Chapter 32

Best is the Banquet to Look Back on and Remember all that Happened

I tried to steady myself. My hands trembling and my eyes fixed on the horizon. The selfish part of me wished I had not let her go. Even though they were out of sight, I could still hear the soft swish of hooves through the undergrowth. A slow and steady rhythm. My heart ached, not for the first time.

Finally, as I turned to go, something caught my eye. My father’s men, Galan and Talorc moved swiftly beneath the cover of the blackness of the shadows. Neither uttered a word, moonlight glinting off their silver mail shirts.

Grief soon turned to fear as a roar went up from my father’s hall. I cannot begin to describe the all-consuming feeling that swept across my body. Images of Donada. Of Sigurd. Of Elpin. I grasped my skirts and took off after them, my boots slipping and skidding, hampered by my cumbersome frame. The closer I got the roars turned to the screams of women and children.

As I rounded the corner, the doors to the hall hung open, spilling out a sea of people. I forced my way upstream, pushing them aside. Bloodied hands. Bloodied faces. Cries drowned out by the music.

The heat hit me first. As though I had run headlong into a wall. The metallic tang of blood filled my nostrils. In the flames of the fire, dirks and broadswords glinted, slashing into unarmed men.

‘Sigurd!’ I screamed, but the sound was swallowed up in the roar of the men.

In slow motion I watched as more of my father’s men streamed in through the open door, dressed head to foot in mail and brandishing crossbows and broadswords. They blew in like a storm. Danes lay stricken on the floor in a carpet of blood.

I crept around the room, unnoticed. Gingerly I edged my foot forward, feeling my way into the darkness before brushing against something solid. I glanced down and stifled a scream. There, at my feet, glassy eyes stared back at me. Agda Redaxe lay motionless, a slash of red oozing from her throat.

‘What are you doing?’ a voice hissed.

‘Ligach!’ I was so grateful for the sight of her, hot tears streaked my bloodied face. ‘Why– how–’ I whispered.

‘I heard the commotion.’ She tugged at my arm. ‘We have to leave now. Your father’s men,’ she shook her head. ‘It’s a massacre.’

‘Take the mare, head east towards the other camp and bring Harald and the others.’ As I said it, more of my father’s men rushed past, turning the dead over, piercing their sides with long pikes. We shrank back into the shadows. I held my breath and closed my eyes, trying to steady the thundering of my heart. I grasped for Ligach.

They pushed further on, lifting and rolling the dead, clearing a walkway around the room. So busy with their duty that we went unnoticed.

‘I have to find Sigurd. We cannot leave without him and Donada.’

She hesitated, fingers gripped fiercely around my hand and then let go, disappearing as fast as she had come back through the doorway and into the black night.

I moved closer now. I could not see my father or Sigurd in the sea of bodies. Beneath an upturned table, a young woman cowered. I caught her eye and placed a finger to my lips. Silent and hidden she would be safe. More pushed into the room behind me, armed with scabbards and dirks. I pressed myself back against the wall beneath the shadows. I saw Johnne wrestle his way forward, vying for a better view of whatever they had ringed in the corner.

As I peered through the jostling crowd I caught sight of Sigurd. He deflected a blow from a dirk, spinning and twisting the arm until the tiny blade was in his grasp. One after another they came, circling him now like a pack of wild dogs. He stepped back, slowly edging his way around but every time, another jab oozed blood from his side.

‘Sigurd!’ I screamed.

I forced my way through, tripping and stumbling over the bodies scattered about the floor. I did not care if I was seen. I would have set fire to the world at that moment. Pushing against the heaving mass of men. Galen lay dead now with the rest and my father’s crossbows had taken half a dozen more Danes.

‘Don’t touch him!’ I cried, but my shouts were drowned out by their roars.

I whipped around at a noise behind me, to see a Dane in a raven tunic upturn a table and make a bolt for the door. It was as though the world had been slowed, before he reached the handle, a crossbow bolt whistled past my ear, cutting him down like all the rest.

Amid the circle, I heard Sigurd growl. ‘Where are you, Malcolm!’ He swayed on his feet. ‘Show yourself!’

At the far side of the room behind the horde of men, my father sat watching everything unfold from his carved throne. In that moment, I vowed that I would kill him, and I did, in time. I handed my mother his head. I made my way towards him. I knew Sigurd would be safe as long as my father toyed with him, like a farm cat with a mouse by the tail.

‘FATHER!’ I shouted.

I stood in the centre of the room, furs torn from my shoulders and bodies all around my feet. My father raised his hand, and the drums stopped. Everyone turned to face me.

‘Judas wishes to speak,’ he cackled. ‘But nobody wants to listen.’

We were outnumbered and outmanoeuvred. I could only hope to buy Ligach enough time to fetch our men. My ears were filled with the beats of my heart and the rasps of my breath, short with exhaustion.

‘There is only one Judas here,’ I said, taking pains over every word. ‘You kiss your daughter’s cheek. You congratulate her and yet here you are attempting to slay her husband.’

‘He was never your husband. Your duty was always to me and peace at these borders. Now, you’re fat wi’ his seed you choose to betray me. Danes raiding at our borders and you will do nothing.’

‘I told you.’ I balled my hands into fists. ‘My husband and I are going to Orkney. This is your fight, not ours.’

‘Olith, walk out of here. Go.’

I listened to the shuffle of feet as they closed tighter around Sigurd. I did not budge.

‘You always were a wayward child.’ He laughed. ‘Now, you’ve grown into a wayward bitch.’

‘I am twice the wayward bitch you think I am. You’ve betrayed our family enough.’

From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of my father’s terrified concubine, crawling on all fours through scattered cups, spilled wine and dead bodies. I thought of grabbing her, holding a knife to her throat but I knew he would see her throat slit before he would yield.

‘Olith,’ Sigurd said in not more than a whisper. ‘Leave now. For once do as I say.’

My eyes met his through the throng. His beautiful hair was now matted and bloodied. A split above his left eye saw to it that it was so swollen I could no longer see its blue.

‘Let my husband go,’ I said again, steady and slow.

‘I do not take council from dogs. From what I can see you have very little to bargain with.’

I wanted Sigurd to know that all that would come out of my mouth would be a lie. That all of it, every word was to buy us enough time to save him.

‘Let him go and I will stay,’ I said. ‘I swear, I will raise my son in your court. You can school him to rule Orkney. We have another camp, with three more chieftains and almost a hundred men. I will tell your men where they can find them, but first, you have to let Sigurd go.’

I would have told him anything. I would have given every man. Every shieldmaiden. But fate and its weavers play a hand and sometimes we cannot see it in the moment, but when we remember, through the eyes of old age, we see what was meant to be.

‘Why should I believe a word that comes out of your mouth?’ He peered at me with mistrust.

‘If you do not, and they find out what you have done they will strike down upon you with all the wraith of Odin and the Aesir,’ I told him. ‘You may hope for mercy if they know you have freed their Jarl as a gesture of goodwill. Is it not better to leave one alive so that they can carry the stories of what you have done here?’

The silence stretched before us. His men would be no match for ours in open combat and he knew it. He could go up against our shield wall, but they would be dead before dawn. It would have been too much of a risk, and my father was no risk-taker when it came to his own life. I could feel his men circling behind me, but I did not care. I would not back down. I was no longer the girl that he sold to a Dane.

‘The Jarl for a hundred of his men.’ He pursed his lips. In. Out. In. Out. ‘I–’

His words halted as a shower of arrows rained in from the open door, followed by a steady stream of Danes, armed to the teeth with helms, shields and broadswords.

The world roared.