Jorvik

by Jorvik- A thrilling tale of Viking Britain (retail) (epub)

  It was sufficiently competent for him to grasp. He gave a clumsy nod of recognition. ‘So, you do understand me after all.’

  ‘A little, if you speak slowly,’ she replied.

  ‘Where did you learn to speak with northmen?’

  ‘There are many of your kind in the place where I come from.’

  His face was thoughtful for a while, then he took a lump of horsemeat that had been cooking in the embers and thrust it at her. ‘Eat!’

  She looked revolted. ‘I am a Christian. It is forbidden to eat horseflesh.’

  Insulted at this rebuff, he stared at her with narrowed eyes for another moment, then tossed the meat aside and turned back to the runes as if nothing had happened. ‘So, you say I shall live to be a very old man?’ A groan passed his lips. ‘Oh, do not tell me I shall die in my bed!’

  Una was studying the runes again. ‘I see a battle, I see many battles, but ’tis a woman who’ll bring about your death.’

  ‘Shit!’ Sigurd laughed loudly for the benefit of his friends who were taking notice. ‘The only way a woman could kill me is if she fucked me to death.’

  Una ignored the ribaldry and concentrated on the stones. ‘There is a man… A man whom you love will betray ye, but ’tis the woman who will cause your death.’

  With a roar of contempt Sigurd grabbed a book that the dead monk had carried and used it to fuel the fire. It dropped open, its exquisite illuminated pages turning brown.

  Una remained outwardly calm, though she abhorred such ignorant destruction. ‘’Tis true, finn-gall.’

  He turned on her, swaying. ‘Know my name! It is Sigurd – your master!’

  The girl held him with that unnerving stare, half fear, half contempt. ‘And I am Una.’

  Sigurd felt that she was mocking him. He was furious, but pretended he did not care. ‘Eric, I have changed my mind. I will make use of one of those women!’ He grabbed the female hand which Eric offered. ‘And let us see which one of us is still alive in the morning!’ Barely able to stand, he dragged her off to his tent, helped on his way by bawdy comments.

  Una watched him vanish under canvas, then darted wary eyes at the others, fearing that his absence could mean rape by one of them. Inside the tent Sigurd threw the woman on the ground and covered her. Still in deep shock from the butchery she had witnessed, she yielded without protest whilst he made futile stabs at penetration. Eventually he accepted defeat, rolled off and threatened to kill her if she told anyone. On closing his eyes he found himself thinking of the girl by the camp fire. Then he passed out.

  * * *

  He woke to a crapulence of mouth and a vague feeling that he had made a fool of himself last night. Further thought produced the nightmarish memory of sexual failure. He hardly dared turn his head to look at the woman, but when he did it was to find that she had sneaked from the tent whilst he snored. He half-hoped she had escaped completely so that he would not have to look at her – that is, if he could remember which one she was. Anticipating mockery from his comrades he spent a while longer here before, head pounding and eyes bloodshot, he crawled from the tent.

  His friends were too worn out from their own debauchery to offer comment – not even a good morning – and so he was left in peace to wash the foul taste from his mouth and try to bring himself back to life. He glanced over at the knot of slavewomen who had made a feckless attempt to escape last night but had been hauled back and put under guard. He paid them much thought. Later in the morning when Sigurd had eaten and his head no longer pounded he decided he must make another attempt to lose his virginity. It took a great deal of nerve to march up to the group of women, wondering as he approached had the one from last night told the others? Would he be able to accomplish the act this time? What if there was something wrong with him? But he had to know now for he could not wait for Una to give birth only to make a thorough fool of himself.

  Without leave he grabbed a woman, the first that came to hand, and dragged her back to his tent. She fought and scratched, drawing blood from his cheeks, but it did her no good. The rape was short-lived but effective; he was now a man in every sense and when the time came he could prove it to Una. Leaving the distressed woman behind him he emerged from the tent and strutted over to the other captives to prove himself again, this time in full view of everyone. His activities inflamed his comrades and they too advanced on the group, panicked them into mass flight, caught them and used them.

  To struggle led to more injury, so after a few days the women gave up trying to oppose their captors and accepted their fate with stoicism – why make life even harder? However, there was much discord between the prisoners themselves, especially between Una and another of the girls in Sigurd’s possession who was dubbed Black Mary, for her youth was lost beneath a countenance that was as black and bitter as a sloe. He neither knew nor cared of the relationship between them, neither was he particularly conscious of any rift. What he was extremely sensitive to was the magnetic lure of Una, from whom he found it impossible to stay away.

  Had he bothered to ask, he would have learned that Mary was Una’s sister-in-law; close to her brother, Eoghan, she had always resented being displaced in his affections by one of inferior birth and to see Una now talking with his murderer gave her double reason for hate. Until now Mary, being a couple of years older, had been accustomed to taking precedence over Una… but now they were on a par, both were slaves, and Una would be bullied no longer, at least not by this girl.

  Black Mary watched the young viking speak to the object of his lust, detestation of both filling every corner of her body. The moment Sigurd had passed out of earshot she swooped like a pterodactyl on Una, nipping tender flesh and yanking hair, luring the other women into her feud.

  ‘Will ye look at her fawning like a vixen on heat around my brother’s murderer!’ Her eyes were blacker than ever in this mood.

  ‘’Twas not I talking to him,’ corrected Una, wrenching her hair from Mary’s fingers and returning to her washing which she pounded on the riverbank. ‘’Twas him talking to me. I do not welcome his attention. Besides, Sigurd did not murder Eoghan. ’Twas the dark one, Eric.’

  ‘Hark!’ Black Mary wheeled in triumph on the others. ‘Doesn’t she know their names already!’ With their muttered agreement, she turned back to Una, hatred in her face, which like her manner was coarse. ‘What does it matter which head of the serpent struck the blow. He’s dead, is he not? And you cavortin’ with them like a whore, my dear brother’s child in your belly.’

  ‘Have a care,’ one of the others warned Mary, ‘lest she turns her magic on us.’

  ‘She has no magic!’ scoffed Mary.

  ‘What about the visions? Didn’t she tell us something like this was going to happen?’

  ‘I’ll grant she can peer into the future, but can she do anything about it?’ The dark woman looked crafty. ‘She cannot! She’s powerless like the rest of us. I’ve tested her so-called magic, ’tis harmless. D’ye think I’d still be alive if it wasn’t? Hasn’t she always hated me!’

  ‘’Tis a mean mouth ye have on ye, Mary. I tried my best to be friends but ye’d have none of it.’ Una wrung out her garment and stood with dripping hands to move away but the women, convinced as to her impotence, formed a ring around her. She grew alarmed at their hostility. ‘Will ye let me pass!’

  ‘What’s the password?’ Black Mary hissed into her face and knocked the clean garment from her hands.

  ‘She should know that,’ said one who did not know Una very well but shared Mary’s dislike of the way she curried favour with the viking. ‘’Tis harlot! Harlot, harlot!’ The others began to chant with her.

  ‘Let me go, I’ve done nothing wrong!’ Una clenched her wet fists and tried to forge a way through but the circle tightened on her.

  ‘What is amiss here?’ Sigurd had returned.

  Black Mary checked her attack, but did not cower and retreat as did the others. She turned upon him with lips stretched taut across her teeth. �
��Come, sisters! Let us give the young hog a smile.’ The others sucked in their breath, expecting punishment, but Mary did not flinch. ‘To be sure, he doesn’t understand a word, do ye, my noble lord?’ She bowed her head to Sigurd, wearing an expression of total subservience. ‘Ye can say what the devil ye like so long as ye wear your best smile, he’ll not understand a word of it. Listen.’ She clasped her hands to her breast and gazed entreatingly at Sigurd. ‘We were just keeping your little whore hot for ye, master. Will ye look at her cheeks all red and glowing.’

  Sigurd’s nostrils flared. ‘What do you say? You must learn to abandon your words in favour of mine.’

  Black Mary continued to smile. ‘Sure, he’d look more like a woman than a man with all that hair if he didn’t stink so foul. Come, Una,’ she pulled the girl into a falsely affectionate embrace. ‘Ye say ye don’t like your man’s attention, then prove it. Call him what ye will.’

  Una hesitated, then muttered into her breast, ‘Ye’ve a face on ye like a pig’s pezzle.’ No hand came out to smite her. The other women dared to relax now. Una set the previous antagonism aside for the moment, to enjoy this newfound game. ‘An’ your breath stinks like a rotting carcase,’ she added sweetly.

  The women tittered. The young viking began to suspect a plot. He looked from one grimy face to another.

  Black Mary spoke again. ‘Oh, son of Satan’s whore…’ She was instantly felled by a blow. All but herself and Una fled in disorder. Sigurd left the black crumpled figure to be tended by the fair one. A rueful Mary sat up, testing her jaw which felt broken and was already beginning to swell. ‘Tis obvious he’s been called that before.’ Realizing it was Una at her elbow, she knocked away the helping hand and rose to her feet unaided. ‘Away with ye, bitch!’

  Una stood her ground. ‘An’ what right have you to call me names? You who ate at my table, who danced and sang with me…’

  ‘For my brother’s sake!’ came the hot response, blood and saliva dribbling from the lopsided jaw. ‘Now he’s dead I’ll pretend no more. An’ I warn ye,’ Black Mary took the hand from her jaw and wagged a finger, ‘ye’ll have no friend while you’re the viking’s harlot.’

  ‘I am not his nor any man’s harlot!’ Una stooped to retrieve the garment she had washed, now a muddy rag. ‘But if that’s what all of ye think then be damned to your friendship! None of ye can give me my freedom, but Sigurd can, an’ if I have to dance naked to his whistle then by God I will – to Hell with the lot o’ yese!’

  Chapter Seven

  The vikings spent the best of the summer in Ireland, making other lightning raids on monasteries and small colonies, their poorly-clad slaves at the mercy of Irish downpours and coastal winds. The ship would not take the horses they had captured and these were sold, but they were left with prizes aplenty for their families back home. Towards autumn they made their last port of call at Dyflinn to stock up with food and hire more crew, then returned to Jorvik by the northern passage, their ship low in the water under its ballast of loot.

  On the second day of the voyage, Una felt the onset of labour. At first she had been uncertain, but by nightfall when the waves of pain launched themselves as strongly as those against the prow, she was forced to swallow her pride and ask the other women for help. One by one they turned their backs. Una panicked. Helpless as a doe with the baying of wolves in its ears, she began to totter about the deck between the rowers. Harsh male voices demanded that she make herself scarce, but locked in her distress she knew not where she trod and kept pacing, pacing… A corner, she must find a quiet corner! But there were no corners on a ship. Una vomited. Another male voice split the darkness. ‘Agh! Some bastard has thrown up over my back!’ Una staggered away from the angry voice and back to the group of women, begging, pleading, but met with excommunication.

  Terrorized by pain, she huddled into the darkness and prayed. Each time the spasms came she rammed a knot of her dress into her mouth and bit on it so hard that she feared her teeth would crack, and in time it went away. But the waves of agony became too powerful to conceal and she began to moan out loud.

  Sigurd had decided that they would row throughout the night so that their land journey might be accomplished more safely in daylight. Whilst others took their turn at the oars, he and the relief crew slept, but now an inhuman howl rent his dream. Roused, he lifted his head, wondering if the ship was being attacked, but the rhythmic creak of the oars soothed him back towards oblivion. Another scream brought him crashing into consciousness, and prompt as an echo came another.

  ‘Have we devils aboard?’ Rousing Ulf who shared his sleeping bag, he got to his feet, pressed a hand to his brow and looked for the source of the noise. For a moment only the sound of rowing pierced the darkness, then it came again. His brain latched on to who was responsible. ‘Those… wretched women! They are more trouble than they are worth. Quiet, back there!’ He made for the stern. ‘Another peep and you will all be in the sea!’

  But no threat could halt nature’s mischief. Sigurd cursed again and hopped along the deck, almost tripping over Una whose distorted face gleamed up at him, white as the moon. It was all too evident then what was happening.

  ‘Oh…’ Sigurd backed away. ‘You had better get on with it.’ About to go, he noticed that no one was assisting her, the other women all curled up apparently asleep. Disgusted, he kicked the nearest one, Black Mary. ‘Why do none of you give her help?’

  ‘To be sure, she never asked for it… master,’ sulked the drowsy woman. By necessity and beatings the prisoners had learnt their captors’ tongue but Sigurd did not like the tone.

  ‘If she dies, you all die, ja? Now, keep her quiet!’

  Racked by pain, Una was glad of any help, even the rough handling of her sister-in-law. When the labour changed course and she was gripped by the urge to expel whatever was inside her, two of the women held her under the arms whilst she squatted and strained and tried her best not to yell. Like many of her countrywomen, her pubic bone had been broken at birth by the midwife and the gap prevented from knitting so as to allow the adult woman to be delivered more easily. It did not help. Una felt that she was dying, prayed indeed that she would die and be spared this dreadful agony. Eventually, in a fleshsplitting rush of gore, the child was ejected from the darkness of its mother’s body into the darkness of life.

  ‘’Tis a boy.’ Kneeling, Black Mary laid the infant on her lap whilst another woman delivered the afterbirth, then with the tiny knife that also prepared food she cut the umbilicus and wrapped the baby in a piece cut from Una’s smock, for there were no bands to swaddle his green limbs.

  Though her innards felt ragged and her limbs trembled from labour, joy and exhilaration crept into Una’s voice. ‘Is he fit?’

  ‘And what do you care?’ was her sister-in-law’s hurtful riposte. ‘Ye cared nought for his poor father.’

  Una made no comment on the latter, saying only, ‘He is my child.’

  ‘And ye don’t deserve him!’

  For one heart-stopping moment Una feared she was to be deprived of her son then, grudgingly, Black Mary surrendered the bundle to her arms. Una gazed over every inch of him. From the time of his conception she had wondered whether or not she would hate him when he was born, but now she drowned beneath a floodtide of love and an urge to protect.

  One of the women pulled the crude shawl away from the baby’s face, her words more amicable than Una had come to expect. ‘How will ye be knowing him?’

  ‘She’ll not be calling him anything!’ Mary incised before Una had the time even to think. ‘Tis I who’ll give him his name. He’ll be known as Murtagh – seaman – and by the Virgin he’ll make a greater man by far than any of this viking scum.’ She turned to pass a murderous look along the deck at the shape that was her captor.

  Hair fluttering in the night wind, Sigurd perched forward. Looking out over the waves, deeply involved with his thoughts, he took a moment to heed the call that summoned him to his turn at the oar. When he answered
he noticed too that the banshee wailing had stopped and out of curiosity went to investigate. ‘Is it male or female?’ He looked at the bundle in Una’s arms.

  ‘’Tis a boy,’ announced Black Mary.

  Sigurd looked pleased and called out through the darkness, ‘Friends, witness this!’ Rude hands took the bundle from Una’s arms and held it aloft. ‘My first male slave!’

  Oh, the thoughtlessness, the injustice! Una was plunged from the crest of euphoria into the very pit of despair. Her mind screamed in unison with the mouth of her son – Mother of Mercy, have I gone through all this just for him to be a slave? Help me, sweet Jesus, help me!

  Sigurd dumped the puling infant back at her. Her arms enveloped him like a hawk shrouds its kill, face crumpling. Not a word, not a care for my health…

  Una was mistaken. He did have thoughts of her, though he spoke them only to himself: Good Freyja, heal her with your kiss, mend her quickly, so that her sweet flesh might soon be locked round mine.

  * * *

  Navigation of the strip of land between the firths of Clyde and Forth proved arduous for all. To carry the boat they slotted the oars through the oarholes and hoisted the weight on to their shoulders, all the while tensed in anticipation of attack. They took constant rests. Without these Una felt that she would have died, her body still raw from its travails.

  Sigurd’s vainglorious entrance to Jorvik coincided with the appearance of an unfamiliar woman in his yard. Burdened with implements, he held her with shrewd eye, believing her to be another claimant on his property. The woman did not flinch – then almost simultaneously each hailed their recognition, ‘Mother!’ ‘Son!’

  Throwing down his baggage, Sigurd came to meet Ragnhild who beheld him with happiness. Though their meeting was inhibited by a natural reserve, affection still shone in both pairs of eyes. ‘How you have changed!’ Maternal hands stroked his lightly-bearded chin, running over every inch of a face tanned from its voyage. ‘And so tall – not so tall as your father by a long way, but oh…!’