by Jorvik- A thrilling tale of Viking Britain (retail) (epub)
‘It does not do to be so vain,’ scolded her mother-in-law. ‘You would do well to pay more heed to wifely duties, at which you need practice.’
Unsure in her role, Estorhild cast her eyes to the floor and wished that her mother-in-law would take herself off to bed. Ragnhild must have read her thoughts, for shortly after eating she left the two alone. The house thrall was packed off to a dark corner, to all intents and purposes gone from the room. Relaxed from the meal and the loving attentions of his wife, Sigurd felt too lazy to visit Una just yet, but he would. He had confided in Ulf and Eric about the child and bored them with his proud ambitions for its future; his son might well be born of a thrall, but Sigurd would ensure that he was well looked after. He was not, he boasted to his friends, one of those who went around impregnating women and caring nought for the outcome; the birth of his child was an event to be welcomed.
Estorhild tried to pet him into making love to her by tickling his nose with the end of her braid, but he offered a vague smile and a kiss on the cheek. When she persisted, he left his chair. ‘I am bloody from my hunting. Perchance after I have bathed… Have I clean clothes?’
Estorhild scurried round collecting them, then held her breath as he made for the door, knowing where his legs took him. ‘I will send for hot water!’ Her voice was rather shrill.
‘Nei, sit you there, I shall not be long.’ Sigurd went directly to the thralls’ hut and threw open the door. ‘Hot water for my bath – and quickly!’ Looking beyond the action he had stirred, he asked, ‘Where be Una?’
Black Mary came alert. ‘Isn’t she at your house, master?’
‘Hm!’ He swung out of the hut and looked around the enclosure. A white moon shed its beams into every corner; it was almost as clear as daylight. Perhaps Una waited in his carpentry room. Sigurd went there, found no one, and lingered amid the wood-shavings breathing in one of his favourite perfumes. Outside a gaggle of slaves transported water for his bath. He accosted one of them. ‘Find the woman Una. I wish to see her here when I come out.’
By the time hot water licked his waist, Sigurd had begun to worry over her disappearance. Had Estorhild disobeyed him and worked her too hard, causing her to run away? The idea was unbearable. Using his hands as a bowl he scooped water over his head and neck, gave a cursory massage of his body then dried himself and slipped into fresh underbreeches. His towelling was inefficient and the garment clung to his buttocks. Rubbing away the small irritation, he finished dressing, lashed a comb through his hair, then went to meet Una.
She was not to be found. Sigurd roared for all to hear, ‘Una! Una! Out with you now!’
‘Hark to him bellowing like a rutting stag.’ Black Mary enjoyed the show at first, but then came a twinge of alarm. Nimble of foot, she moved outside and waited for Una to appear.
Sigurd put both hands to his damp head in an attitude of uncertainty. He caught the black-haired slave’s eye and shouted, ‘Is Una’s brat in there?’
Mary’s knees buckled. ‘He is not, master… she came to take him this morning. I have seen neither of them since.’ The bitch, the bitch! She’s run away with Murtagh! Fighting the vomit that rose to her throat she watched Sigurd run to the main door of the house.
Estorhild flinched as her husband burst in and lifted her bodily from her seat. ‘What have you done with her?’
‘Why, Sigurd, you hurt me!’ Eyes bulging, she tried to unlock his fingers from her arm. ‘If you speak of Una then I have sold her – she was clumsy and totally unsuited to my needs. Your mother will vouch for my complaint!’ The words came rushing out, fending off the assault that threatened in his eyes.
He worried her like a dog with a rat. ‘I demand that you tell me the name of the buyer!’
‘I know not!’ she burst into childish tears. ‘He was just a man! I did not ask his name.’
‘What did he look like?’ The ruddiness of Sigurd’s face was heightened by his blond hair.
‘I do not remember.’
‘You shall remember!’ The threat intensified.
Estorhild’s face was mottled. She balked and trembled. ‘Why are you so angry? They are but slaves.’
‘She belongs to me!’ He paid no heed to Murtagh’s fate.
‘No! You gave the woman to me.’
Corrected thus, he searched for justification of his wrath. ‘You had no right to dispose of her without telling me! If you were aggrieved with my morning gift you had only to say and I would have given you another.’
‘I hoped to spare your feelings!’ wept Estorhild. ‘’Twas greater insult to go behind my back!’ His headband felt ready to snap, so turbulent were his thoughts.
‘You make no mention of the child I sold with her! Only the woman. Speak plain to me, husband, and tell me what she means to you.’
‘What she means to me is none of your concern!’
‘I am your wife!’ Estorhild stopped shrilling and fell upon his chest, to whimper, ‘Do I not please you?’
‘Of course you do!’ There was irritation. ‘Have I not showed it often enough?’
‘Then why must you always creep off to pleasure yourself with a slave?’
‘All husbands have concubines!’
‘But none so special as this one! Why is she so important to you?’
‘She carries my child!’ he roared. ‘There! Is that enough for you? Now will you tell me where I can find her?’
Browbeaten into submission, Estorhild told him. ‘I sold her to a merchant on the Staith. I do not know his name, but he has a deep wound across his brow.’
‘So I must peer into the face of every man in Jorvik until I find him?’ Sigurd threw a cloak round his shoulders.
His wife clasped nervous hands, wondering whether to tell him. He saw the doubt. ‘What is it? Speak!’
‘The merchant was a Dane… set for Hedeby this afternoon – if you strike me I shall leave!’ She threw up her arms as rage suffused his eye.
He held back and glowered, whilst in the next room his mother snuggled under her quilt, deaf to all. Reining his temper, he used a gold pin to fasten his cloak. ‘I go now and in my absence may you ponder on this: you are my wife and I respect you, one day we will have children, what I have is yours… but you do not own me. Now, I go to find Una. I cannot say when I will return, but when I do Una shall be with me. I will build her a house away from this one so that you do not have to look upon her, but I will see her whenever I wish.’
* * *
Too impatient to wait for a mount to be harnessed, Sigurd ran from Peseholme, through the blood-stench of Marketshire where the crude framework of staves were yet displaying wares by torchlight, and directly along Usegata to the wharf where he found several merchant ships laden with goods they had bartered in Jorvik; two of them were bound for Hedeby in Denmark. Encouraged, Sigurd enquired after the man with the scarred forehead. At once he was told, ‘Ah, you must mean Yngvarr Split-head! No, this is not his ship, he sailed just after noon.’
Sigurd groaned and swore. There was no time to hire a crew for his own longboat. ‘When do you yourselves sail?’
His informant grunted under the weight of a bale. ‘On the next tide – if I do not bust my gut first.’ He tottered up to the ship with his burden.
‘Will you take me? I need to see this man.’
‘Did he owe you money?’ The bale was dropped into the arms of another man to a sound of relief.
‘Nei, but my wife… well, you know what women are!’ Sigurd gave a bluff gesture. ‘She sold him one of my best concubines and I wish to buy her back.’
‘Did she have a child with her?’ Receiving an eager nod, the informant laughed. ‘Ho, you do not need to go so far! No sooner had Yngvarr bought them than he sold them again to a local man. She was like a – kept trying to jump overboard. If she did this at open sea he would lose his money so he palmed her off on to another, the name of whom I cannot say.’
Thanking him, Sigurd turned to look up and down the Staith. Though relieved to hear that Una was
still in Jorvik, finding her remained a problem. There were eight thousand people in the city; where did he begin? Stamping his feet to aid decision, he opted for method and headed for the building nearest to the wooden bridge over the Use; from here he would work his way along the wharf. He would visit every domicile in Jorvik if he had to, but he would find her.
For three hours he travelled the cold damp alleys rapping on doors, then had to postpone his search until the morning. He did not go home but took accommodation in an ale-house, confirming his threat to Estorhild that he would not go home without Una.
Over the next day he visited every place of industry, never stopping even to eat until night-time. It had been dark for some hours when he began to look outside the city boundary in Walbegata, though trade continued by torchflare: silversmiths, coiners, wood-carvers, shieldmakers, stonecarvers, metalworkers – none had made recent purchase of a thrall and her child. Sigurd grew so accustomed to hearing the word ‘Nay’, that when an affirmative response came he did not react fittingly.
The room would have been pitch-black but for the oil-lamps which were dotted amongst the stacks of tanned hide. The man, isolated in a pool of such light, peered up from his work when his inquisitor continued to stare at him gormlessly. ‘Yea, I bought a slavewoman yesterday. For what reason do you ask?’ Having just used an awl to puncture holes in a tiny flat sole – obviously a baby’s shoe – he began to stitch the pieces together on a last.
Sigurd cleared his throat and inhaled the smell of leather. ‘Because, if it is the one, my wife parted with her in error and I would like to buy her back. Could I see her, skoari?’
‘That you may. Just allow me to finish this.’ Accompanied by much squinting, the final linen thread was inserted and the shoe turned the right way out. ‘There! Fit for a king’s son. Have you a child, hersir? No? Ah, well.’ The shoemaker, a twig of a man, rose and picked his way through the dim light between stacks of hides and cut-out patterns, eventually calling into the yard at the rear.
A woman came, her face illuminated by the lamp she held aloft. On seeing the customer her eyes, hitherto dull, lit in recognition. Sigurd looked upon Una with undisguised pleasure. ‘That is the one! Would you allow me to buy her back?’
The shoemaker stroked his beard and held Sigurd’s narrow face with a cagey look on his own. ‘If I give her to you then I shall be without help until I can find another.’
Sigurd chuckled at being fool enough to show his keenness to have her. ‘Tell me what you paid and I will pay double – for her and the child,’ he added hastily.
The man’s reticence was wiped away by magnanimity. ‘Then you may certainly take her! Would that I made such a profit on everything I sold. I paid two marks of silver for the pair. Double the price that will be four marks… and of course there is the purchase tax of fourpence that I shall have to pay on selling her.’
Sigurd’s response showed that the price was exorbitant, but if he wanted Una he would have to accept the man’s word. Una dared not even blink while the bargain was being fixed. The shoemaker, sitting cross-legged on the floor, brought out a pair of tiny scales and dropped a weight onto one of the pans. His fingertips were discoloured and marked with old cuts from his leatherwork. Sigurd bent over, long hair tumbling for the other man’s amazed inspection, and dropped first three arm-rings, the equivalent of three marks, theft silver coins into the higher pan until a balance was achieved. There was infuriating delay when a coin had to be nipped in half to bring the pans level before Una changed hands.
‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ demanded her previous owner. ‘Go and collect your child.’
‘Er, one moment!’ Sigurd kept his purse open. ‘Could I impose upon your good nature once more and hire a bed for the night? I hear the curfew bell and fear I cannot reach the city gates before they are barred against me.’ It was a lie but would grant him a peaceful night with Una.
The shoemaker looked bemused. ‘I must be going deaf – but of course you must stay. No! I would not take payment.’ He waved aside the further offer of money. ‘You shall be my guest. Woman, fetch the hersir some ale and meat. Oh, I beg your pardon, here am I giving orders when she is your slave now!’
Sigurd refused the food. ‘My thanks, I have eaten. I would just be grateful for a place to sleep for myself… and the woman.’
The manner in which this was conveyed explained much to the shoemaker. ‘Ah! I see.’ No wonder the man had been willing to pay such an inflated price – she was his concubine! He viewed her with new eyes, but still did not find her attractive himself. His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I have a little room that should meet your purpose.’ He gave instructions to Una as to where to take the guest and chuckled to himself as he went back to his leather-work.
The moment they were alone – not counting Murtagh who slept on the floor – Una’s stoicism collapsed. She put down the lamp and fell against her rescuer, weeping. He held onto her tightly. ‘Didst think I would let you go as easily as that?’
She sniffed and rubbed her tears on to his kirtle, voice catching with emotion. ‘I knew ye’d come.’ When he laughed warmly she added, ‘But whether ye’d find me, that was another matter. Oh, Sigurd, I was nigh packed off across the world! ’Twas only because the man who bought me thought I was mad that I was saved.’
‘I know.’ He caught the trailing ends of his cloak, stretching them out like wings, and wrapped them round their two bodies. ‘But even if you had gone to Hedeby I would still have come after you, if only to hear you say what you have just said.’
Una did not understand.
‘You called me Sigurd, for the first time.’ He tilted her chin with a forefinger and gave thanks with his eyes.
Una sniffed and sighed. ‘And the last if your wife has ought to do with it.’
‘Hush.’ He laid a hand over her mouth; it had the combined trace of silver, horse and leather. ‘Speak not of Estorhild tonight.’ And he made love to her whilst the babe slept on.
* * *
In the morning, as they passed through the bridge-gate on Fossegata, Sigurd told Una of his intention to build her a house of her own.
Startled, she looked up at him. ‘Does this mean…’
‘You know better than to ask that.’ He quashed all notions of freedom.
Una hefted Murtagh into a more comfortable position. ‘I wasn’t thinking to be free, I’m asking what position I’m to have.’
‘How shall you be called?’ Sigurd mused. ‘Hmm, you cannot be my lawful wife for I already have one, but you can be my heart-wife.’
Una snorted. ‘No better than a concubine to be ordered about as usual. What will Lady Estorhild have to say?’
‘She knows of my intention already. Our houses will be far enough apart for her not to have to look on you… but near enough to save my legs the journey.’ He smiled as they entered the gates to the city.
‘And what of my duties?’
‘They shall be light and will not take you to Estorhild’s house. You will soon have enough burden to carry with our child – the Lady Estorhild knows about this, also.’ The mention of children brought him to the one she carried in her arms. ‘I ask only one thing of you: whenever I come to visit, I do not wish to see him.’
Una noted the dismissive gesture and gave mute affirmation. They took a right turn and went a few dozen paces without exchanging words until they had almost reached Peseholme Green.
‘Whilst the house is built we must have somewhere that we may meet without interference. Every noon you will go in that direction,’ Sigurd pointed directly ahead, ‘and walk until you come to a Roman milestone. There you will wait for me to return from my duties, when I will set you a personal task.’ His deep-set eyes glittered.
‘’Twill be no task.’ Una’s eyes returned the warmth, but soon disposed of it as they turned right into the compound. Trepidation in her heart, she went with her son back to the thralls’ hut, Sigurd to his own house.
Having
learnt that Murtagh had been sold along with his mother, Black Mary had suffered real anguish. The two days of near bereavement were worse than any physical pain that was inflicted by Ragnhild when she caught her idle and vacant. On Una’s return, Mary almost tore the child from her arms, weeping with relief. ‘How could you allow my brother’s son to be sold! I’ll kill you, ye bitch!’
‘Did you expect me to leave him behind?’ Tired, Una dropped to the floor.
‘Better here with one who loves him!’ accused Black Mary. ‘In your selfish possession did ye not stop to think where he was headed? Ye did not! Ye just wanted to take him away from me.’ She hugged Murtagh, daring Una to grab him again. And when the time is right you are going to know just what that feels like, bitch!
Una stared impassively into the black eyes and for the time being allowed her sister-in-law free access to Murtagh; soon she and her child would be away from this interference.
Chapter Eleven
The new house was erected in the southernmost corner of the acre enclosure. Just before this point there was a group of trees and a gentle curve in the boundary so that anything happening beyond could not be seen from the main house. It could, however, be observed from the slaves’ hut. Like everyone else, Black Mary had witnessed cartloads of timber being transported through the gates and knew that building work was in progress but, ignorant of its purpose, she took little heed. She was far too busy even to think of the bastard that Una carried, for there was so much to do at this time of year – or at any time of year, for a slave. With November frosts nipping the last blades of pasture, the kine that were to live through the winter were brought into the byre attached to the house, the walls daubed with mud and insulated with skins and the doors kept firmly shuttered. Only the slaves ventured out when they did not have to, but today was a day of comparative rest for most of them. Black Mary and Una were outside finishing a light wash, eager to join the others who roosted on the hearth with their dinner of broth. It was sunny but cold. Red hands squeezed the garments out and hung them from a tree branch.
