Chapter 19

Better to Fight and Fall than Live Without Hope.

I lay awake, propped on one arm watching the moon pass through the stars and turn into the sun. The Volva’s words rang in my ears: the father of my son would die. I touched a hand to the slight swell of my stomach. Dead before the baby is born.

The night had been haunted by nightmares. Black creatures swirled high above, screeching a war cry. Sea-salted air whipped at my skin before I was plunged below the surface of the icy water. I was held there, beneath the pulsing waves. Twisting and turning to break free of its grasp. Was it death?

Ligach did not seem so troubled. She never was about anything. She slept in my husband’s place with Angus squashed between us. The noises that came from them were as though I had spent the night in a sty with the pigs.

I lay and watched the fire until the wood had turned to ashes. Sending orange flecks fluttering towards the ceiling. I needed my husband to return.

My thoughts swarmed like a murmuration. I needed not only to get my husband on side, but to beg for Donada’s forgiveness. Forgiveness that I never thought I would need. The day that I boarded my husband’s ship, I believed it for the best. That she be kept safe, away from the Danes and that she would be allowed to marry a Scot, grow old and have all the children she had ever wanted. I had been nothing more than foolish. I had left her vulnerable and at the mercy of a father who was nothing but wicked and a mother who was so lost in her grief she no longer cared.

Would it be so bad for Donada to make the isles her home? I had a strong husband, great warriors and a baby in my belly. Any woman would be honoured with such a prize. She would be glad of this life. She had wanted this life before I had taken it from her. I could not forget why I was doing this. Why I was prepared to go to war with my own father. I would prove that he had no power over us. My child would never be his heir. I would not forget.

My father’s men had gone to their ships. Silently they’d haunted the shore like kelpies, threatening to make land and take us all. He would not rest until he saw me punished for my insolence, but I was a child no longer.

Thorkell had kept guard on the door all night, taking turns to rest with the other women, and for that, I was truly grateful.

I sighed. A heavy sigh. My father wanted proof that I was with child, but how could I give it? I walked over to look out across the horizon. The day was warm and as clouded over as it had been the day I arrived. As the wind blew, I could smell the salt on the ocean. Atholl called to me.

Lost in my thoughts, Ligach stirred, stretching like a farmstead cat. ‘Have they gone?’

I shook my head and turned, gazing back out to a sea that raged against the rocks. I could feel the summer begin to turn. The wind brought change. I knew when I chose this life for myself, it would not be an easy one. I had done it for all the right reasons but in perhaps the wrong way. We laugh about it now. At least Donada does, when she tells our grandchildren of what we were like as girls. She tells of a wicked sister who stole the handsome Jarl and they sit cross-legged before her, mouths agape, hanging on her every word. She tells how the sisters, though sworn enemies, become best friends again, united in grief.

‘I ken that you want to punish him, as do more ‘an half the village,’ she said, coming to stand near me. ‘But you know it would be madness to strike while his ships guard our shores and the Jarl’s ships are still days away.’

She always knew what I was thinking, even then.

‘Our lives.’ I touched my belly. ‘And yours depend on me keeping my head. If we are to get back to Scotland safely, I cannot make a mistake now.’

‘Can you truly trust him? Do you think he will allow us home?’

Home. It would never be our home again.

I studied the horizon and his monstrous ships. I could not answer something that I could not be sure of. I could not trust a word that came out of my father’s mouth. We would have to take our chances.

‘Ligach, do you know of a way that I can prove to my father that I’m with child?’

‘What of the Piss Prophets? Do they no have them here?’

‘Piss Prophets?’ I must have sounded confused, because I was. Living with a mother that was never truly there, she had never spoken to us of such things. ‘What are they?’

‘Ack, how have you got sisters and you dinna know about the Piss Prophets?’ She lowered her voice as though it were a secret not for men’s ears. ‘It is said if a woman such as yourself pisses on wheat.’ She looked down at my stomach. ‘And it sprouts, then you are carrying a girl. If you piss on barley and it sprouts, then it’s a boy in your belly.’

‘Can you get me some?’ My father will be back as soon as he breaks fast.’

‘Aye, I’ve seen it in the wee grain store up behind the house of the Seeress,’ she said pulling on her boots. ‘I’ll fetch it now. Make sure you drink plenty.’

‘Go quickly.’

?

Ligach burst through the door like she’d been thrown by a gale.

‘Here,’ she said, forcing her hand beneath her tunic and removing a handful of barley. ‘It’s all I could manage before Estrid looked at me as though she was going to take my other hand.’

She set about clearing a pewter platter, that looked as though it had been hammered into shape. She placed it on the floor before the fire and scattered the barley across it.

My mother had never used anything like it, not that I could remember much from when she carried my brother.

‘What do I do?’ I whispered.

‘You lift up your skirts and you aim for that barley.’ She mimicked squatting in her breeches and tunic. ‘A good stream of pish should do the trick.’

I put my feet on either side of the platter, pulling and twisting at my skirts to flatten them enough that I might be able to see my feet and readied myself for the task at hand.

Thump. Thump. Thump. The first against the door came fast. I leapt back, dropping my skirts. Angus clattered to his feet, legs moving faster than his body had wanted, gaining no traction and his paws upending the platter sending the wet barley scattering across the floor.

‘Lady Olith,’ Thorkell shouted from the door. ‘Your father has arrived; will you be greeting him? Or shall I send him back with one of his men’s heads as a gift?’

‘Just a minute.’ I glanced from the barley at my feet, to Ligach and to the door. ‘What am I going to do?’ I hissed.

‘You’ll pick up that barley as though nothing has happened, and you greet him and his men. We will tell him that when we confirm if it is a girl or boy you carry, we will send word to him. That should at least buy us a few days.’

‘He wants to know he has an heir to secure peace at these borders.’

With his dying breath, he would wish he had married me to the King of Northumbria. It would have brought more peace than making me a Dane.

‘Then that is exactly what we will do.’

?

‘Father.’ I forced a smile, taking my seat before the fire. ‘I trust that we can be civil towards each other?’ I could barely keep my voice from shaking. This time, I was not alone, half the women lined the walls with Estrid and Halldora the nearest.

‘You have my word.’ He sat before me with only a handful of his men. ‘Now we have the matter of my grandchild, as he will be the firstborn and the heir to Alba. I want to know that it is a boy you carry.’

An heir to Alba. My child. The one thing that I had never wanted to give my father. Half Dane. Half Scot. In that moment, I closed my eyes, and I prayed that God would grant me a girl. A wee girl that would never have to be an heir to the throne. He would not take his eyes off my belly. I did not trust him, but there was little else to be done.

‘Here,’ Ligach said, carrying a platter of barley and placing it before my father. ‘See.’

She stepped back and closed her eyes. She looked as frightened as I was.

He studied the pewter dish before him. Face as stiff and smooth as slate. ‘Tell me the meaning of it.’ He pushed the dish towards me.

The words formed a knot in my throat. My tongue was fat and numb with fear.

‘If barley is sprouted, it’s a boy in the Princess’s belly,’ Ligach said, taking my hand in hers to steady it.

He frowned again, studying it. I searched his face for some clue as to what he was thinking but he gave nothing away.

He banged his hand down on the table, sending the dish skittering. ‘It is done,’ he said, rising from his seat. The rest of his men followed. ‘See when your husband returns you set sail for Atholl, tell him to bring his best warlords, we have the wedding of Jarl Finnleik and Donada to celebrate.’

And with that, they were gone.

I finally let out my breath, legs buckling like a newborn foal. I finally allowed the tears to stream down my face. I steadied myself against the chair.

Ligach rushed to the table, eyes wide and fingers tracing the beads of barley.

‘What is it?’ I said in almost a whisper. ‘Tell me what it is you see?’

The mead hall held its breath.

She turned slowly, holding the thin strip of pewter between both hands.

‘It’s a boy, Lady Olith,’ she said. ‘You’re going to have a boy.’