by Jorvik- A thrilling tale of Viking Britain (retail) (epub)
Sigurd looked confused. ‘I know not. I just cannot bring myself to free him after what his mother did.’
‘You could sell him.’
‘Nay, for then he could gain freedom. Neither will I kill him. It is small revenge on Una, I know, but it is all I have. She robbed me of my child, Ulf, but hers will not die so quickly.’ He jerked his shoulders and returned to his former topic. ‘This Edward, he knows nothing of northern folk. We could quite easily rip the country into separate kingdoms again.’
‘With yourself as King of Jorvik?’ Ulf knew his friend of old. ‘Methinks Earl Siward would have words to say on that.’ Since Cnut’s death all the great earls had gathered power; Siward ran Northumbria as though he were King.
Sigurd was calmer now and grinned back. ‘He and I are friends. I would not usurp him, but neither shall he live forever. He has but one son who is old enough to take over – and who knows when he might die? The earldom would better go to one with experience – where goest thou?’ His friend had risen quickly and was making for the door.
‘To chase my bowels!’
Sigurd laughed, but when a grey-faced Ulf limped back into the room, he voiced concern. ‘What ails my friend?’
Ulf closed his eyes and eased himself onto a chair, pausing a while before answering. ‘I have been losing blood.’
Sigurd leaned forward and touched the other’s arm. ‘How long?’
Ulf looked him in the eye for a span, then admitted, ‘Some weeks. You must find yourself a new reeve, my friend. I am too weak to carry out the task properly.’
His friend came bolt upright. ‘I will send for the physician.’ But Ulf tugged him back into his seat.
‘Nay, doest think I have not consulted one already? He gives me potions which have no effect. My fate is with God.’
Numbed, his friend leaned back. How often had he saved Ulf’s life in battle and how often had Ulf saved his? He could do nought now.
Ulf patted his hand, then rose as a cripple. ‘I must go. I told Eric’s wife I would not tarry long.’
Sigurd leapt up. ‘You cannot go like this! I will have Murtagh take you on the wagon.’
Ulf made no complaint, unable to face even the short journey across town. Sigurd bellowed for the thrall who came running and was given instructions. Asketil came running too, not from choice but being compelled to follow the dogs who, at their master’s shout bounded across the yard dragging the tiny boy with them and eventually pulling him off his feet. He let go of the leads, picked himself up and came towards his father, rubbing the torn knees of his leggings.
Ulf half-turned to Sigurd, avoiding his eyes. ‘I will send for you,’ was all he said.
The ealdorman did not wait to be summoned but visited Ulf each day, and each day he saw his friend’s health deteriorate until in November the end was close. So thin and gaunt was Ulf, so shallow his breath, that he barely raised the blanket which covered him. The pools in the rock-face had sunken to caverns. His wife lifted his head to try and feed him soup, but he refused saying he did not wish to prolong the agony. ‘Is friend Sigurd here yet?’ came his weak query as she laid his head back on the pillow.
‘Not yet.’ She handed the bowl to one of her daughters who melted into the shadows where her sisters observed with grave faces.
‘Before he comes I have something to impart.’
‘Save your breath for your friend,’ urged his wife, patting him. ‘I am content to sit here.’
‘Nay, ’tis for you to hear now.’
His wife leaned forward but was irritated by the child who played nearby. ‘Asketil, be quiet!’ she uttered in low but stern tone to her son who had just leapt off the table with a howl.
But Asketil was away in his own private world killing pirates and did not hear her order above his own yells of excitement, nor the entreaties of his sisters. He clambered onto the table again, wielding an imaginary sword and bawling.
‘I said, be quiet!’ Mouth set in a determined line, the child’s mother crossed the room and lashed out, knocking him from table to floor. ‘How dare you make so much noise with your father lying ill?’ At her raised voice, the girls hastily departed.
Asketil did not cry but, knowing that he deserved the punishment, looked so riddled with guilt that his mother gave him a rough kiss and cuddle before shoving him towards the door. ‘Be gone and play outside.’
‘It is too cold…’
‘Go!’
‘Let him play,’ muttered Ulf. ‘He does not bother me.’
His wife ignored the entreaty. ‘Go!’ When the child had slunk from the room she turned back to the bed. ‘That boy!’
‘It is that boy whom I wish to discuss,’ murmured Ulf. ‘When I die, Asketil must go to live with Sigurd.’
She reacted as he had known she would. ‘You would give our son to a man such as him?’
‘Do not speak of my friend in that manner.’
‘But Ulf, he is so harsh. You have heard how he blinded the Ӕtheling just for staring at him.’
‘You understand nothing, woman.’ Ulf sounded weary.
‘And he has no wife! What is Til to do for affection?’
‘Sigurd will provide it.’ Ulf rebuked the look of astonishment. ‘I know him better than you. Believe me, he will give the boy all that he gave to Gytha and more.’
‘That was a long time ago! Why did his wife leave him if he was so kind? I have never seen him be generous to any of my children – oh, he brings gifts, yes, but never real affection.’
‘You do not see that side of him because he dare not show it. A man who does not love cannot be hurt. But Asketil will draw it from his breast, I am sure of it. Heed not the tales of his cruelty, for to his friends he is steadfast. I know he will never lift a finger to Asketil, and will love him… and if I am mistaken, then you will not be so far away that Til cannot run home if he lacks a hug. Be not unkind. When I go you will have four daughters. Sigurd will have no one, no one in the world. Let me grant him this.’
Before she could argue further Sigurd arrived. He wondered why she behaved so coldly towards him, then put it down to melancholy over Ulf’s condition. He sat by Ulf’s bed and took his limp hand, surprising the woman with the unexpected show of tenderness. Face thoughtful, she left them. ‘How are you today, my friend? You look better.’
‘No time for lies,’ responded Ulf. ‘I have just told Eric’s wife that I want Til to come and live with you when I die.’
Sigurd was so taken aback that he dropped his friend’s hand.
‘But I have had few dealings with boys!’
‘Were you not a boy once? A boy with an axe almost as big as himself.’ Ulf lifted a corner of his mouth, remembering their first encounter, then spoke as firmly as he was able. ‘Cease your argument and listen. You are as bad as Eric’s wife interrupting when I have so little time. There is no one else to whom I would entrust his care. You are my greatest friend and a brave warrior; who better to teach him the things that I have no time left to show?’ He soothed the other’s obvious misgivings. ‘You will be good for each other. Let him be the son you never had.’
Now Sigurd understood the cool reception. ‘The boy’s mother is not pleased about this?’
‘It must be expected for a mother to cling to her bairn, but she knows that she has not the skill to be a father as well as a mother.’
Sigurd thought of his own mother, often more brutal in her teachings than any male. After a while he gave Ulf his answer. ‘I would be proud to call him mine.’
Grateful, Ulf required one more favour. ‘Will you also take care of the lad’s mother?’
Sigurd nodded. ‘She may stay in this house all her days.’
Ulf thanked him and asked then if he would summon the child to his bedside. When a nervous Asketil appeared, Ulf explained, ‘Your father is going away on a long journey. Sigurd here will be your fostri. You shall respect him and he will teach you the things you need to be a man.’
Asketil threw a stri
cken glance under his fringe at the visitor who had retreated in order to grant father and son privacy, then lisped through the gap in his teeth, ‘I do not want to go.’
‘Are you not always begging me to show you how to handle weapons? This man is a thousand times more equipped than I to turn you into a warrior.’ Asketil paused in his objection to show a flicker of interest. ‘Shall I have a sword of my own?’
‘Not until you are big enough to use it without cutting your own head off.’
Asketil hesitated, then whispered into the dying man’s face, ‘I don’t want to go with him, he makes me afraid.’
Ulf whispered back, ‘He frightens me too sometimes, but so long as you do not harm him he will not harm you.’
Asketil spread himself across his father’s body and muttered into the jaundiced cheek, ‘He shouts and roars.’
‘So does your mother.’ Ulf barely had strength to raise a smile. ‘And she hits you twice as hard as Sigurd ever will.’ His voice was failing. He pulled the child closer and spoke into his face. Asketil thought his breath foul. ‘My son, my dear son, you will find him gruff and oft severe, but he will give you many things… though not perhaps as great as the gift that you can bestow on him. He has no one in this world. Whatever he does or says to you, I want you to promise that you will never withdraw your friendship nor your loyalty. I love that man with my life. Do this for me.’
Still unconvinced, Asketil raised his head, looked deep into the yellow eyes, then nodded.
‘Good… now, let me see you take his hand.’
Asketil went towards Sigurd, looked up at him, then inserted his hand into the rough one.
Memories of Gytha flooded back. Sigurd wanted to push the hand away, it burnt such pain into his heart.
Asketil looked back at the bed. ‘When will you return, Father?’
Ulf closed his eyes in sad exasperation that the boy had not grasped this. ‘I shall never return. From here onwards you shall know Sigurd as your father.’
The little boy’s eyes became round. ‘Shall I never see Mother again, neither?’
Ulf was feeling much pain and shifted on his bloodstained mattress. ‘Your mother will remain here. You will go and live in the house of your foster-father, but you can come and visit her whenever Sigurd will permit. Now… come here one last moment.’ The child ran to him and after petting him Ulf whispered in his ear. Following a puzzled hesitation, Asketil scampered out of the house. In his absence Ulf beckoned his friend to return to the bedside. ‘Come, take my hand, shipmate, and let us say our goodbyes now.’ The hand was accepted. ‘I will leave the boy my weapons, but do not give them to him until he is old enough to respect them.’ At Sigurd’s nod he continued, ‘Can I ask one last thing of you? I wish to be buried in St Cuthbert’s. Will you raise a stone to me?’
Sigurd replied that he would be honoured. They remained in silence, holding hands until Asketil returned breathless and clutching a fistful of horsehair. ‘Lay it here around my chin,’ instructed his father. Sigurd looked on as the boy draped the hair about his father’s face. How uncanny that in death those pain-filled eyes came the nearest Sigurd had ever seen them to merriment. ‘I could not go without letting my friend see what I look like with a beard.’
Sigurd forced a hearty laugh, said, ‘I shall see you on the morrow,’ then abruptly he grabbed Asketil’s hand and dragged him from the house, never looking back.
Chapter Sixteen
At the age of fifty-four, Ulf died and was buried in St Cuthbert’s churchyard. Sigurd erected a stone in his honour, upon which he carved his own runic message: Sigurd put up this stone to his heart-friend Ulf. Asketil accompanied him to the burial and took the opportunity to say proper farewells to his mother and half-sisters which, because Sigurd had dragged him away so rudely from Ulf’s deathbed, he had been unable to do before this. Afterwards the youngster was lifted onto the ealdorman’s horse and taken back through alleyways awash with mud and straw to that big house he so feared.
There were few children of his own age in the burh, the inhabitants being mainly fighting men and their servants. Today, when he had just seen his father buried, this did not seem so vital to Asketil, for he did not feel like playing, but it would have been a comfort to have someone to talk to. He dared not talk to his fostri. Since bringing him here the man had shared but a dozen words with him.
On return from his father’s burial, Asketil did not join Sigurd but remained outside. The man asked only once if he were coming in, and receiving a shake of head left the boy to his own devices, totally apathetic to his pain.
Needing occupation, Asketil wandered out of the enclosure and began to follow the perimeters of the burh which was enclosed by a ditch on three sides – the fourth being defended by the Use – and incorporated the south-west wall of the ancient Legionary Fortress. The traces of a Roman road cut through the centre. Within these bounds, apart from Sigurd’s wooden mansion, were the great houses of the King, Earl and other nobles, plus the humbler abodes of their retainers, each with their own enclosing fence. Any other lad would have been proud to live here, but all Asketil could think of was his father in the cruel ground and the family he had left behind. He followed the ramparts right around their length, pushing through a herd of goats that stood in his track. A woman tending geese smiled at him. He did not return the compliment, but wandered on past the silent beehives and the well, past doe-eyed maidens flirting with soldiers, until he found himself back at the main gatehouse built of stone. Not knowing whether to go in or out, he rested on his heels and began to whittle a twig, assailed by loneliness and cold.
Another lonely soul tramped towards the burh. Murtagh’s life was one of endless toil. He had been out all day ploughing his master’s fields since daybreak, plodding up and down the furrows behind eight oxen. The boy who goaded the beasts found him dull company, for he had no conversation; that and the misaligned eyeball was why no woman would marry him. He wasn’t right in the head. He was twenty-four years of age and had no wife, only a loving aunt to chase away the tormentors who called him dummy. Murtagh’s naked feet were blue with the cutting November wind. It was pointless wrapping rags around them for they would only end up clogged with mud and hampering his straight plough lines. It was now dusk and he was on his way home. He had completed the statutory acre for that day. But then there would be tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…
Were it not for his aunt, who vowed to liberate him, he would have laid down and died. Mary’s indomitability amazed him. Without help, she had cultivated her five acres and from the sale of produce had bought her own freedom. That had been a day! She had taken Murtagh with her, as much to witness the look on the master’s face as to witness the handing over of the money. His expression when she slapped the coins on his table and said that he no longer owned her! A little smile played around Murtagh’s lips as he remembered, though it did not last, for his aunt was not really free, was she? She could not go and build a house on her land for what would Murtagh do without her? So she continued to live virtually as a slave. He felt such a hindrance, but at the same time he did not tell her to go, for without her he would have no one.
He came across the flat board that spanned the drainage ditch, through the gates and lifted his dispirited eyes as his name was called. A small boy came running towards him. It was Asketil, son of the one called Ulf. Murtagh wondered why the child was so interested in him. Whenever he came to visit Earlsburh he would seek out the thrall and tag along while Murtagh did his chores.
‘How went your day, Murtagh?’ Asketil looked up at him but did not smile as he usually did for he was too sad.
‘No use talking to him,’ said the one who walked behind the oxen alongside Murtagh. ‘He’s a dummy.’
Murtagh, of infinite patience, did not strike him.
‘I know he cannot speak,’ retorted Asketil.
‘Who are you, then?’ the ox-goader enquired of the gap-toothed child.
‘My name is Asketil, fostri to
Sigurd and I do not think it shows much charity to call him dummy.’ Beneath the heavy fringe blue eyes glared their objection.
‘’Tis but a name, master,’ muttered the ox-goader. Even a little boy demanded respect if he was akin to Lord Sigurd. ‘What else are we to call him if he does not speak?’
‘You could call him by his proper name; ’twould be kinder.’ Asketil looked up at Murtagh but did not know if the man looked back for his eyes were askew. Out of curiosity he asked, ‘How do you plough true furrows when your eye is twisted?’
‘It beats me.’ The boy answered for Murtagh. ‘But he does – you never seen such straight rows, straight as arrows. Hey ho! I must leave you now.’ He gave the oxen a parting wallop as they reached the shippen and left them. Asketil followed the procession into the building where he sat in the lamplight to watch Murtagh feed and water the beasts. It was warmer here. He hunkered and went back to whittling his twig for a while, chatting to Murtagh who gave not the slightest sign of acknowledgement. The man looked so tired that Asketil put down his knife on the straw and jumped to his feet. ‘Shall I help you? Show me what to do.’ Murtagh ignored him. Asketil watched the slave rub a handful of straw over an ox’s coat and made childish attempts to do likewise. When he looked up for assurance that he was doing it right the man was smiling. Encouraged, Asketil smiled back and put more vigour into his movements. It helped to take his mind off his loss. Black Mary entered then to tell her nephew that his meal was ready, biting back her intended greeting when she saw Asketil. She regarded him so viciously that he threw down the bundle of straw and hurried from the byre.
The woman checked to make sure he had gone, then turned back to Murtagh with a smile. ‘That’s another of them dead. The little swine’s father was buried today – and without any help from me!’ She gave a cackle of appreciation. The door was pushed open and she spun round with a guilty expression, but seeing it was only another slave she relaxed.
‘May I share the jest?’ asked the newcomer. ‘Such a day have I had.’
