Jorvik
Page 26
Sigurd looked around the cabin, noting few differences since last he had been here. Una waited for him to speak; at last he did so, a mite uncomfortably she noted. ‘You wish to know why I have not been.’
‘I need no explanation.’
He gave a bitter laugh and looked at his feet. ‘Ah, the runes told you all about it.’
Una retained her level gaze. In fact, she had recently been visited by one of her dreams but would not divulge its contents to her master; he would see for himself in time. ‘I meant that you owe me no explanation. I am but a slave.’
She did not speak as if she were only a slave. Sigurd’s moustache twitched in pique. He had known she would make it difficult for him. ‘Are you fully healed?’
‘Well enough for your purposes,’ was her cold retort.
‘I did not come here simply to bed you.’
‘Then your visit has nought to do with the fact that your wife’s belly is out to here?’
‘Nei! I can slake my lust anywhere.’ He fought down his anger to offer awkwardly, ‘I missed you, Una.’ When she responded with derision, he threw another tantrum. ‘Say if you wish me to go!’
Una risked a mocking curl of lip. ‘The slave giving her master orders?’
He grabbed the impudent face between his hands and screwed his bearded mouth around hers. Her belly leapt, resistance was lost.
Afterwards, while she lay pensive on her bed and he with cheek pressed to her shoulder, Sigurd murmured: ‘I am most truly sorry about the child. ’Twas bad for me, too. I welcomed its birth.’
Una stared up into the rafters, felt the goosebumps rise as his moustache tickled her breast. ‘Is that why ye wouldn’t let me speak of it?’
He nodded; she would not wish to hear the whole reason, how in his mind he had blamed her, called her a failure – but he was over that bitterness now. ‘When Estorhild told me that she was with child I could not risk distressing her and have the same thing happening as did to you… so I promised I would not see you again.’
‘But now her belly prevents you from making love to her you remember Una.’
He did not lift his head. ‘Would that it were so simple. I did not lie when I said I had missed you – did I not just prove it?’
She touched a light finger to his nose. In truth their lovemaking had been as good as ever. Una despised her own weakness. ‘You treat me like one of the kine.’
He tried to charm her then, reaching up to tweak her lobe. ‘I see no notches in your ear.’ When she failed to be amused he himself became more serious, propping himself on an elbow. ‘You must understand that things are very different now. Estorhild is my wife – a good wife – and I must try to keep her happy even though it will be hard to stay away from you. But just because I do not see so much of you does not mean I love you less.’ Desire washed over his face once more.
‘If I hadn’t lost the child things would still be the same between us.’ Una sounded wistful.
He turned over and kissed her with the promise, ‘We will have more.’
And out of fear that she would lose his love completely, she did not have the heart to tell him they would not.
* * *
‘He is going with his Irish mare again.’ Estorhild sat with her husband’s mother, tablet-weaving a length of braid for the gown she would wear after the child was born. The finished portion coiled around her domed abdomen and under the seat, providing a game for two kittens. Her fingers twisted the antler plaques as she worked, so as to alter the warp thread and produce the intricate pattern, but in her mind she twisted Una’s neck.
‘It is understandable.’ Ragnhild made slow progress on the sock she was knitting. ‘Your belly is too big to accommodate him. As soon as the child is born all will be well. You have his heart, I know.’
‘He has told you?’ Trapped by her body inside the house whilst others enjoyed the sun, powerless to keep Sigurd from his mare, the young wife’s insecurity thrived. ‘He never tells me.’
‘Pff! You don’t expect a man to speak of such things. Nei, he does not have to tell me. Her magic is becoming weaker. Did he not manage to evade her spell for five long months? Soon he will tire of her. She is looking worn.’ Ragnhild grinned conspiratorially at the younger woman. ‘I give her plenty of work to do.’
Estorhild paused in her weaving, but still used the square plates of antler as a toy for worried fingers, clicking them together. ‘You are good to me, Mother. How fortunate I am to have you with me for the birth. I am so frightened…’ She bit her lip.
Ragnhild was as unsympathetic as ever. ‘What have you to be afraid of? Pampered by your husband, no work to do – if you had given birth as I did to Sigurd you would have a right to be afraid.’ She shook her head grimly. ‘I shall never forget that day, never… To have my husband and children butchered, almost to die myself before giving Sigurd life… you do not know what suffering is.’
At the height of her labour, Estorhild remembered these words, using them in an effort to block her screams, but it did no good. Under her mother-in-law’s recriminations, she felt shamed by her lack of control, but continued to yell regardless. Her agony echoed round the enclosure for all to hear. Under Ragnhild’s command, there was a number of women in attendance, all jammed into the sealed room. A couple walked Estorhild up and down as far as the crowd would allow, others rubbed and massaged her. She felt stifled by the press of bodies, the June heat and the women’s constant bickering about how things should be done.
Some time ago Ragnhild had delved into her bag of midwife’s potions and given a dose of ergot to speed up the labour, after which the pain had become excruciating. All Estorhild wanted to do was to lie down and sleep forever, but the horrendous contractions kept jolting her awake.
In the main hall a kettle of water heated over the fire. Sigurd watched it boil, feeling excluded from this women’s festival. He had been with Una, about to make love, when the horrible screams curtailed passion. He had left her at once, excited at the thought of his child being born – but that had been this morning. It was evening now – why did it take so long? His wife yelled again.
Ragnhild sighed, plugged her ears with rags and tried to continue with her knitting. The birth was taking longer than was good for all and the child had as yet been unable to puncture the bag of fluid. With the aid of supportive arms, Estorhild squatted over her bed of straw, juddered and threw herself into another wailing contraction.
‘Lay her back.’ Ragnhild put aside her knitting and, lowering herself with some difficulty from the chair, inserted a finger into the pain-racked body, wiggling its long nail about. Adjacent to Estorhild’s cry came a trickle of fluid. ‘There! That will help him to crawl out.’ Ragnhild dipped her hand into a pot of grease and smeared the birth canal. Wiping her fingers on a rag, she allowed the other women to attend to Estorhild and went back to her knitting.
Black Mary hovered unobtrusively, waiting to clear away the mess. The waiting did not bother her; the longer she stood here the less work she would have to do. As Estorhild’s suffering went on Mary began to hum, partly to alleviate the boredom but mainly from devilment.
Una had not been permitted to come anywhere near the birthplace lest she cast a spell on the child, and was at this moment collecting bee-bread from her hive. She took no pleasure from Estorhild’s caterwauling, was even moved enough to try and help the birth along by loosening every tight place she could find – every locked door, every window, every knot, in order that the birth proceed unrestricted.
Through her agony Estorhild felt a change take place. There began an eternal sequence of pushing and straining, face contorted, sinews bulging in her neck. Whilst the women took turns to jack up Estorhild’s perspiring body, the grandmother-to-be blithely continued to knit, even when informed that the child’s crown had begun to show.
‘Hold out your hands, Mother!’ A sweating Estorhild gasped between contractions. ‘You must be ready to catch it.’
‘What?’ Ragnhild
saw that her daughter-in-law’s lips were moving and took the obstruction from one of her ears.
‘Your hands!’ shrieked Estorhild. ‘You must keep them free!’
‘Pooh! You think I have not done this before?’ Ragnhild’s fingers worked in conjunction with the single needle.
‘I beg you! Hold your hands ready, or his head will crash onto the ground!’ Estorhild’s beauty was lost neath a prunelike distortion as another pain threatened to split her wide open. She gritted her teeth and strained and pushed and heaved…
Sigurd’s daughter was born on a tide of blood and mucus, snortling and grunting like a red piglet. With expert timing, Ragnhild put aside her knitting and caught the tiny skull, her fingers drenched with the birth waters. Estorhild hung there, panting, while her mother-in-law poked straws up the baby’s nostrils and issued a terse command to another woman who had taken hold of the umbilical cord. ‘Be sharp or the afterbirth will float up to her heart and kill her!’
The woman tugged hard at the cord. ‘It won’t come.’
Ragnhild groaned at the incompetence. ‘If you allow the womb to contract we will never get it out!’ Succeeding in clearing the baby’s airways, she gave a sharp yank on the cord, making Estorhild yell. The afterbirth plopped onto the straw. Ragnhild held her breath for the crimson fountain that might accompany it, but to Estorhild’s great fortune there came only birth fluid. Everyone relaxed. Estorhild flopped back onto the straw and for all her exhaustion was strong enough to enquire after her child.
‘Is she well?’ The mother ran anxious eyes over every digit, cursing Ragnhild’s ineptitude as her old fingers dithered over the severing of the cord. How she wished her own mother were here. Ragnhild would surely kill the babe with her tight bandaging of its limbs.
‘Ja, ja, all is well. Oh, what a little beauty!’ Ragnhild grinned, delivered a smacking kiss to the wizened face and began to rock the child so vigorously that its mother held her breath. ‘Hup, hup, hup!’ The infant bounced up and down in Ragnhild’s arms. ‘My first grandchild! No matter that it is not a son, you will do better next time.’ After kissing the swaddled babe once more she placed her in Estorhild’s arms.
‘Your father will be pleased with you, I think,’ whispered mother to child, then broke down with the emotion of deliverance.
‘Ay, ay, ay!’ Ragnhild bustled happily to the door. ‘We had better let Sigurd in to see what he has made.’
Sigurd had been waiting anxiously outside the room. When beckoned, he entered like an awkward boy and on presentation of his daughter he could think of nothing appropriate to say. His first response was to laugh. Chuckling like an idiot, he took the baby from his wife. Concerned at his ginger handling, Estorhild put out a hand, but he soothed her anxiety. ‘I only take her to see the world!’
‘The sun has gone down, she will freeze to death!’ objected the new mother. But Sigurd laughed, went through the hall and out of doors where he held his newborn in the air and shouted aloud for all inside to hear, ‘World! Here is my daughter!’
And Una, hearing that cry, ruffled her own child’s black hair, then went back to work.
Chapter Twelve
The weeks following the birth were given to decontaminating the house and those who had assisted, holy water being splashed over all. Estorhild was allowed back into the kirk to undergo her own purification, and only then deemed fit to mix once again in society. However, Estorhild was too consumed with her babe to want to entertain Sigurd’s guests. Only when Ragnhild pointed out the dangers of this did she begin to take more care of her attitude and her appearance when in Sigurd’s company.
She need not have worried; Sigurd was too captivated by his new daughter to bother with Una. His time was spent in organizing a feast to mark her name-giving, inviting neighbours, the Jarl of Northumbria and other influential citizens of Jorvik, and of course his old friends Ulf and Eric.
Now the father of a baby girl himself, Eric shared the new parents’ enthusiasm. ‘Why, she has more hair than Ulf!’
When Ulf made to grab him, Sigurd warned, ‘Avast! Or I shall fine the pair of you for brawling in the presence of your noble lord.’
Ulf showed he was unimpressed by thumping Sigurd, whilst Eric turned to the new mother. ‘See how he treats his friends! I’ll wager this ogre even beats his child.’
‘Nei, he is the perfect father.’ Estorhild linked her free arm with that of her husband.
Sigurd himself purveyed an air of mystery, though whispering loud enough for his wife to hear. ‘Alas, I harbour doubts that I am the true father. The babe has characteristics that I vaguely recall in another man but his name escapes me for the moment. The noises she makes…’ He shook his head, perplexed.
Estorhild administered a chiding nudge, but smiled at the confused friends. ‘You will see in time what my husband means.’
Eric paid compliment to her appearance. ‘That is a fine blue robe you wear, the colour becomes you.’
‘Trust a man!’ laughed Estorhild, her face radiantly happy below the gold circlet. ‘’Tis not blue but purple – but I thank you anyway.’ She patted his swarthy cheek. Whatever had happened to her? Only months ago she detested Sigurd’s friends and now felt genuine warmth towards them. Perhaps it was because Eric, however repulsive his looks, was always quick to offer the compliment forgotten by her husband.
There was a brief ceremony in which the babe’s head was annointed with water. Sigurd had already performed this act on the night his child was born. It had been the custom long before the Christians took hold of the idea.
Prior to the celebratory feast, the child herself was fed. ‘Hark!’ Sigurd elbowed Ulf. ‘There is the strange noise I told you of earlier.’ Bloated with milk, the tiny parcel was expelling her flatulence from both ends. Sigurd cocked his head. ‘Tell me, where have I heard that sound before?’
Ulf and Eric had begun to chuckle.
‘Why, ’twas you!’ Sigurd seized his dark-haired friend and pretended to throttle him. ‘You are the true father – I will kill you!’
The friends broke up, laughing. Eric stooped over the baby on Estorhild’s lap. ‘I like this child! She is a woman after my own heart.’
‘I think the word you seek is fart,’ corrected Ulf, then to Sigurd, ‘She shall not be hard to name, my friend.’ When the other laughed and moved away to mingle with his guests, Ulf bent towards Estorhild and muttered self-consciously, ‘I am most glad to see the pair of you so happy.’ That was all, but Estorhild knew what he meant and bowed her gracious head.
‘Come, my friends!’ Sigurd called the assembly to order. His long hair was bleached by the sun, his face tanned and happy. ‘Eat at my table and join me in celebrating the finest daughter a man could have.’ He and Estorhild took to their settle between the ornate high-seat pillars. Facing them in the other place of honour sat the Jarl and his lady. The remainder of the guests jostled for the superior seats closest to the hearth. Normally, Ragnhild took the other settle but she did not mind relinquishing this to the Jarl for today, and if she fought for a place it was only to ensure she was next to Ulf. She patted his knee as the tables were carried in. ‘You do not come to see me so often as I would like.’
‘Blame this one.’ Ulf pointed at Eric. ‘He is too busy fathering children to do any work and leaves it all to me.’
Ragnhild craned her head around Ulf to ask, ‘And how is your daughter, Eric?’
‘Oh, she thrives.’ Eric balanced a mountain of food on his trencher. ‘My good wife sends her apologies that she cannot be here but she is fat with child again. It embarrasses me that I am so fruitful.’ He sank his teeth into a chicken leg, obviously relishing the chance to overindulge, which his wife would curb were she present. She was a loving soul but almost as bossy as Sigurd’s mother.
Ragnhild turned a crabbed face to Ulf. ‘Who would have thought that anybody would sleep with him? And what of you, Ulf? Does not living amongst such fruitfulness tempt you to wed?’ Her hand slid up his thigh.
‘Nei, I am content to be an uncle.’ Ulf crossed his legs and, eager to change the subject, delayed carving his lump of venison to reach into the purse at his waistband. ‘Here, Sigurd, I almost forgot. I bring a gift for your daughter.’ It was a silver bangle. ‘I regret it is too large at present.’
‘No matter, she will wear it on her wedding day.’ Sigurd handed the gift to his wife who, unable to place it on the baby’s swaddled arm, added it to those already on a ribbon around Gytha’s neck. She was laden with such tributes.
Ulf almost choked on his meat. ‘She is just born and you speak of weddings!’
‘But ja! I have it all arranged.’ Sigurd was looking directly at the Jarl, a twinkle in his eye.
‘He is serious too,’ Ulf muttered to Eric.
When no more could be eaten, the tables were folded away and the women and menfolk drifted into groups of their own sex. Amongst the men, conversation veered away from the child and on to hunting and other male pursuits. Ulf raised his horn. ‘Ves heill, Father.’
‘Drink-hail, my friend.’ Sigurd drank too.
‘Tell me,’ came Ulf’s casual enquiry. ‘Do you still see Una?’ He had noticed that at no time had the woman been present.
Sigurd did not answer immediately, showing annoyance that Ulf had raised the affair at such a time. He took another drink from his horn. ‘I see her, but not so often. I am a family man now.’
And this was the way he fully intended it to stay. Estorhild had forbidden Una to serve at the feast and he had declined to argue. He had not lain with his concubine for some weeks.
* * *
Weeks, months… the visits grew further apart. Estorhild had appointed a nurse so that she could devote her full time to her husband and the achievement of his ambitions, though it was not so much she who kept him from wandering, but Gytha. Never had a man been so besotted with a child.
‘It is just the newness of fatherhood,’ replied Ragnhild to her daughter-in-law’s rather jealous observation that Sigurd spent more time with Gytha than with her. ‘He will not be so enamoured when he has three or four under his feet.’