A Song of Ravens and Wolves

Chapter 8

The Common Always Love What is New

T horkell took my hand while Angus leapt into the water like a young buck, grateful to be back on land. The mist rolled in rhythm with the sea air revealing islands pitted with ruins.

Men, women and children all swarmed around us, covered in furs with eyes smudged black with charcoal, waiting to plunder the spoils from the latest raid. Their thick Norse tongue sounded like a swarm of bees to my ear.

‘By the gods, you have arrived safely,’ the Jarl said spreading his arms wide. ‘Thor has smiled upon us, as has J?rmungandr.’

He looked as I had remembered him, although his boots and cloak were now as muddy as my own. His arrogance still outweighed any attractiveness. He took my arm and placed it in his, it made my skin crawl. My boots sunk into the wet sand, but his pace was slow and deliberate allowing me time to find my footing.

‘There is much to prepare.’ He waved a hand. ‘Halldora, please?’

‘Lady Donada.’ a young woman with hair as gold as corn and skin as pale as milk stood before me, a vision of loveliness, nothing like the savages that had sailed me. She beaconed me towards the house of the seeress.

The Jarl cleared his throat. ‘Lady Olith,’ he said, correcting her. ‘Let the others know.’

She bowed her head.

He turned to me. ‘Halldora will be your interpreter, should you need it. Not all our people speak your language, but they are learning.’

‘I withdrew my arm from the Jarl’s and followed, feeling his eyes upon me as I walked. Up close, I could see she was just a child. She must have been no older than fifteen. It was hard to ignore how much she reminded me of Donada. In another lifetime they could have been best friends.

I dared not speak. I grasped Halldora’s arm tighter as we started up the path at the end of the beach leading through steep-sided dunes and opening into a circle of houses with roofs made of thatch steadied by pieces of vertical timber. They stood like upturned ships against the horizon.

The central dwelling was much larger than the others with double doors that hung open. Smoke spiralled against the sky. We still meet here, those of us that have not left for Alba or returned to Norway. We warm our old bones, and we smile watching our children as they squabble over the same insignificant things we did in our youth. But with old age comes the knowledge that in the end, when all is said and done, if we can live our lives decently and kindly, life will more or less all turn out all right.

‘There.’ She pointed towards the smallest of the dwellings, set back, it looked as though it had been carved from the ground with a stone, flat as a silver coin sticking up from the ground scribed with symbols I did not recognise then. ‘That is the home of the seeress. She wishes to speak with you this evening.’ It seemed like a demand and not a question.

All I could manage was, ‘yes.’

‘Now it is time.’ She turned again.

‘Where are we going?’ I said.

‘To the bathhouse.’

‘Bathhouse?’

‘You must be cleansed of your maidenhood before your wedding.’ She smiled. ‘The rest of the married women are already waiting for your arrival.’

As we approached the bathhouse, women milled about impatiently. There had been fewer women at Bethóc’s wedding and yet, here we were, all of the married women if the village had turned out for the ceremony.

‘Finally,’ an old woman huffed. ‘She is here. Come now, Halldora, get her inside. The Gothi is waiting.’

She ushered us in. Even though the sky was overcast it was much darker inside. The air was thick with the smoke from the fire and the smell of spoiled meat. I did not need my eyes to adjust to the murkiness to know that it was much smaller than any of our chambers at home. It was narrow as a longboat with carcasses of meat hanging from thick beams, waiting to be cured. Thick candles furnished the walls, with dark pools of wax hardening against the wood.

A woman stood at the steps leading to the water, beneath lines of symbols carved deep into the wooden frame. She was broad as a ship and clothed in blood red. It was stitched with intricate white flowers that resembled Forget Me Not.

‘Bring her here. Bring her here.’ She waved her arms. ‘Let me look at her.’

‘Estrid,’ Halldora said ‘this is Lady Olith.

A look passed between them. ‘Well now, I can see why the Jarl would be happy with such a union.’ Her eyes wandered from my toes to my head. ‘And what gift is it you bring for the Jarl?’

‘My father gave me a sword, it’s with my belongings…’

‘Good. Good.’ She looked about at the other women. ‘Has anyone spoken with you?’

Spoken with me? I had been herded from the ship and straight into a room with a gaggle of women waiting to strip me and dip me beneath the water. Estrid terrified me then. They all did in their own way. They seemed to take an instant dislike to me and the feeling was mutual.

‘No–’ I hesitated. ‘No one.’

‘Sit down, girl, sit down.’

I sat on the bench nearest her, cloak billowing around me. Five of the women set about putting extra wood on the fire and preparing the oils in the water and scattering flower petals.

How I delighted in these ceremonies. Even when I became husbandless, it brought me joy to be with the women, to prepare them for their lives to come. Estrid could always make me laugh and Halldora rarely left our glasses empty. I cannot say I did not enjoy getting drunk.

‘Do you know anything about what is to happen?’

I shook my head.

‘When the water is prepared.’ She waved a hand at my dress, ‘see there,’ she pointed again, this time to a small wooden, neatly engraved box, ‘you must shed your maiden’s clothes, all of it and place it inside that box as a gift to your first daughter.’

I have given birth to only one child in my lifetime.

I swallowed and pulled my cloak tighter.

‘You needn’t be afraid; we’ve seen it all before.’

‘And much worse,’ piped up another.

‘Let’s get you out of this,’ said Halldora, unbuttoning my cloak. ‘This you can keep.’ She folded it neatly and placed it on the bench.

‘I do not think that it is right that I should undress in front of you all. I can wash and dress myself for my own wedding.’

Even now, my skin creeps at how ignorant and young I must have sounded. No more than a child. I tried to stand to leave, but there were too many, all crowding around me to get a better look.

Estrid let out a laugh.

‘We know that you are more than capable of bathing, Lady Olith but this is part of the ceremony,’ she said gently. ‘We must wash away your maidenhood.’

It is a strange thing maidenhood. It is prized above all else. It was something I was to cherish. To keep safe. To protect. Yet men are willing to take it without a moment’s thought if it is to serve their own selfish needs. It was something I was supposed to gift to my new husband and yet it had been taken from me, time and again by men that cared nothing for what it stood for.

I had no maidenhood to give.

‘We’ve brought dresses.’ Halldora blurted, grabbing my hands, and pulling me closer. ‘Look, these are some of the most exquisite–’

‘Hush, Halldora,’ hissed Estrid. ‘Let the girl bathe first before you go showing her dresses. One thing at a time. Lady Olith.’

She motioned again to the intricate wooden box.

I closed my eyes. I could feel my face burning. It is hard to tell, looking back if it was fury or embarrassment, or both. There I was, with my life on the line for a sister who could not even bring herself to wish me farewell. All of it I had done for her, an ungrateful child.

I removed the bracelets that the Jarl had gifted me, one at a time. Halldora placed them on my cloak. I unlaced the fastenings of my dress, casting it to the floor in a ruffle of fabric.

Halldora examined it, turning it over in her hands. ‘The most beautiful silk,’ she whispered, ‘but not fit for a Jarl’s wife.’

She folded it neatly and placed it in the casket.

‘It is a symbol of your death as a maiden.’ Estrid took me gently by the arm. ‘Now, the rest.’

My maidenhood had died long before this night.

I shed the last of my things and waited, shrouded in goose flesh.

‘Into the water now, Lady Olith,’ Estrid said, soothingly.

Trying to cover my nakedness with my hands I gingerly took a step, dipping my toe beneath the water. It felt warm.

‘Is he your first?’ tried Halldora, fingers lapping at the water.

How was I supposed to answer that? I did not know. I went with indignation.

‘Aye, do you think I’d let a man take me without an offer of marriage?’

That was met with laughter.

‘It is not the same for our women,’ Estrid said eventually. ‘It is cold where we come from, we either find warmth with each other or warmth with the livestock and I know which one I’d sooner choose.’

‘You do not have to lie with my husband,’ said another. ‘I would sooner lie with the hogs.’

Rutting like goats in a barn. We were all the same. Christianity has always been a soft religion. Their men could carry out whatever atrocities pleased them and repent them just as quickly, with enough remorse to fill the sky twice over. Redemption. They all wanted redemption. An afterthought. It is a shame that they could never seem to see before they committed their grievous sins.

Somewhere between hunger and exhaustion, as the water lapped at my chest, I sunk my head beneath it. Ripples danced across the surface. Distant ethereal voices echoed. For the first time since I had left our shores, I was alone. I held on to my breath until my lungs burned.

I broke the water’s surface with a gasp.

‘There now,’ said Estrid. ‘We shall make a woman of you yet.’