Chapter 7

That Which has a Bad Beginning is Likely to Have a Bad Ending

A fter the events of the hunt, it had not taken long before my father and the rest of the men were back to their ale and their music.

In the depths of my hooded cloak, I had slipped unnoticed from the great hall beneath the slate-coloured sky. Weaving my way through the long grass, I stayed as near as I could to the river’s edge.

I shivered. The journey had been much longer without my mare and had allowed the spring frost to nip at my skin. I scanned the line of trees. The echoes of the men’s laughter drifted on the breeze. Their light looked like specs of stars against the clear night sky. Cursing at the skirt which hampered my legs, I pressed on.

The forest broke into a narrow path. I kept my eyes on my feet as they followed the muddied, sloping track, even the shards of moonlight were blocked by the wych elm and alders that lined it.

Elpin stood with his back to me.

‘You came,’ I whispered.

I did not hesitate. I opened my arms and threw them around him. Pressing his familiarity to me. I breathed him in. He smelled of forest and soil and home. He still does now, although his bones are weakened, and his skin hangs loose. His heart still beats the same.

‘Of course, I did.’ His words brushed the top of my head. ‘I could not let you leave without saying goodbye.’

Part of me wished he had.

‘Listen,’ he said, pushing me back to face him. ‘You are going to need a weapon. I hate the thought of you being left alone with them.’

I was more terrified than he was, but I said nothing.

He pushed his double-edged hunting knife into my hand. ‘If he hurts you… it is just like bringing down a stag.’ He made a cutting motion across his throat.

I tried not to cry. ‘You do not need to worry.’

‘I know. I know. You are the strongest woman I know.’

I gave a watery laugh. ‘Then you do not know enough women.’

‘Will you promise to visit?’

‘God could not stop me, but will you promise me one thing?’

I could feel the words cling to the back of my throat.

‘You do not need to say it.’ He squeezed my hand. ‘I will watch over Donada like she is my own sister.’

Those words lay heavy upon my chest, but I knew in that moment whatever fate lay before me, death or life. Donada would be safe, despite all the mess and my hastiness, I took comfort in knowing that. It was all I ever wanted.

‘They will be waiting for me.’

I turned to leave, pulling up the hood of my travelling cloak. I could not bring myself to say goodbye. The ground beneath my feet was sodden with spring rain making it slippery underfoot but I did not dare turn, I would never have been able to make myself turn back.

?

I stared out over the horizon. I could not catch sight of Orkney behind the spring fret that threatened to make land. A pair of ravens, like black blemishes, struggled against the same gale that caused the shale beneath my feet to rattle like bones.

My father and his men lined the sand like wraiths. My mare had already been taken from me and tied to the saddle of one of his men. I would have no more need of her.

I strained my ears to listen to the sounds of the forest. Hoping to hear the sound of Donada’s voice one last time. Bethóc was the only person waiting to bid me farewell. My mother was no doubt praying to be rid of me, hoping that I would meet some untimely end, and she would no longer have to deal with my constant disappointment. One of God’s blessings. I cannot say that it did not hurt that Donada had stayed away, I had hoped that the thought of me leaving would have been enough to bring her from her sullen mood, but it would take much more than that before we would speak again.

Cattle bellowed, clattering over the shale as they were herded onto a shoreline that they had never known. Promised in the Jarl’s Mundr, and not knowing their fate, they gave a mournful sound. Next came three of the Dane’s best horses, a bay, a dapple, and a chestnut. My father’s eye watched them greedily.

I hoped he was happy with the price he had received for me.

Following his gaze, at the water’s edge, where the soil met the sea, I caught sight of a man in a dark blue cloak, hunched over a shepherd’s staff. His beard, like spun gold, whipped and twisted against the wood. He looked no older than my father, but a piece of dark-coloured fabric covered his right eye socket where the eye should have been. He beckoned me.

The All-Father appears to those who need him most and, on that shoreline, I needed nothing more than the wisdom of Odin, if only my heart had been open enough to see it.

I glanced behind me, but it seemed as though the rest had not seen him. I took a step closer towards him.

‘Daughter.’ My father barked from behind. ‘May I speak with you?’

I whipped my head to my father and back, to catch sight of the wanderer but in his place two ravens spiralled skyward, wings beating furiously.

As the Danes carried on filling their ships my father’s fat priest addressed the crowd perched on the top of a boulder.

‘There is but one God,’ he bellowed. ‘Your spells and heathen ways are an affront to our Lord. You will be damned! Close is the day of reckoning. Fire will pour down upon your vileness and he will wipe the pagans from the earth. Do not be beguiled by them…’

It would give me great pleasure, in the months that followed, to slit that priest from arsehole to breakfast. I will not let it be said that I did not have my revenge.

One of the Danes shouted something in Norse, and they all roared with laughter.

‘Aye, my Laird king?’ I said over the din.

‘The Jarl asked that you have a sword belonging to one of your ancestors to pledge fealty.’ He did not look in my direction. ‘Here, take this.’

He handed me a claymore; it took both my hands to support its weight. Its basket hilt was overlain with gold and intricate carvings, but it was not my father’s or my ancestors. I had seen it hanging in the blacksmiths.

‘But this is not one of ours?’

‘No, but it’s all that you’ll give to those sea dogs.’

He turned his horse and kicked it on, with all his men following one after another and his slowest trailing behind him herding the cattle.

Huddled against the shoreline I waited. Flanked by two of my husband’s men. Drest rested, hooded inside his box. We were travelling lightly; I had been allowed a small parcel containing some of my dresses and a Holy Cross. I had crudely wrapped the sword, a gift for my new husband and I had slipped the dagger against my thigh in my woollen stocking. My husband had assured me that I would have dresses more fitting of my status when I arrived in Orkney.

A gust caught my hood, casting my hair into the wind. It whipped at my face, sticking to tear-stained cheeks. I choked back a sob.

The ship loomed, narrow neck craning and teeth bared. The Naglfar, she is truly a thing of beauty even now that I have her on dry dock. She served me well. She was my transport that day, packed tight with the rest of what I thought were his hostages and all of us guarded by his sea wolves.

The docked longships pitched and rolled in time with the lapping of the waves. I would not let them see me cry. In the distance, the Jarl’s dragon-headed ship arched its neck against the dawn, like a great selkie cresting and rolling through the water. He made me promise before our son took his first breath, that we would never sail aboard the same ship. If one of our ships were taken by the sea, our son would still have one of us.

My heart thumped in my chest. No matter how I urged my feet to move, they were nothing if not disobedient. They inched their way along the narrow walkway; Angus giving a pitiful whine.

‘Lady Olith,’ said Thorkell, who back then, resembled a barrel with a beard. The Jarl’s interpreter. He outstretched a thick arm pointing to the seat at the prow of the ship. ‘Sit.’

Taking his arm as a ballast, I edged my foot over the prow and onto the tapered deck. The wooden frame, draped with bearskins would be my throne for my journey across the Pentland Firth. Gripping the frame, I lowered myself to be seated.

Before me, row upon row of women perched on benches on the open deck. More than enough to raid any village. Bringing their carnage and fear. Sixty sets of hollow eyes stared back at me. Were they savages or hostages? Prisoners or Danes? I could not tell. One, the nearest of them, with a haze about her, like a half-wild creature stared at my wrist.

I glanced down, the sleeve of my dress had slid up revealing the bracelets that the Jarl had given me. I sucked my hand inside the fabric, away from prying eyes.

I still do not know what I thought they might do; steal them, I suppose. They made me uneasy then. We had all heard the tales of the raids on Iona. We had all lost loved ones. Trusting the Danes was not something that came easy to me.

Angus followed me over the hull in a mass of legs and damp, grey fur. Grateful for the pelts, I pulled one over my lap to guard against the cold.

It started to rain heavily, beating down on us. Even the sails were not enough to shield us from it. Stroke after stroke, the oars sliced through the water. The pace of their drums quickened. They stared, not talking, with expressions of hostile malice.

Thorkell, who spoke little, stood at the figurehead, with his arm wrapped firmly around the wooden, crested neck of the dragon.

‘Are these women your prisoners?’ I whispered.

He let out a deep laugh. ‘Prisoners? They are the Jarl’s shield maidens. Do not let them hear you say that if you want to keep your head. They are his fiercest warriors whom he trusts to escort his bride.’

I glanced back at them. Those were not the hollow eyes of prisoners that stared back at me but the soulless eyes of warriors who had been visited by more than their fair share of death. Their faces were decorated with rune markings as black as coal and at their waists hung the hilts of swords.

A part of me envied them.

The Pentland Firth looked as flat as a silver coin as the prow of the ship sliced through, but I knew from our sailors; just the mention of the crossing made the hairs on the back of their necks stand on end. I shuddered.

When Donada would wake in the night crying, I would pull her onto my lap and smooth her riotous hair. I would tell her stories of sneaking out with the fishermen. I would tell her of the sea rising violently with tall, sheer unpredictable walls of water beating themselves against ragged cliffs. I would tell her of the unicorn with its great twisted horn, almost the length of a man, jutting out from its speckled silver carcass, cresting and breaking fiercely against the sea.

Her favourite was when I told her of the morning we had fog, warming the world with its greyness. One of our father’s men, a good sailor had taken me out and allowed me to fish.

The fog descended, crawling across the horizon. Darkening. Swirling. I could see no more than the ship’s prow. Before long, our narrowboat had run aground, beached as a whale on ragged rocks.

It came upon our boat then, curiously, glistening with firth water. Holding my breath, I reached out a hand. Fingers slipped across its skin. Touching it. Caressing it. I’d expected it to feel cold. Its heartbeat against my palm. In a second it was gone, slipping below the surface without so much as a ripple.

The boat moved then. The rocks gave way and let go of its hull. We began to row, arms straining back towards land.

I was no more than a child and I truly believed that the unicorn saved our lives. As we sailed, I fixed my eyes upon the water, willing the Biasd na Sroigag to come beneath the boat and cast the Danes into the sea to be devoured by their sea serpent. Rescuing me as it had the last time.

My journey would not be an easy one. I wondered on which of his ships my new husband had taken his seat. They stretched across the firth like a skein of geese. I shuddered at the sudden gale, tightening my grip on the pelt on my lap. How lost did I have to be for the Devil to lead me this far from home?

‘Lady Olith.’ Thorkell cleared his throat. He had not left my side since we set sail.

‘Yes?’

‘Jarl Sigurd wishes you to meet with the seer when we make land. It must be before the wedding.’

I nodded, trying desperately to hide my revulsion. We are all older now, wizened and weary, but I still consult with the seeress. It does not do well to ignore her advice and she has done me well so far.

The narrow firth opened to where I could see nothing but the horizon. Terns and gulls followed in a flash of silver, twisting and turning against the gale. The sail arched and bucked against the squall. The women rowed harder, ugly slashes of fabric with tattooed flesh underneath pushed towards their home. Their home. Not mine.

I tried to angle myself behind the shelter of the sail, but nothing could stop the driving sea spray splashing like shards of ice against my face. How did they not feel it? I was sure it melted against their burning souls.

The more the ship rolled against the waves, the more the little I’d eaten wanted to make a reappearance. In the sea fret, I had lost all track of time. Was it eventide? Without the sun’s arc, it was impossible to tell.

The archipelago of Orkney loomed; a dark smudge nestled against the mist. It was as though the hand of God held it there, suspended above the sea. White foam kelpies galloped and crashed against the base of the cliffs that rose in turrets from the ocean guarding my husband’s land.

We made our way around the headland which opened out into a horseshoe of a bay. The shallower waters made for calmer seas. The beach was littered with specks of people, all waiting for our arrival and no doubt the spoils of the Dane’s raid.

As we neared the shore, the women erupted from their benches, dropping the oars and flinging themselves into the water, kicking up spray with their boots and hauling the longship up onto the sand.

I had arrived in my new home.