to show love.
Even though Hrorik had freed me before he’d died, I did not believe I could ever come to think kindly of him. Too many years of slavery had gone before. My mother and I had suffered too much, for too long. My mother might forgive him, but I never would.
5 : A Funeral Pyre
By noon on the second day of our labors, the death ship and death house were completed. We embedded tall stones, each almost as large as a man, in the ground at either end of the outline of the ship that had been cut into the thick turf on the hilltop. It took six of us—Harald, Ubbe, Fasti, Hrut, Ing and me—to wrestle them into place. The two tall stones formed the stemposts of the death ship, as the curved wooden timbers rising from the keel formed the stemposts on a real longship. Smaller boulders, knee high or slightly larger, spaced an arm’s length apart, curved in two arcs from the stern to the bow, marking the death ship’s sides.
Where Fasti, Hrut and Ing had dug out the square hole in the center of the death ship, we’d built a rough shed of logs. It was windowless and had a single low doorway. Inside, against the w
all opposite the doorway, we’d built a bier of loosely spaced, stacked layers of small logs and thick branches, with twigs and brush stuffed in the gaps between the larger timbers. The top of the bier, which was waist high, was a platform of rough planks, draped with cloaks, to lay the bodies on. We leaned stacks of dry, dead wood against the outside walls of the death-house, as high as the roof. When lit, it would make a bonfire that could be seen for miles.
I’d worked hard, wrestling boulders and chopping and stacking wood. I’d hoped that if I worked hard enough, I wouldn’t think about what would follow when we finished our labors. My hopes were in vain. Images of my mother snuck constantly into my mind. I was building her funeral pyre. She still lived, but I was preparing for her funeral. I felt as though I was trapped in an evil dream which I was powerless to wake from.
Such thoughts apparently did not trouble Harald. He stood, hands on his hips, surveying the product of our labors.
“It is good,” Harald said. He turned to me. “At Lindholm Hoje, a village in the north near the Limfjord, not far from where Hrorik’s people first settled after they came south from the lands of the Norse, there is an entire field of stone death ships, a great fleet of the dead who have sailed from this world into the next. It is a strange sight to behold.”
Harald called to Ubbe, who’d helped us complete the death house after we’d finished with the stones for the ship’s hull.
“It’s done. Send messengers out to the folk of the village. We will have the funeral this afternoon, when the sun begins to fall, and feast afterwards.”
Then he looked at me.
“There is not much more time,” he said. “Sigrid and I must prepare Hrorik’s body. You should go to your mother.”
I found my mother sitting in her bed-closet with Sigrid, Harald’s sister—my sister now, too, I realized. Both appeared to have been weeping, but they rubbed their cheeks when they saw me approaching, and spoke in cheerful voices.
My mother had on the new red dress she’d made. She lifted the hem to show me the shift underneath.
“Look, Halfdan. Sigrid has given me this fine white linen shift to wear under my dress.” She raised her hand to her throat. “And look. This amber necklace. She gave me this, too.”
“They are nothing,” Sigrid said. “The love you gave to Harald and me when we were young, when two children who’d but recently lost their mother were lonely and afraid, is the treasure beyond price.”
My mother’s eyes filled with tears. Sigrid put her arms around her and held her.
“On this day,” Sigrid said, “in this world and the next, you will take your rightful place at my father’s side. This day, may I call you Mother?”
My mother opened her mouth, but no words came. She nodded her head, her eyes glistening with tears. Then both women began weeping. I stood beside them, silent and embarrassed, not knowing what to do. Finally Sigrid kissed Mother on both of her cheeks, then backed away. She turned to me, smiling through her tears.
“Derdriu and I have something for you, also.”
A stack of folded garments lay at the foot of my mother’s bed. One by one, Mother handed them to me. There was a white linen tunic with embroidery around the neck opening and the ends of the sleeves, a pair of dark green woolen trousers, a leather belt with a silver buckle and tip, and a short cloak of gray wool with a large circular silver brooch, cast in the shape of a fanciful serpent, to pin it.
“We had no time to make new clothes,” Mother said. “These were Harald’s, that he gave us for you. They are in fine condition, not worn out at all. Sigrid has helped me remake them to fit you.”
“We did not want you to attend the feast looking like a thrall,” Sigrid added.
“I…I thank you,” I stammered. I’d given no thought to my own appearance, until Sigrid mentioned it. I would have shamed myself at the funeral and feast, had I worn my tattered and filthy tunic—the only clothing I possessed. No doubt I would have shamed Harald and Sigrid, too. A small, graceless voice in the back of my mind wondered if that was the real reason for my new clothes. I might be free, but in my heart still lived the suspicious, petty spirit of a slave.
Sigrid embraced me. “I am happy to have you as my brother,” she whispered. When she released me, she turned to my mother.
“You will want to spend the time remaining with Halfdan,” she said, and hurried away.
Mother took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
“So. It is time?” she asked. I looked down, embarrassed.
“Soon. The work is completed. Messengers have been sent to summon the villagers.”
What do you say to your mother when she is about to die so that you can better your own life? I felt struck dumb and said nothing.
Mother took off her linen cap, unpinned her hair, and let it fall down her back. Although it infuriated Gunhild, Hrorik had let her keep her hair long, unlike the rest of the thralls, who wore their hair cropped short. Mother did keep it pinned up and concealed under her cap, though. Gunhild was not a woman to anger heedlessly.
“Will you comb my hair for me, Halfdan?” she asked. “I shall wear it down today, as a princess of Ireland would on a feast-day. Hrorik used to love to run his hands through my hair. Years ago, when we lived in the north, sometimes he would sit behind me and comb it for me. I would feel a man’s hands in my hair once more in this lifetime.”
At first we sat in silence as I ran the comb through her long hair. It was as black and shiny as the feathers of a raven, without a trace of gray. After a time, she spoke to me over her shoulder, as I stroked the comb through her tresses.
“I have little to leave you. This bed-closet shall of course be yours. You must move it up to the other end of the hall, away from the animals’ byre, as befitting your new status. Poor Gunhild. How it infuriated her that I, a mere thrall, should have a bed-closet, when none of the carls who live in the longhouse had one. When Hrorik had Gudrod build it for me, I think he intended equally to spare Gunhild embarrassment when he came to my bed as he did to benefit himself and me. All Gunhild could see, though, was this bed standing in her house every day as a monument to his affection for another woman.
“My comb was also a gift from Hrorik. It is well made. The teeth are fine and close together, and catch even the smallest lice. It will serve you well. And these two other things I most of all want you to have. They’re all I have left of Ireland.”
Lifting her hair up from the back of her neck, Mother exposed the leather thong around it from which hung a small silver cross she wore around her neck, under her shift.
“Untie the knot,” she said.
It seemed wrong. I’d never seen my mother remove the cross from around her neck. But wordlessly I obeyed.
When I’d untied the knot for her, she said, “Turn around.” Then she took the cord from my hands, raised it over my head, and tied the thong in a knot behind my neck.
“This is the sign of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one true God,” she told me. “Wear it always, and perhaps He will watch over you and protect you, even in this heathen land. And this,” she said, as she placed a small sealskin pouch in my hands, “contains the words our Lord spoke during his lifetime.”
I recognized the pouch. I’d learned to hate seeing Mother bring it out over the years. It contained a small parchment scroll, relating the life of the man-god the Christians worshipped. Hrorik had taken it as plunder in a raid many years ago, and had given it as a gift to my mother. She’d spent many hours using the scroll to teach me about the White Christ, and also teaching me to read, write, and speak in Latin, the language of the Christian church. I’d hated those lessons. I’d hated wasting the little free time a slave is given to learn Latin. Why should a thrall learn to speak and read the language of a foreign people, or study the life of a weak God, who held no power in our lands? If the White Christ was as great a God as Mother claimed, why had he not protected her? Still, I knew Mother valued the little scroll highly, and to her the gift meant much.
I stroked the worn leather of the little pouch gently, swallowing hard.
“It is I who should be giving gifts to you,” I told her, looking down. I felt embarrassed that I had nothing to give her.
She smiled and reached out and placed her hand over mine, on the pouch.
“Every moment of your life has been a gift to me,” she answered. “And it is a great gift now to know that you will make your way in the world as a free man. You are growing into a fine man, Halfdan, and I know you will live your life well. No mother could ask for more than that.”
A horn sounded from the hilltop. A shadow of fear briefly crossed her face. Then she forced a smile to her face and spoke, though her eyes betrayed the falseness of her cheery expression and voice.
“Quickly now,” Mother said. “That is the first call for the ceremony. Run to the wash-house and clean off the sweat and dirt from your labors. You must present a fine appearance, for all will be watching. We have little time to prepare you.”
By the time the horn sounded its second mournful peal I was clean, or at least relatively so—thralls were not encouraged to bathe or allowed to use the bathhouse, so washing was a new skill I had yet to fully master.
Back at Mother’s bed-closet, I quickly dressed in my new finery. She combed my hair for me and pinned the cloak together at my left shoulder with the silver brooch.
“I should have thought to tend to your hair before now,” she said, trying to arrange it round my face with her hands. “This short, ragged cut is that of a thrall, not a chieftain’s son. But we have no time. As it grows out, ask Sigrid to trim it for you. It would be a sisterly thing for her to do for you.”
I could not imagine asking Sigrid to cut my hair. I feared she might recoil at the suggestion. But I said nothing to my mother.
We embraced, and I could feel her trembling. I wondered if she could feel that I was trembling, too.
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