by Jorvik- A thrilling tale of Viking Britain (retail) (epub)
Chapter Eighteen
They rowed continuously until they knew that they were safe, then father and son collapsed into each other’s arms and laughed hysterically with relief until Sigurd broke away. ‘Pooh, Til! You are ripe as a midden in those broks. Let us see if we can find you some more.’
So glad was Asketil to escape unscathed, that he did not mind being made fun of and when a fresh pair of breeches was provided he cast his soiled ones overboard.
His father was now talking to the girl who had rescued them. ‘Oh, Mildryth, you are a true friend!’ Sigurd reached out to touch her, which proved uncomfortable for some reason and he drew back his hand, making do with a smile of thanks. ‘How can we repay you?’
Mildryth shrugged. ‘You can take me back to England, for I have no other means of getting home.’
‘Oh, for sure if that is what you want – but we cannot go until the spring. First we must find a haven for the winter – and without delay, for those demons may come after us. Come! Man the oars, we head for Oslo!’
When they arrived, they found that the ruthless King Harald had also chosen to spend winter in the city he had founded, rather than in the northern capital. Having previous acquaintance with the Norwegian monarch, Sigurd paid homage and was invited to remain until spring at the home of one of his jarls. The winter was fierce. Icicles hung over the doorway like sharks’ teeth so that when one entered or left it was like walking in and out of a fish’s mouth – at least this was Asketil’s poetical view as he and Mildryth, heavily muffled in fur and equipped with snow-shoes, set out for a midday walk. The weather had made a turn for the better and today the icicles drip, drip, dripped on to both heads as the two passed beneath.
The girl bent to pick up one that had been knocked off. ‘Shark’s tooth?’ She held the huge icicle aloft. ‘Nay, ’tis an ice-giant’s pezzle.’ She turned to laugh at Asketil, but he had gone into one of his huffs and marched ahead. She threw down the icicle and lolloped to catch up, veering around a man who dragged his child on a sledge. ‘Where shall we go?’
Asketil replied without looking at her, ‘I thought I would go for a walk first then, on the way back I will buy gifts to take home to my mother and sisters.’
‘I will help you choose.’ Mildryth thought the youth was wonderful, which was obvious from the expression on her face.
Til could not help but be aware of her adoration and secretly enjoyed it, but in the perverse way that boys do he acted as if the younger child were a handicap. ‘I do not need help. Besides, you have never met them so how will you know what they like?’
‘I know more than any boy!’ She wished he would not put on these untypical displays. Cooped up all winter she had got to know him well and recognized a good and compassionate soul. Why then did he pretend that he did not like her?
Insulted that she did not recognize his manhood, he spat, ‘Oh, come if you must – but do not mention this to my father.’ When the girl asked why, Asketil explained Sigurd’s aversion to women and the reasons for this. ‘I do not like to talk of my fondness for my kin in his presence.’
‘What has it to do with him if you honour your family?’ demanded Mildryth, then turned curious. ‘Art sure about him not liking females? He treats me well enough.’
The youth looked confused; he had noticed that Sigurd did not speak of Mildryth with contempt even behind her back. ‘Oh, I do not know… Stop dawdling! If you are coming for a walk then come.’
‘Why are you cross with me today?’
At Mildryth’s crestfallen visage Asketil felt mean and could not give proper response. If there was any answer at all it was that when he found himself being too nice to her he felt disloyal to Sigurd. ‘I am not cross!’
‘You sound it.’
‘I am just cold with waiting for you, that is all.’
‘Oh. I am sorry.’ Mildryth tried to quicken her pace but kept rapping her ankles with the snow-shoes.
With the aid of poles, they climbed up a slope, as high as their burning chests would allow, then sat overlooking the timber city, its fjord and the townsfolk in their sleighs who had come out to enjoy the sunshine. Occasionally there would be a muted thud as branches of pine shed their weight of melting snow. Apart from this it was silent. The air was fresh and spring not far away. Mildryth squeezed her knees and beamed. ‘I love this place.’
This was unexpected. Asketil deigned to treat her with more respect. ‘Are you not eager to go home?’
‘Only so that I may show my kin I am alive. I cannot say I yearn for it and would as soon tarry here a while.’
Asketil decided to confide his own emotions. ‘I wish we did not have to leave at all. I feel so much part of this country. The wrench will be terrible.’
Mildryth could not envisage a problem. ‘Why do you not ask Lord Sigurd if you can stay?’
‘He will not allow it. Even a city such as Oslo and a court like King Harald’s is not enough for him.’
Mildryth peered from the fur hood. Her cheeks were pink and a dewdrop clung to her nosetip. ‘But from what you have told me, he travels to many countries. Why does he set his base at Jorvik when he is wont to leave it so often?’
‘Because, much as he loves to travel, Jorvik is his heart’s home and always draws him back,’ answered Til. ‘Though how he could leave this in the first place shows blindness indeed.’ Sharing this view, Mildryth wiped her nose on her cuff and snuggled up to him. Asketil edged his buttocks away and made to leave. ‘It is getting too cold to sit here and there are yet those gifts to be found.’
Mildryth jumped up, stumbled and put out her hand to right herself. ‘Ow! I have cut my finger.’ She held her grazed knuckle under his nose. ‘See, it bleeds!’
‘’Tis nought but a scratch, baby,’ replied Asketil. But Mildryth grimaced in discomfort, moaning and groaning until the boy produced a rag. ‘Oh here, tie this on.’
She looked disgusted. ‘I do not want that snotty thing on me!’
‘Then help yourself, ungrateful!’ He shoved it back up his cuff.
Maintaining her wounded air, Mildryth followed him, regretting now that she had caused offence. However, before long her breezy manner helped to surmount his martyred look and they were soon talking again.
On the way down he came across a lump of wood and picked it up. She asked what he wanted with it. ‘It is a gift for my father. Watch when I give it to him: he will feel and probe the shape until it tells him what to make of it.’
‘How can wood talk?’ scoffed Mildryth.
‘I do not know, but that is what he will say.’ At times Asketil felt encumbered by her presence, especially when she kept interfering with his gift-buying. However, she did have her uses; when he arrived back at the jarl’s house with an armful of gifts and nowhere to hide them, it was Mildryth who took control, pretending to Lord Sigurd that she had bought them for her own family, and he did not think to ask where she had got the money.
The timbered hall was lively with other folk who played music and games. Sigurd had just been outsmarted at a board game by the jarl and was therefore pleased to turn his attention to the lump of wood that his foster-son presented. Asketil looked obliquely at Mildryth as if to say, see what he does. The old man’s eyes lit up. ‘Why, thank you, most kindly. It will be a good piece when it has dried out.’ He sniffed the offering and ran his hands over it. ‘Now, what does it say it will be?’
Mildryth sniggered. The man looked at her sharply, then at Asketil, and gave a laugh of recognition. ‘My son makes jest of me, I think.’ With wry smile, he put the lump of wood at the edge of the hearth. ‘It shall speak to me later – in private.’
‘Look!’ Mildryth brought forth her injury for inspection. ‘I have cut my hand.’
‘Oh, most dreadful.’ Sigurd peered at the graze which was now barely visible. ‘And tell me, where have you been to get that?’
‘Up a mountain looking down.’ A blithe Mildryth disregarded nobler guests, assessing the contents of the t
able. ‘You should have come with us, for the weather was not too cold.’
Sigurd eyed her as she collected food for herself and Asketil. ‘Maybe I will come next time. Though it will not be long before we sail for home if the good weather keeps up. Murtagh! Stop idling there and feed these good people.’
Over the years Murtagh had learnt to keep all emotion from his face. It was impossible to tell the resentment he felt at his position, but Mildryth knew. Having been a thrall herself, she objected to the way Sigurd clouted him when he came running so dutifully. ‘I am able enough to pick up food.’ It was a blatant rebuke. ‘Do not treat him so harsh.’
Asketil ducked as Sigurd’s narrowed eyes challenged her. Mildryth did not flinch, but merely added in response to his previous statement. ‘Til would like to stay here – ask him, he will tell you.’
The youth dealt a nudge for this interference. She rubbed her arm, scowled, then picked up the food he had knocked from her bread platter and thrust some of it at him.
Sigurd looked amused. ‘I am well aware of my son’s feelings on the matter, but he knows we cannot stay.’
Asketil’s expression warned Mildryth not to press the theme. Returning his scowl she crammed her mouth with food and the meal was eaten without further reference to the topic. Afterwards the boy, having recovered from his upset, took out a small pipe which he had carved from a goose bone and drew from it a wavering tune.
Sigurd made a grimace of pain at a wrong note and covered his ears. ‘It sounds like you castrate a mouse!’ Others laughingly agreed.
Unoffended, Asketil laughed too. ‘How do you castrate a mouse, Father?’
‘With a very small knife, I should imagine, though I have never tried.’ Sigurd grinned at the renewed laughter from the jarl’s other guests.
Mildryth, imagining that her loved one was being made mock of, was rather cross. ‘Play some more, I like it.’ She thought Asketil very talented in the way he had carved such a minute instrument, besides all the other more practical things he made from tiny bones such as needles and pins.
But, ‘Nay!’ begged Lord Sigurd. ‘Let us instead have some of Asketil’s verse. That is gentler on the ear.’
This appeased Mildryth, for she could sit and listen to Asketil’s poetry for hours. Neither she nor the boy noticed that throughout the recital Sigurd’s eyes kept leaving the orator, drawn constantly to her rapt face.
* * *
Whilst Sigurd was away, much was happening in England. Without Godwin to keep him in check, King Edward began to invite more of his Norman friends to Court, and during that winter whilst Sigurd and Asketil tarried in Norway another of those friends enjoyed long private conversations with Edward: Duke William of Normandy.
The English, angered over the King’s favouritism, sent word to Godwin that they would now support him if he wished to return. In triumph he came up the Temes with his son Harold to be fêted as a hero. With his Norman allies fled and national opinion against him, Edward had no option but to restore Godwin to his old position. No more would the English be subjected to foreign interference. Henceforth, Godwin was invincible.
It was to this encouraging state of affairs that Sigurd came home in 1052, totally besmitten with the girl he took with him. When, after a night under his roof, Mildryth said that she must go north and show her kin that she was alive, the man invented frantic excuses to keep her there. ‘You do not need to rush away! I can easy send a messenger. Bide awhile with us – Asketil will welcome your company for I know he likes you as a sister.’
The boy was surprised at this, but now that his foster-father had by this quote apparently given permission for him to like Mildryth, he found that to do so was easy, and he now gave her a reassuring smile.
Totally devoted to Asketil, it took no persuasion other than that smile to make her stay. With her kin informed as to her well-being, she felt no need to see them at this moment, and so became a permanent member of the household, enjoying all the benefits that this entailed – fine clothes, a comfortable bed, good food. During that first year Til did indeed come to regard her as a sister. It was a long time since he had lived at the house of Ulf, but he held fond memories of being surrounded by women. When he was tiny his real sisters would dress him up in girls’ clothing and do as they liked with him. It had not bothered Til, for while he was dressed like a girl they seemed to regard him as one and had exchanged women’s secrets in front of him. Being with them all the time he had learnt more about the intimacies of women than those of a man – that is, until he had gone to live with his fostri – but it had stood him in good stead and he retained this easiness in Mildryth’s presence, even though he was never secure enough to disclose his own secrets to her.
Outwardly, Sigurd tried to regard Mildryth as Asketil’s sister too, though inside raged a conflict of passions. On the one hand he adored her chastity, on the other, it was this same virtue that made her so desirable. He did not detest her as he did other women, for she was unlike any other female. In spite of witnessing the most basic of pleasures between her captor and his slavewomen in Norway, Mildryth failed to descry Sigurd’s longing and viewed his affection for her as that of a parent. Even now when she had reached womanhood and there came to her breast strange yearnings of her own, she did not grasp that Lord Sigurd wanted her in the same way that she wanted Asketil. Her feelings for the youth had begun to deepen. She thought about him all the time – even dreamt about him: vivid, unsettling dreams.
To her chagrin, the boy’s attitude remained unchanged – he was more intimate with Murtagh than with her. Mildryth had overheard him divulging all his private thoughts to the slave, confident that they could not be repeated. Interesting though it was to learn that he too had odd dreams, it was upsetting that her name was never mentioned. Nevertheless, she spent as much time as she could in his presence.
Sigurd, watching them this balmy afternoon from his window, saw Mildryth trying to teach Asketil how to dance. She was not making very much progress. He grinned to himself and wondered how long it would be before they fell to squabbling. It was not that they disliked each other – far from it – but that they were so different in character. They could not help but argue. Peeping round the edge of his window so they would not see him, he felt a surge of warmth for both of them. Mildryth, exasperated with Til’s efforts, had begun to tease, imitating his clumsy method of dancing. She staggered about like a cripple. Muffling his laughter, Sigurd jerked his head back as Til looked towards the house; it would not do for the youth to know his humiliation was witnessed. When he peeped from the window again a black-faced Asketil had risen and was walking away. Oh, Til! Sigurd gave an inward sigh. After all the experiences you have had, when will you lose that childish trait? It does not befit a man to sulk. Maybe… maybe I should give the lad more responsibility, thought Sigurd; with Til behaving as he did the ealdorman had been wary of entrusting him with anything important but maybe that was just what the lad needed to make him grow up. Yes, that was what he would do. The reeve who had replaced Ulf was now too decrepit and needed to be replaced himself. Asketil would fill his shoes.
Glancing from the window again he saw Mildryth still engaged in her unalluring dance, following Til around Elrondyng, a pillar of the Roman Fortress. Just as he was about to call to his foster-son another face appeared on the scene.
‘Thou ungodly harlot!’ A priest bore down on Mildryth, brandishing a stick which he proceeded to lay about her shoulders. ‘How dare thee cavort in such a heathen manner on a feast-day!’ And he used the stick to such violence that Mildryth howled and danced about even more and so earned herself further pain.
Sigurd gave a roar and was out of the house within seconds, but his intention was surplanted by Asketil.
‘Enough!’ The youngster intercepted the priest’s attack, grabbed the stick and wrested it from him. ‘She was wrong but has surely taken enough punishment now.’
‘Give it back!’ ordered the red-faced churchman.
‘Na
y!’ Asketil was obstinate. ‘I will not let you beat Mildryth again. There was no malice intended, she had just forgotten ’twas a holy day.’
‘Then I will teach her never to forget again!’ The priest tried to retrieve his weapon. ‘Give it back or you will earn your own beating.’ With Til holding the stick above his head the shorter man began to box the youngster’s ears.
‘The man wants his stick, Til!’ Sigurd grabbed it with ease from Til’s hand. ‘You must give it to him.’ And he brought the stick down upon the priest’s head with such violence that it broke. The man’s knees buckled but his punishment was not over. Sigurd used his fists and feet to drive Mildryth’s attacker all the way back to his church where the whimpering priest bolted the door behind him, only then daring to offer retaliation. ‘The archbishop shall hear of this!’
When a furious Sigurd returned to check on Mildryth’s health he found her and Asketil barely able to keep straight faces. At first he was too angry to laugh with them. ‘Let him dare to lay a hand on my folk again!’ He reached out to Mildryth who sat where she had fallen, and pulled her to her feet. ‘Art bruised, my dear?’
She pushed her hair from her face. The action hurt her shoulders which had taken the brunt of the stick, but she did not complain. ‘If I am, ’twill be my own fault and I am sorry if I have brought the wrath of the church down upon you both.’
‘Pooh, it will be like a fart in the wind!’ retorted Sigurd, and Asketil could no longer withhold his laughter. Mildryth’s contrition gave way too and very soon all three were laughing at the memory of the priest’s come-uppance. ‘Oh, by the gods!’ Sigurd gave one last laugh and shook his head. ‘To think I was on my way here to offer you more responsibility and find you upsetting a priest!’
