A Song of Ravens and Wolves

Chapter 13

Never Cheat Your Master

W hen I woke, the light filtered in broken beams through cracks in the shutters. I felt around to my left, but it was cold where my new husband should have been.

Where could Sigurd be? Part of me wondered if there would be anything left from the feast, I was famished and exhausted, but the dawn felt perfect. I threw open the shutters. There was not a cloud in the deep blue sky and the terns whipped and circled high above.

Wrapping myself in a blanket, I padded across the floor, stepping over my slobbering hound who lay sprawled in front of the fire, to my small parcel of belongings and Drest roosting sleepily.

‘There,’ I cooed, patting a snoring Angus. ‘We’ll be safe here,’ I said and for the first time, I truly meant it. Here, in the Jarl’s care, my father could no longer hurt me. In my young foolish head, I thought that if I could just get Donada to Orkney that Sigurd would keep her safe. I knew nothing and had not anticipated how angry men could get when a woman begins to make her presence felt.

My affection was met with a grunt, and he rolled over sleepily to toast the other side of his fur. Waking up in a bed I had never known felt strangely comforting. Any fear I’d felt during our wedding had disappeared with the darkness. What I had been left with was something close to contentment.

I decided I would take myself back to the Mead-Hall, unsure of what it was a Viking wife was supposed to do. I got dressed quickly. I pushed open the door to the cavernous Mead-Hall to find it bathed in men, all standing shoulder to shoulder. Doors hung open with a sea of heads stretching to the grassy knoll outside.

I could barely hear my thoughts over the excitement and expectation from the men. A strange smell lingered in my nostrils, it may have been from the roasting meats and salted fish. More men arrived, forcing the others to make space on the benches. They were all dressed and armed as though they were going to war.

I weaved my way past intricately carved wooden columns and row upon row of curious eyes and out into the dawn. Men and boys lingered, surrounding a ramp which led into a huge pit. At the front the Volva stood, eyes turned to the sky, chanting. She praised each of the gods but soon, her praise turned to the goddess Freya. The Volva’s words twisted and turned, like Freya weaved the threads of fate describing her great beauty as she presided over the battlefields in command of her Valkyries, choosing the most prized warriors to host in death.

The congregation seemed to sway and pulse to the rhythm of her words. I could not peel my eyes away as a procession of animals were led towards the ramp. A ram. A boar. A cockerel and a bull. They would all be gifted to the goddess Freya before dawn.

As my eyes followed, I caught sight of Sigurd, again stripped to his waist but this time, staring back at me was not the gentle man that had taken me to bed. Where before the tattoos had danced and moved, now they were soaked in the blood of the beasts. He stood in a mass of blood-spattered carcasses, sword aloft. ‘To Freya,’ he shouted.

My head span and my belly rolled. I have a strong stomach. I have hunted and I have carved beasts myself, but this was not the same. The stench of fear and blood soaked the air. It is not the sight a bride imagines on the morning after she is wed, that her husband be knee-deep in blood. It was a sight that I did grow used to, and in turn, grew to love. I have stood in those pits myself, my tear-stained face and have done what must be done to bring blessings upon us.

As they brought the corpses out, one by one and began hanging them aloft, I turned to go back inside but did not make it past the door when I spilt the contents of my stomach on the floor.

‘My Lady? Are you unwell?’ Sigurd said behind me.

I could not look at him. In my mind’s eye, I could only see him dripping in blood. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. ‘I am fine, my Lord.’

‘Perhaps you should go and lie down? I shall send Halldora.’

I tried to steady myself. ‘It is too much my Lord, the sight of the blood.’ I turned and walked shakily back the way I’d come.

?

I lay on the bed, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. Contemplating my rash decisions when the door burst open and Sigurd walked in carrying a plate of meat and a glass of mead, smiling as though he had not just sacrificed half of the livestock and bathed in their blood. At least he had had the decency to clean himself.

‘Are you hungry?’

‘Am I hungry?’ I could not believe what I was hearing. ‘No, Lord, I am not.’

Even though my stomach ached for the want of food if I had eaten it would have revisited me. I could feel his eyes upon me, like being hunted by some half-wild animal. He then proceeded to greedily eat the plate of smoked fish and buttered roots and did not stop until he sucked the last of the grease from his fingers.

‘You are a pig.’

He looked down at the empty dish. ‘Did you want some?’

‘No. I did not.’

He seemed confused but then clapped his hands together, causing Angus to jump.

‘Now it is time for your bride gifts,’ he said with excitement. ‘This is the first.’

Looking at the monster before me, I would not have trusted him to give me a grain of wheat.

He took my hand roughly and uncurled it, placing in it, a circular key made of gold that almost covered my palm. Hesitantly, I held it up, letting the light slip through the bow intricately inlaid with an ash tree with a man hanging from it, like Christ on the cross. The key wards themselves were almost in the shape of a nine.

‘It is beautiful, but I do not understand. Why use do I have for a key?’

‘You are the woman of the farm now. This is your key. I had the blacksmith make it for you. See this,’ he pointed to the ash tree. ‘That is Yggdrasil, the tree of life that holds us to the sky. Odin hung himself from the tree for nine days and nine nights to gain the knowledge of the worlds. You have given yourself in marriage and now you will learn what it is to be the wife of a Jarl. It is your home now, to do with as you see fit.’

I was young and impressionable then, it did not take me long to forget what I had seen in the pit, being overawed with such a beautiful trinket.

‘Mine?’ I said marvelling at such an exquisite gift. ‘What is it you would have me do?’

‘It is the key to your new home.’ He smiled. ‘I would have you live in it and enjoy it with me.’

Home. Home is not a place. It is a feeling. It is a smell. It is a touch. It is not close-cut bricks and mortar and thatch. I did not know it then, but I had found my home. The key still hangs on my waistband, though my hands are not nimble like they once were, I often take it out and look at it and think of home.

I turned it over and over in my hand. For something that seemed so small, it was the most thoughtful gift I had ever been given.

I began to cry.

‘Does it please you?’ he asked nervously.

‘Aye,’ I sniffed.

He put a finger under my chin and lifted it so that I was looking into his eyes. He still towered over me, even when we were seated. He kissed each eye, wiping away my tears.

‘Would you like your next gift?’

I could only nod.

From behind his back, he produced a thin slate board covered with squares, thirteen rows of thirteen squares and sat upon it were tiny ivory men, some holding shields like the berserkers, some sat upon thrones or horses but every one of them intricately carved. Sigurd looked as though he were about to burst with excitement.

‘It is tafl, have you heard of it?’

‘No, I have never seen anything like it. May I touch it?’

‘This is the King.’ He placed the largest of the pieces into my hand, a king sat upon his throne with a sword across his lap. ‘He is carved from the bone of a whale.’ He exchanged it for another. ‘The rest are made from walrus tusk. Look at the tiny horsemen.’

Sure enough, the next piece I held depicted a man on top of a horse.

‘But what is it?’

‘It is a game of strategy. We can play it in the evenings when I am not raiding.’

‘Will you show me?’

‘Yes… yes…’ he waved a hand. ‘Now I want to show you your last gift.’

I smiled to myself as Sigurd disappeared again. Yes, they made sacrifices to their gods but were they truly any worse than my father’s men? At least the Danes did not try to hide the monsters they were. I pulled the blanket tighter around me, unsure of what to expect. What could it be? Maybe a young filly? Or a gift of jewels like the bracelet he had given me on the night we met. I felt a thrill of excitement.

At last, he reappeared but he dragged with him a young woman, of a similar age to me. She was a beauty, with big blue eyes and high distinguishing features. Her hair was as fair as the sun on gold. Her hands were thin with long pale fingers that flexed against their bindings. He urged her forward. The girl writhed and twisted. Angry as an adder and as wild as a wolf.

‘I do not understand?’ I said and I didn’t.

‘She is yours,’ he beamed pushing the girl forward. ‘A slave girl. She will serve you well and make you feel at home. She came from a raid in Northumbria.’

No older than twenty and wearing dresses that could have been Donada’s. My thoughts turned to her, how could they not? She was her very image. Would she be as terrified as this young woman? Did she even know of what my father had planned? I had been so caught up in my wedding and bedding my new husband that I had scarcely thought of her.

‘I am not a slave.’ She spat.

‘Mine?’ I said horrified. I was well aware of the Danes and their trade in sales of flesh but I had no want of one of my own. ‘What would I want with a slave?’

‘She can be your handmaiden, is that not what you have?’ he shook her again and handed me her binding.

‘I cannot accept such a gift.’

‘How will your people know you are to be trusted if you do not accept our gifts?’ he looked almost hurt. ‘If you do not accept that your old life has gone and that you are beginning a new life as the wife of a Jarl? You would insult our people, YOUR people?’

He was right. He usually was, but it is a wife’s discretion to never tell her husband how right he is, or we would never be able to live with them for they would be crowing about it from sunrise to sundown.

Sigurd had made good money from slavery, those that he did not kill he would bring home and sell to our farmers or send them to the Danish lands. He made the most money in trading ports in Miklagard

‘What is your name?’

She pushed out her chin and stared me right in the eye. ‘Ligach.’

‘I am Oli-.’

‘Oh, I ken who you are.’ She looked at me in disgust.

‘What were you doing in Northumbria?’

I could hear the twang in her voice.

‘None of yer business.’ She spat again, this time narrowly missing me.

‘I will make sure you come to no harm.’

I could almost hear Sigurd groan in displeasure, but he said nothing. I knew then that I had to help her. That we could help each other. She was a survivor. She did not weep. She was defiant and she reminded me of Donada. I would take her with me to Alba and set her free; in return, maybe she would help me save my sister.

She did not budge. She did not utter a word. She stared me down.

‘I am grateful for such a wonderful gift,’ I said.

A new plan had formed. I would make her my ally.