Chapter 20

It is Better to Stand and Fight. If You Run, You’ll Die Tired

T he dawn was warm and cloudless. The last of the summer days before harvest. Two more full moons had passed and there was still no sign of my husband. It felt so much colder then. As though God’s hand could not reach our lands. Their gods, now mine, seemed to bring clouds to this place on the tails of winds and storms.

I sat, rounder and softer now, my skirts heavy with damp. There could be no denying the child in my belly. I was still plagued with nightmares, but their darkness brought me a strange comfort. Angus danced and twisted around in the white foam of the sea. The waves cantered to the shore like white stallions, arching their necks before crashing into the rocks.

I dug the toe of my boot into the sand forming tiny mountains around droplets of saltwater – Atholl from the eyes of Odin’s crows. From up here, I could see where my sister Donada would be, tending to our mother no doubt. I traced the gullies and tracks with a finger, leading to Elpin’s village. The home where we could have raised a child, if only I had agreed to it.

I placed my hand to my stomach. ‘Aye, it’s all right, little one,’ I whispered. ‘Your father will be home soon, and we will travel to fetch your aunt.’

The girl that had arrived in Orkney all those years ago is gone. She had spent her life praying to a God that had only forsaken her. One day I had been a child. The next day I became a woman.

I would return to Atholl for my sister’s wedding, as my father had demanded, and once a skirmish ensued, we would escape with Donada and get far away from any reach my father might have. He would be so busy guarding his borders against the Kingdom of Northumbria and Jarl Finnleik and his men to search for us.

‘Lady Olith,’ Ligach called, startling me from my thoughts. ‘You’re wanted in the mead hall.’

‘Help me.’ She took my hand, steadying my cumbersome frame. ‘What is it today?’

‘Another dispute of land?’

I sighed. It was all there seemed to be. I’d spent my days, back pressed against the Jarl’s unyielding seat, with a pelt across my lap listening to the quarrels of farmers. Missing sheep. Stolen land. Escaped aurochs trampling crops. It did not stop. Even as the wind grew cold and it brought with it the seeds of winter. Day after day until my feet were swollen and my back was stiff.

‘I’ve requested braziers to be lit.’ She tucked my arm into the crook of hers. ‘There’s some salted gannet. You must eat something to keep your strength up.’

I avoided her gaze. My child was trying to wring me inside out. I could hardly keep food down, and the little I managed just lay in my stomach like a stone. I was wasting away to a shadow. If it had not been for Ligach and Estrid’s care of me, we would not have survived.

‘I will, and mebbe some bread if you’ve made any?’

‘Aye, there is. It will do the two of you some good.’

I had no appetite for it.

Angus forged ahead, weaving in and out of the long reeds effortlessly. The sand underfoot was soft and dry the closer we got to the hall, making walking difficult in my unbalanced shape. I braced myself against Ligach. Angus stopped, muscles stiffening. He turned slowly to face us with a low rumbling growl.

My eye followed. Standing silhouetted against the dawn stood a shape that was neither man nor beast. It resembled a bear but with the antlers of a stag. The gods could take on the form of many beasts. Ligach gasped and gripped my arm.

‘Who… who goes there?’ she said, her voice trembling.

‘It is time that we speak again, Lady Olith.’

I could not mistake the voice of the Volva. It made my blood run cold.

‘Must we speak again so soon?’

‘It is not I who wills it, but the gods.’

She turned, white furs of a buck trailing behind her and a grotesque headdress made from bone and teeth with twisted antlers. She did not walk. She looked as though she sailed across the land like an apparition.

I left Ligach without another word and I followed. By the time I reached the entrance to her stead the door hung open with wisps of grey smoke spiralling skyward. The walkway was littered with the stone idols of the gods, Balder, Frigg and Odin, the gods of the aesir.

This time, as I entered, we were alone. No chorus. She faced me, her grey hair almost to her waist. One blue eye and one brown sat deep within bony features, either side of a charcoal cross that ran from her forehead to her chin.

I sat before her, heart pounding in my throat. She had prophesied my husband’s death. She had warned me but then, I still did not believe her. She had also foreseen a son. I placed a hand to the pear shape beneath my gown.

‘You have been dreaming, Lady Olith. You must tell me.’

No one must lie to the seeress.

‘I stand on a clifftop looking at the raging sea below. The wind is all I can hear. Then, I am held beneath the waves. It clutches at me. Catching my breath. I cannot fight it. I can hear its heartbeat. Creeping. Crawling. I wake gasping.’ I shudder at the memory. ‘Is it my death?’

‘The smoke from the flames will tell us.’ She looked deep into the fire at whispers of figures dancing beneath the orange glow. ‘It is not death you hear but life. It is the child inside you.’ She kept her eyes fixed on a distant place looking for some meaning. ‘His heart beats in time with yours.’ Her head snapped quickly to face me. ‘You do not believe me?’

‘I have never held with such things.’

‘For all that you have seen among us? Among Odin and Frigg. You still believe in your White Christ?’

It was true then, that part of me still believed in God. A God that would forsake me. That would forsake my husband and child.

‘Sigurd had asked that I learn of your gods, our gods. I have studied with Estrid.’

‘That is not what I asked. I asked if you still believe in the White Christ?’

I could not denounce my faith. The worst stuck in my throat.

‘You are not sure. Time will heal these open wounds.’ She turned her eyes back towards the flames.

I had no wounds then. No chest torn open with grief. No scars.

‘You will bear the markings of your life.’ Her eyes crept across the flesh on my arms. ‘A great change is coming.’

‘You cannot know such a thing.’

‘There is nothing that can stand in its way. It will be your own Ragnorak. A great battle that will see many of our people fall. A warrior queen is waiting. Daughter of Frejya. A new hero. She will command this land. She will rule with a fury that will see our sacred lands flourish. Our lives will never be the same.’

‘How can you know such a thing?’

‘All of this I have foreseen.’

‘When?’

‘Before you hold that babe in your arms.’ She looked at the bulge beneath my gown. ‘Now, you must go, be ready to meet your new husband.’

‘They will make land before eventide.’ She waved a hand. ‘Go now Daughter of Frejya.’

I left through the open door into the icy autumn air. As I walked back to the beach to find Ligach, my thoughts tumbled thinking of all that had been. All that was to come and all that might be lost.

?

As I came back over the soft dunes, feet slipping in the sand I found Ligach perched on a rocky outcrop throwing sea-worn pebbles for Angus. I placed a cold hand on her shoulder.

‘Finally.’ She sighed, sounding relieved. She flung her arms wide. ‘I always worry when that heathen priestess takes you.’

The longer we had spent together, the more we had become like sisters her and I. Sometimes I had to remind myself that she wasn’t Donada, that we had not shared a childhood. Somehow, we had saved each other. Whatever the gods intended, we were meant to find each other.

‘Am I still needed up at the mead hall?’ I slipped my hand into the crook of her arm. ‘Or can I spend a quiet afternoon by the fire?’

‘You dinna have to worry, Thorkell has dealt with it in your absence. It was Frode Halfdan again, his aurochs had escaped and managed to force their way into the neighbouring farmstead, eating some of their provisions for winter. He paid the price of three chickens and two pounds of barley.

‘That seems fair.’ I nodded. ‘Sometimes I am bone-weary. It is not so easy being the wife of a Jarl and carrying his child.’

As I said it, Angus let out a loud excited bark before clattering between us as he ran back towards the crashing waves.

‘What has gotten into him now?’

I used my hand to shield against the sun, still low on the horizon, turning the sunrise burnt red. Black sea serpents hovered against the skyline.

‘Is that them? Is it my husband?’

As they drew closer, a crowd started to gather, scattered across the coast as far as the eye could see. Blank faces with eyes like beaten coins all staring out into the sea. Estrid arrived with her son, both dressed in their finest clothes. She nodded in greeting as she went to stand with Halldora and some of the other women.

Excitement rippled through the crowd. Each of them waiting. A husband. A brother. A sister. A daughter. Six ships had left our docks all those months ago but I could only count five. One ship less. Excitement soon turned to dread. Hushed Norse words spread like fire through the expectant crowd. Not all our people had returned.

We all merged on the jetty to greet the arrivals. I stood as close to the edge as I dared, peering dizzily into the deepness of the water. The same darkness that visited me in my sleep. It made me feel uneasy.

‘Finally, they have returned,’ Estrid said, appearing at my side. ‘It has been a long summer raiding, but you have shown your worth. You are no longer the Pict girl that arrived on our shore all those moons ago.’

Now, when we raid, I still sail my husband’s ship but it is my armies I command. It is my men who burn and raid and kill until they submit. I always make sure it comes to a swift end. They do not let them linger long.

‘I am grateful for everything you have done for me, Estrid. I truly am.’ I squeezed her hand.

‘Say no more of it. We have much to celebrate, and you can show Jarl Sigurd how much you have learned about our gods.’

‘Aye, we must fill the mead hall with enough ale and food to fill their empty bellies and I cannot say that I have not missed my husband.’

Inside, I could not shake my ill feeling. Their return had been foreseen. The words rippled through my mind like a stone tossed in a pool.

Change was coming.