Chapter 29

The One You Trust Can Disappoint you the Most

A s the fading sun sunk beneath the first, Ligach lit the brazier and set candles about the crevices before she’d retired. I paced the floor.

Sigurd sat on the bed before the fire removing his shoes.

On Orkney, I had been able to forget our situation, but in Atholl, before my father, we had been abruptly plunged into reality and were sinking into a sea of unseen threats.

‘I do not trust them,’ I said to Sigurd, taking another lap of my chamber trying to calm my jangling nerves. ‘When do they plan to leave?’

‘Eventide Friday,’ he said matter of fact, pulling off his tunic and turning towards me. If I live a thousand more years, I will not forget the beauty of him before that firelight and the inked black crow on his chest watching me with a beady eye.

‘After the meal this evening you must appeal to him,’ I said, planting myself next to him. ‘He has more than enough of his own men, he does not need ours.’

‘Ours now, is it?’

‘I am sure I have heard my husband say we shall rule together. Have I not?’

He pulled me onto his lap. ‘I did. I also told you that you would make a good Jarl.’ He kissed my cheek. ‘You should not be worrying about such things and enjoying carrying our child.’

‘How can it not worry me that you will be sent to war, for a cause that is not our own?’ While I await your return, hoping that my child will grow to see his father alive.’

‘If I die in battle then it is Odin’s will. I do not fear death and nor should you. We will be together again.’ He pressed his forehead to mine. ‘And I intend to be around long enough to see our boy grown.’

‘You do not know what kind of a monster you are dealing with.’

‘I have lived a life with monsters.’ He kissed me. ‘They are in our stories.’ Another kiss. ‘They are our gods.’ Kiss. ‘And you remember, your father has tried to kill me before.’

I remember that night in Atholl. Sigurd was calm as a swan. Men do not feel the same fear a woman feels, the sensation of beetles crawling inside your belly, bringing an uneasiness that will not shift. Even then, I think I knew what was to come. It moved beneath my skin like creeping death.

‘I must go to my sisters,’ I said, rising to my feet and arching my back, my belly so much rounder now. ‘I must have an audience with them before the feast.’

I needed to speak with Donada alone. If she was happy with her marriage to the Earl of Moray, I would leave her be. Let her marry him, but if I thought for one moment, one second that it was against her will then she would be on our ships and sailing to Orkney before my father could say otherwise.

‘I will visit with Aga and the rest of the men, make sure that they intend to behave themselves. Tomorrow, we will head back to camp. I will make sure Thorkell returns both you and your handmaid to Orkney before rejoining us and we can set sail before the week’s end.’

?

Although the night was moonless, it was not difficult to find my sister’s sleeping quarters. The melody from Bethoc’s lute drifted along the dark corridor.

When Bethoc and I were young and we lost our way home from the forest, on a clear night, my mother would have us look out for The Plough and follow its handle until we found the North Star. It would always guide us home. I still use it now, when I plant my bare feet in the earth and the darkness has taken the day, I walk as far as my old legs will take me. Sometimes I visit with Sigurd or feel the icy waters of the sea lap around my aching feet. When I turn and I cannot tell which direction I have taken, it is The Plough that brings me home.

I could not say if my sisters were aware of my return. Seeing me again would give Donada little comfort. I hurried along the walkway following the tune. I could not help thinking that she would never be able to forgive me.

I knocked gently as I pushed open the door. They did not hear me approach. I stood in the narrow doorway, my eyes adjusting. There was a smell of lavender about the place, as though I had just missed my mother. For which I was grateful. I hoped that it would be the last time I had to avoid her, but it was not, three more times we met before she finally succumbed, and death finally took her.

The room was lit with tallow candles, dotted in every nook. It sparkled like the night sky. Bethoc sat fat and proud before the firepit playing her lute, the melodic tune resonated as though caught in the skin of a drum.

Donada sat with her eyes closed and finger drifting through the air in time with the music.

‘I see you are still as terrible as when I left,’ I shouted, startling them both.

‘Olith!’ Bethoc cried, lute falling to the floor as she ran to me with open arms. ‘Father told us to expect you!’ She kissed my cheek and wrapped herself so tightly around me that she almost stopped my breath.

‘I’m no here for long,’ I said as she stepped back to access me. ‘Well look at you! About to be a mother.’ She spun me around like she did when I was a child. ‘You must meet Duncan, Eua has him now to settle him.’ Her smile reached ear to ear. She always was a brilliant mother. ‘But he is beautiful and has his mother’s eyes, just dinna go telling Crinan. He assures me he looks like his father.’

Donada stared at me blankly.

She seemed to have changed so much and not at all. She had lost the chubbiness of a child, her features now carved. What hadn’t changed was how angry she looked.

‘What are you so sour-faced for? Like a dog licking pish from a thistle,’ Bethoc said to Donada before turning back to me. ‘You must tell me what it is like to be with a savage!’ she whispered, sitting us down and pulling my hands into her lap. ‘Were you fearful on your wedding night? Did he take you from behind as the horses do?’

From there I could see Donada’s face. She would not look me in the eye.

‘Bethoc!’ Donada hissed. ‘It is rude to ask such things.’

‘Ach you may be a blessed virgin but I’m not.’ She waved a hand. ‘Tell me everything! I want to know it all. I have a child. Crinan is nothing if not loving, but I want to hear something exotic.’

‘I am no talking about what happens in our marital bed to you or anyone else for that matter,’ I said. ‘It is not without its happiness.’ I touched my swollen belly.

I thought of the last words I had said to Donada. That she should think of me being defiled while she plaited hair. It made me feel sick to the pit of my stomach.

‘Aye, two wee nephews.’ Bethoc smiled.

‘How have you both been?’

‘We’ve been well,’ Donada said with a frost about her. ‘And you?’

‘I’ve been well, it was a shock when father visited. I did not expect that he would have arranged a marriage for you so soon?’

‘Yes, lucky for me I have no sisters left to take this husband,’ said Donada.

It was a low blow, but it was nothing that I did not expect.

‘Will you be happy?’

She lowered her gaze. ‘I will be grateful that my new husband will be neither Pagan nor Dane.’

‘That does not answer my question.’

‘I did not know I had to.’

‘Och,’ Bethoc interrupted. ‘Enough you two. We will not rake through what has gone before. Olith you are about to be a mother and Donada, we have a feast to attend in your honour. There is much to celebrate.’

Donada looked as though she might spit feathers.

‘Can we be civil to one another? I know you must be angry with me, for the way I left but you must understand that I did it to protect you.’

‘I will speak to Donada,’ said Bethoc, kissing my cheek. ‘Go and fetch your husband, from what I remember of him, he is a sight to behold and much more pleasing to the eye than the slovenly swine father usually has in attendance.’

?

I stepped out onto the walkway and gazed out into the darkness. I felt as hollow as the naked winter trees. I had tried to give my sister everything. I had cared for her like she had been my own child. Made sure that she did not marry a man that would hurt her. She could not see that all I had done had been for her. I wanted to pray for her forgiveness but in truth, I spent the whole evening in the company of my own fury.