Chapter 17

A Reunion

O ne week. It was not one week but many. My husband took himself off raiding whenever he felt like it. Part of me wondered if he would have been better simply married to the sea. For four months we had been wed, and for at least two of them, I had stood as Jarl.

One afternoon, in my loneliness I had taken myself off into the hall and sat on the chair staring wistfully into the fire. All I could think of was Donada and the promises of home. From the moment Sigurd had told me of her impending marriage, it had gnawed at me. But, knowing my husband would stand by any decision I made it was clear to me then and there I would return to Atholl, and I would bring my sister to Orkney, long before any wedding took place.

Home. The thought of it saddened me. After I brought Donada to Orkney, our father never allowed us to call Atholl our home again and for that, I was truly grateful. Olith died then, but what remained in her place was something more fearsome and more formidable than my father had bargained for. I never did call it home again, but why would you call something home when it was ruled by your enemies?

I would see to it that Donada would take a Danish husband, and our future would be with Sigurd, where we would be safe. I placed a hand to the slight curve of my stomach where my husband had insisted my baby would be. For the first time, I prayed to God that he was right. Somehow, a child was not something that I feared any longer.

Estrid and the other women made sure that I knew my place. We had no help, but I tried my best and kept up with what must be done. They made sure that Ligach and I were never left idle. I had always been a capable hunter, but I found myself growing stronger as the spring began to pass into summer, lifting bails of straw and hauling livestock. My hands grew more calloused, toughening to handle pots of stewed meats and chopping logs to keep the fire burning. Such simple pleasures brought me more joy than I had ever had at home, my only regret was that my sister was not there to see it.

Aside from farm work, my days consisted of visits to the Mead Hall to listen to quarrels and to give counsel on laws that I did not understand. Thorkell, also, the Law Speaker, helped me to judge and settle the disputes we heard. Laws that had been passed by men; from lands I had never visited. I was like a pike caught on land.

Ligach had not left my side. Even the days that I had heaved until there was nothing left. The sickness would not abate, days I had eaten nothing but dry bread and milk. I had tried to give her as much freedom as I could without Halldora or the others becoming suspicious, but I did not dare let her out of my sight. Staying together with Thorkell was the only way to guarantee our safety.

This day, I sat plaiting my hair and watching a mouse skittering about the floor beneath one of the benches when the door burst open.

‘-trampled my grain stores again. I have had enough, Bodil. I want that aurochs head on my wall!’

‘Please Halldora,’ Bodil pulled ineffectively at her arm. ‘You do not need to involve anyone else. Please, have my grain…’

‘What is it?’ I stood to greet them. ‘What is it that troubles you Halldora?’

The thud of Thorkell’s boot against the stone told me that he was beside me. I did not think I would ever get used to the sight of women running their households and farming land, just as their husbands would but it did not take me long to see that the Danes knew better than the Christians on how their women should be treated.

‘The fence is down again!’ Halldora barked. ‘All my crops trampled into the ground. Nothing left. This is the second time in as many weeks.’

‘Someone left open the gate,’ said Bodil, ‘it will be one of her brothers, trying to get me into trouble.’

Halldora rounded on her. ‘Do not accuse my family, Bodil. I will not stand for it. Why would they leave the gate open for that great lolloping beast? So that it could eat the last of what we had and trample any shoots into the earth?’

‘No, but…’

‘I will consider everything you have both said.’ The beast was a menace, we all knew but after her husband had died she had struggled to run the farmstead. I thought for a moment. ‘And what would it take to make it right, Halldora?’

Over the years I watched my father make decisions just like these. I would watch from behind a pillar as he doled out his punishments, men kissing his hand pleading to his good nature. Even then I could not see that he had any. Whatever he did, he seemed to upset someone.

‘I want the beast dead. Gone. Carved up and given to my brothers, that we might be full and fat all winter,’ she said.

‘And you, Bodil. What would you have me do, to make this right?’

‘Please, he is my only bull.’ She did not blink. ‘I will pay them for the grain and will have my son repair any damage to their pens, but I cannot lose my only bull. With my husband gone, we could not afford another.’

With her compact piece of land, she would never be able to grow enough grain to be able to pay the debt. The thought gave me pause. I could not leave her and her young family without it but that would likely see Halldora and her brothers starved for the winter.

‘I am no Jarl. I cannot quote law to you as Thorkell can. If I decide that this debt is to be paid in grain, it will leave both families without–’

‘Then the auroch is it,’ Halldora said triumphantly. ‘We can eat well all winter.’

‘–if I have the auroch slain, it will see a family starve for the winter and all the summers to come with no bull to breed,’ I continued.

Halldora bristled.

‘You have a son old enough to work?’ I asked Bodil.

‘I do, Lady Olith.’

‘Then I propose that your son will work to mend the pens and clear the land that has been damaged.’

Halldora went to speak but I held up my hand to silence her.

‘I will pay you back the grain that has been lost, Halldora, from the Jarl’s stores. Bodil, you will keep your auroch and put him to breed. The firstborn bull of the herd will belong to Halldora, that will be the payment for the damage that has been caused.’

‘I am forever in your debt, Lady Olith.’ Bodil bowed. ‘I will make sure it is done.’

‘Does that please you, Halldora?’

‘It is fair,’ she said grudgingly. ‘I will take the bull.’

Both women crossed the room, calm now in each other’s company.

‘You are wiser than you look, Lady Olith,’ Thorkell said at my side.

I hoped it would grant me some forgiveness with the women. They would not pardon me, but they did see that there was not always a side of right and wrong but sometimes there was a better way that could be carved from the ground between the two.

‘I hope so, Thorkell.’

?

Not three days had passed since I had settled the dispute between Halldora and Bodil. The pens had been mended and peace seemed to be restored. Ligach and I had waded out into the sea, knee-deep and skirts billowing around us, as one of my father’s ships appeared through the mist surrounding our cove of sea cliffs.

‘Lady Olith, do ye ken if that’s one of the Laird King’s ships?’ She pointed.

I squinted into the distance at the black speck against the horizon, it did not have the craned neck of a dragon so it could not have been my husband. A thrill of panic went through me.

‘It is not one of the Jarl’s ships, but it could be one of the Laird King’s.’ I tried to examine it more closely. ‘Until it nears, I will not be able to tell.’ I had never had any interest in my father’s ships. We were not seafaring, not in the same way that the Danes were. I would have not known one of my father’s ships if it sailed onto dry land and docked at my feet. ‘We should get back to the hall and get cleaned.’

Halldora, Estrid and the other women were mere specks upon the shoreline, tending to their catch. We could go unnoticed. I turned and headed back, struggling through the ebbing tide, pushing and pulling at my legs. Angus watched from the shoreline, tongue lolling and tail wagging waiting for scraps.

I sat down on the sand and pulled on my boots. My first thought was that my father would expect me to be with child. I had only bedded my husband twice. I had missed my courses but that did not mean I was carrying his seed. Part of me wanted to board his ship, turn around and head back to Alba.

‘Do you think they’ve come for us?’ said Ligach, breathlessly settling her skirts stuck to her legs.

‘My father would not care about us,’ I said, hauling myself to my feet. ‘We will be left here.’

I could hear Donada’s voice in my head telling me to be patient. That I would not be exiled for long and I could return and just maybe, she would find it in her heart to forgive me. The thought steadied me.

I looked out onto the horizon again as the ships drew nearer.

‘We do not have much time,’ I said, heading back towards the circle of longhouses. I needed to meet them as Lady Olith, wife of Jarl Sigurd, not Olith who is still waiting to find her salvation. ‘We need to reach the house before they make land.’

?

Ligach helped strip me of my wet things. She placed me in the dress Estrid had given me the night before our wedding, a blue thing with a cloak trimmed with fur.

‘Here,’ she said handing me a fistful of cloth. ‘Put it beneath your skirts. Make them see a child in your belly and that your seat next to the Jarl is secure.’

I did not have time to think. Then, I did not fully grasp what it meant to carry a child, how his tiny life would play into my father’s crown and how he would be both Dane and Christian. Then I could only think that it would be something that my father would look favourably on and that when my sister learned of it, she might find a way to forgive me. Lifting the hem of my skirts, I made a small makeshift curve around my belly, smoothing its roughness with the fabric of my skirts.

The air in the chamber smelled of earth and ash mixed with the smell of sea against my skin. I took my seat to the left of my husband’s, lying empty and settled myself.

‘Go quickly,’ I urged. ‘Make sure the fire is lit.’

‘Aye, Lady Olith.’

Ligach made quick work of the fire, sending sparks fluttering skyward. She wore trousers now and a tunic, like the rest of the shieldmaidens, I could barely tell her apart but for her white hair. I would soon dress the same, I did not want anyone to know of my past. I wanted them only to see the woman in their famous sagas.

‘That’s enough,’ I said, urging her to stand at my side just out of view. ‘Thorkell,’ I called.

‘What is it Lady Olith?’

‘My father and his men.’ I pointed in the direction of their ships, even though they would not have gone unnoticed. ‘I want the hall readied for their arrival.’

‘Does Jarl Sigurd know?’ he said, in his thick Norse tongue.

‘No, it is unexpected.’

I had thought my father would have been too preoccupied with his newfound allegiance with the Danes to make the journey to the northern isles.

‘I will be at your side,’ he said simply, falling in beside Ligach.

In my husband’s absence, I was ruler. Something that I had never become used to in the months following our wedding, but now? Now I have ruled longer alone than we ever did together. Sitting straighter, I tried to steady my breathing. With the doors to the longhouse open, I could see past our farmstead and its fences and all the way to the shoreline and my father and his men. Like a nest of snakes. The head of the snake rippled across the long grasses, inching its way ever closer.

I touched a hand to the feigned curve of my belly. I was not ready. Not ready at all.