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‘Brave man?’ Aric scoffed, turning on her with a coldness that made her quail. ‘It always surprises me to hear a newly made widow sing the praises of her lost husband when she knows them to be lies. You are no exception, it seems.’
‘Say what you mean, Dane, but don’t dare malign my man when he’s not here to give you the thrashing you deserve. He was a brave warrior. Ask any of his brothers.’
‘Very touching,’ said Aric. ‘So perhaps you and his brothers should know how my men came across him and his two companions. Not being overly brave, you’ll agree.’
Fearn felt the thud of her heart betraying her loyalty. ‘What?’ she whispered.
‘Do you really want to know how they were raping a woman in the woodland where she was hiding? Yes, one of the villagers. An English woman. One of your own.’
‘You lie!’ Thored roared.
‘No, Earl. I do not lie. Your man had thrown his cloak and sword aside. Two men held the woman while he...’
‘No...no! My Barda would not...’ It was Catla who screamed while Fearn covered her mouth with both hands, feeling the familiar churning of her stomach.
‘I speak the truth,’ Aric shouted above the din. ‘Why would I lie? My men dragged them off her and killed your three brave men. Go and find them for yourselves. Give them the honours they deserve, what’s left of them, but don’t whine to me, woman—’ he glared at Fearn ‘—about what you’ve lost. What makes a healthy man act like an animal when he does not have the bloodlust upon him, with a wife like you at home?’ His voice dropped so that she saw rather than heard his words. ‘Perhaps I should find out.’
But Fearn’s mind had been fed more information than it could deal with in one day and now she stared at the Dane’s pitiless expression over her hands while an icy coldness stole like a frost along her arms.
Chapter Two (#ulink_5c2eec2a-94c4-5e9a-a0d9-469fd02333af)
The hubbub died down, broken only by Catla’s loud lamenting that her son had not only been killed but slandered, too, quite unjustly. He would never...never do anything so base. Fearn knew that he would. Earl Thored was bound to say it was a lie. ‘The Lady Fearn’s destiny is in my hands now,’ he insisted, ‘and I say that she shall remarry. Sitric...here...come, man...you shall have her.’ Eagerly, a young man stepped forward, but was stopped by Fearn’s strident protest.
‘He shall not, my lord. I am newly widowed and I demand a year of mourning. You know full well that I may now choose my own destiny. I shall go to live with the nuns at Clementhorpe. I have decided.’
‘Then you can undecide, woman. You’re coming with me,’ Aric said, flatly.
But they had bargained without Catla and Hilda, her resentful foster mother, who saw a way of paying back all those years of humiliation at Thored’s hands and for having to bring up a child whose strange beauty had threatened her own self-confidence for so many years. Catla’s wailing seemed to give Hilda courage, for now she found a voice. ‘Take her, Dane. Yes, take her away...far away. She does not belong here. Never has.’
Catla joined in before anyone could stop her. ‘Take her, for she will ever remind me of the son I have lost this day. She is widowed and of no use to anyone, not even to you, Dane, so if you think to bear sons on her, forget it. She bore no grandson for me and I doubt she’ll do any better for you. Those witch’s eyes turn men’s heads. Take her.’ She strode over to Fearn and, with a disgusting contortion of her face, spat at her.
Being quite unprepared for this, Fearn had not dodged the spittle that ran down her chin, but now her endurance came to an end in an explosion of blazing anger and, without a thought of anything other than this appalling insult, she aimed an open blow at Catla’s tear-stained face with all the force of a young woman’s deep unhappiness behind it. The power of it sent a painful shock down her arm, but Catla went down like a skittle, tangling her legs in her voluminous kirtle. Hands reached down to help her. Fearn’s only impulse was to escape while so much of the attention was being diverted away from her.
Backing away from the crowd, she caught the brief warning from Arlen’s lips that told her to look behind. Swinging round and drawing her knife from its sheath at the same time, she levelled it at Aric’s throat, her crouching stance practised over years of child’s play that sometimes resulted in unintentional wounds. This time, her expression of steely intent told Aric that he had better take this seriously. Nevertheless, Fearn was not in training, she was emotionally upset, her right arm was still tingling from the stunning blow to Catla’s head and her reflexes were nowhere near as sharp as her opponent’s, nor her strength as great. All it took was one quick lunge from her to send the shining knife flying through the air and to have her hands caught in both of his so tightly that she gasped with the pain of it. His arms were like two iron bands round her body as he pulled her in with her back against him, but just too late to prevent her from taking a savage bite at his hand, sinking her teeth in to touch the bone at the base of his thumb.
Wrenching away, he grunted with pain, but did not relax his grip. ‘A nunnery?’ he growled into her veil. ‘Whoever gave you that idea? Now, let’s see if I can change your mind.’
‘My lord... Lord Thored!’ Fearn yelled. ‘You cannot allow this. Help me!’
But it was clear to all who watched the undignified tussle that Earl Thored was not going to intervene, that the hand on Kean’s shoulder indicated his choice. He would not set his men to fight the Danes in his own hall over a foster daughter who, he hoped, would be returned to him in one year. Though it grieved him to lose the young woman he was so fond of, it was a chance he had to take. Thrusting his son behind him, he watched dispassionately as his wife and the bruised Catla stumbled from the hall before approaching Fearn, who was still trying to escape from Aric’s arm across her waist. ‘Lady Fearn!’ he barked. ‘You must stop this unseemly behaviour and remember who you are. Stand still and listen to me.’
‘Unseemly?’ she cried. ‘Stand still? With this ruffian’s hands upon me? My lord, you need to remind him who I am, not me.’ A heavy pall of dread hung over her as she compared this manhandling to that of Barda when he was drunk on mead, when blows would follow as a matter of course. She had always found it hard to believe that her foster father was entirely unaware of Barda’s violence, yet not once had he intervened in what was, after all, a domestic matter. Now, he was standing passively by yet again, telling her to remember who she was, which indeed was the only thing that had supported her through those terrifying incidents. She was an earl’s daughter and he was telling her to use dignity as her weapon.
Over her head, Aric spoke. ‘I do not need reminding, lady,’ he said. ‘I know who you are and I know your value, too. I think you may be worth the effort.’ As he spoke the insolent words, his arms loosened their grip across her body. Stung by his arrogance, Fearn twisted round like a coiled spring, her eyes blazing, warning him of her lightning-fast move. Meant to wreak the same damage as to Catla, her hand was caught before it made contact and, along with the other, was held wide apart by the wrists, helplessly out of range. With Barda as the victor, she would have received an immediate blow to her head, so now her instinct was to flinch with eyes tightly closed. But her reflex action was wasted, for although Aric recognised the fear as her eyes opened, he merely lowered her arms and stepped back, as if to tell her that he understood about the husband she had loyally called brave.
Trembling, and very close to tears of anger and helplessness, Fearn straightened the gold circlet over her brow and pulled the veil back into place, rubbing her wrists against the pressure of his hands, giving herself time to blink away the first signs of weakness. Her voice was hoarse with suppressed emotion as she looked bravely into Aric’s eyes of cold steel. ‘I am worth more effort than you will ever be able to find, Dane. I see now that my foster father means to sacrifice me to your whim, for that is all it is. A whim. You came here for your nephew and you take me instead. A poor bargain, in my opinion. You could mould young Kean to your ways, but you will never do the same with me. You will regret your choice and you will be glad to bring me back here in a year, if not sooner. I’ll make sure of that.’
His eyes smiled back at her as he accepted the challenge, though his mouth retained its uncompromising grimness. ‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘I don’t have time to argue the point.’
‘Lady Fearn,’ said Earl Thored, lowering his voice. ‘I hope you will find it in your heart not to hold this against me. As you see, the choice is not easy.’
‘Forgive you, you mean?’ Fearn said. ‘No, my lord, I shall not. Nor shall I ever forgive you for banishing my parents and keeping me here, for you seem intent on parting me from everything I know. A pity it is that our beloved Archbishop Oswold died last year and that so far you have not bothered to appoint another in his place, or I might have sought better advice on forgiveness than our lily-livered priest can offer these days. But when I return, I shall not enter this hall again, but go to those who appreciate my worth, and I shall claim my late husband’s estate and use it for their good.’
By the time she had finished this rebuke, Earl Thored’s eyes were lowered to the floor, his head gently shaking from side to side as if there were things he might have said to account for his seemingly weak decisions. ‘Is there anything...?’ he began.
Purposely misunderstanding him, Fearn cut him off. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I shall need my maid, Haesel. That’s all I ask. Could someone go for her?’
‘I’ll go,’ said Kamma. ‘I know where she’ll be.’
‘And a horse for the lady to ride down to the river,’ Aric said. ‘I’ll not have her walk all that way like a slave.’ As one of the Earl’s men left the hall to attend to the request, Aric took the cloak of beaver fur from one of his men and held it for Fearn to wear.
She put up a hand, frowning in disgust. ‘No, I’ll not have it near me with the stink of blood upon it. Take it. Burn it.’
‘Lady,’ said Aric, reasonably, ‘if it had the stink of blood on it, I would not have worn it either. But it was not near him. It stinks only of a Danish jarl who would protect you from the winds of the northern sea. Wear it. It would be a pity to die of cold before we reach home.’ He held it out again at shoulder height. ‘Turn round. Come on.’
As she obeyed him, she saw Haesel enter the hall with Kamma and remembered what the maid had foreseen, earlier that day. Cold, strong winds. And she, Fearn, wearing the cloak she had made for her husband, feeling the warm comfort of the wool lining, the weight of the pelt and two large hands beneath her chin, turning her, pinning his Irish ring pin to hold it in place. She caught the recognition in Haesel’s eyes of their mutual conspiracy and saw that she carried the leather bag packed ready for the journey that neither of them had planned. Haesel wore her plain cloak of thick felted wool of the kind that the English exported to those who could afford them. In Kamma’s arms was another bag containing Fearn’s harp. ‘You cannot go without this, lady,’ she whispered, handing it to her.
At any other time, Fearn would have knelt to ask Earl Thored’s blessing on her travels and for a token in the form of a ring or an armband. But now, when he beckoned her to come before him, she refused. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I do not want your blessing. You have betrayed me.’
Aric appeared to condone her intransigence with a nod and a slow blink. Blessings were irrelevant and he had got what he came for. Well, almost, for young Kean still remained, standing beside Arlen. ‘Be ready for me in one year, young man,’ he said. ‘Do you have a message for your Danish family?’
Arlen nudged the boy’s shoulder and Kean’s reedy voice piped up. ‘Give them my respects, lord. And please take care of the lady. She has ever been kind to me and courteous.’
‘Then you have seen a better side of her than I, Kean, but I will do my best. Who knows what a year will do?’ The tip of his head towards his men was all the signal they needed to stay close as they walked to the large doorway, passing Earl Thored with no more than a nod to remind him that he would not have seen the last of them. Fearn treated herself to one last look round the great hall lined with hangings on which she had worked, glowing colours she had helped to dye, threads of gold she had helped to make and couch down with fine stitches of silk bought from the merchants. Aric motioned her to walk before him into the bright light of the late afternoon where horses awaited them, provided with pillion pads for her and Haesel. She would not be allowed to ride on her own.
Kamma, torn between relief that Kean would be hers for at least another year and guilt that, as a result, the Lady Fearn had lost what little freedom had been hers, accompanied the women outside. Recognising Haesel’s bewilderment, she whispered words of comfort to her, reminding her to look out for her lady’s welfare, above all else. She would have spoken similar words to Fearn, too, but such was the lady’s calm dignity that she felt words might have been unnecessary, though she could not have guessed that the show of self-possession was taking every ounce of Fearn’s concentration.
Without appearing to look, Fearn saw him giving orders to his men, well in control of the volatile situation in which at any moment they might be ambushed and slaughtered, his longships set on fire. He had emerged from this debacle, Fearn thought, if not with honour then at least with success and certainly without the disgrace brought down upon Thored’s head. He was taking away with him the Danegeld he’d come for and her, too, to show the mighty Earl of Northumbria how his strength should not be underestimated. She was now sure that, despite his insults, his only motive for taking her was revenge, for it was not in her gift to appease his relatives, but Kean’s, Thored’s son. Her fears now concerned the Dane’s intentions towards her, for pillaging Vikings were not best known for their honourable treatment of captive women and she need not expect any special concessions for being an earl’s daughter. She had not been mollified by his concern for her warmth in an open longship: he needed her alive, not dead. As for riding instead of walking, any attack before they reached the boats would be easier to repulse from a horse.
Her ribs still ached from the steely strength of his arms as he’d countered her struggles with ease. He had been fearless in his dealings with Thored, too. But as a pagan, would he treat her as Barda had done, with little respect for her person, her wishes, or her beliefs? Had she, in the space of one day, been released from one man’s tyranny only to fall into another man’s? The questions found no reassuring answer as she watched him accept his helmet from one of his men, a terrifying iron construction similar to those the Earl’s men wore, fitting low over the face with spaces for the eyes and a long guard over the nose. On top of Aric’s helmet stood a huge rampant silver boar, the age-old symbol of man’s courage and virility. His eyes appeared to challenge her through the shaped openings, taking on the aspect of a warlord demanding obedience. The hair on her scalp prickled as she lifted her chin in defiance with a show of confidence she was very far from feeling.
He came towards her and took hold of the fur-lined sheath at her belt, slipping her knife into it and adjusting its leather-bound hilt. She felt the warmth of his knuckles through the woollen kirtle. ‘Don’t ever draw it on me or my men again,’ he warned, ‘or you’ll be eating your meals without it.’
‘You have given your word,’ she said, ‘to return me to Jorvik after one year. Go back on your word, Dane, and I shall do whatever I can to kill you.’
He stepped even closer so that she could see in detail the gold embroidery on the band round the neck of his tunic. ‘I have said I will come back here to reclaim my nephew. If I tire of you before then, I shall send you back sooner, on your own, without my protection. Yes, woman, I can do that. The subject is now closed. I have more important matters to think of.’
His words washed over her like a cold deluge, giving her nothing to cling to and everything to beware of. Had it not been for the unexpected appearance of Mother Bridget standing just beyond the Danish warriors, she might have lost her self-control in a flood of tears. The two of them fell into an embrace that muffled their cries and stilled each other’s trembling. ‘I have never left Jorvik before,’ Fearn said into the nun’s homely gown. ‘Is it a long way to Denmark? I do not know any of these people, Mother.’
‘Yes, you do,’ Mother Bridget said, holding Fearn by the shoulders. ‘Jorvik is full of them. They’re not so different from us. This will be an adventure, my dear. We shall pray for you night and day. Make yourself useful to whoever you live with. You have many skills, remember. Now, come along, the Dane awaits you.’ With a tender kiss to both cheeks, the gentle nun gave Fearn a smile and a push towards the horse and rider. Fearn knew what she must do. Hitching up her skirt, she grasped Aric’s wrist and placed her foot on top of his as it rested in the stirrup, felt his strong pull and was hoisted up on to the pillion pad behind him, landing with a thump on the horse’s back. Aric spoke to her over his shoulder. ‘Put your arm round my waist,’ he commanded.
Though it was the last thing she wanted to do, she obeyed, knowing that she was in danger of falling off without him to hold on to. But now she was close against his broad back, feeling his warmth, breathing in his male scent, moving as he moved and clinging to him as she had never wanted to cling to any man, particularly not this one. She grasped his silver belt buckle, her other hand clasping the harp in its bag, making it impossible to wave to the two kindly women whose concerns meant so much to her. Taking a last look at the great hall as they passed through the gates, she saw that Earl Thored had appeared just inside the doorway, his face crumpled as if to avoid the low glare of the sun. Except that the sun was setting the sky aflame behind them like a portent of more burning villages in the future.
Several times on the ride through Jorvik’s empty streets, Fearn looked behind her towards Haesel, but could see only one arm of her holding the rider’s waist. She recalled Haesel’s foretelling and now knew it to mean that there was no way of escaping her destiny, even if they had known it would be decided by Danish Vikings.
There were, however, some details Haesel had not been shown—for instance, the sheer size and scale of the four Viking longships tied up against the wharf at Jorvik. Neither she nor Fearn had seen anything like them, the merchants’ vessels being about half their length and ugly by comparison. These long, sleek craft were like predatory sea monsters with fierce dragons’ heads carved on prow and stern, and with more men on one ship than they had ever thought possible. No wonder, Fearn thought, that the Earl did not want to engage the Danes in battle when his own trained warriors would be so outnumbered.
A small crowd of Jorvik men, many of them of Danish ancestry, had gathered to watch the ships being loaded with sacks of silver, to see how quickly the men took their oars and settled into their respective positions once the mighty oars were in place. Some of the crowd were brave enough to shout their disapproval of Fearn’s presence there, but Aric made sure she was given no chance to exchange words with them by lifting her down off the horse, making his ownership quite obvious by keeping her close to him and demanding the promise of good behaviour he had not yet been given. ‘It’s up to you, lady,’ he said. ‘Either I have your word, or I have you trussed up like a chicken. It’s not a comfortable way to travel.’
‘If you mean, shall I throw myself overboard or try to seduce your men, you have my word I shall do neither. But don’t expect me to look as if I’m enjoying this, Dane,’ she said, haughtily. ‘I have no liking for your company.’
‘It was not for your company I’ve taken you from the Earl,’ he replied. ‘Your likes and dislikes don’t concern me. Come. This one is my ship. Walk on up the plank. We need to get moving.’
Looking back on this, as she did many times, it was more like a dream than reality to step down into the wide belly of this monster and to feel the instant rocking motion as men moved about, many of whom would take over the oars as the first rowers tired. The deck thudded and vibrated beneath their feet as she and Haesel were hustled past them to a slightly raised platform in the vee-shaped prow where they would be out of the way. A kind of shelter had been erected for them from a heavy double-thickness wool smeared with tar and foul-smelling fat to resist the water, stretched across the space. Open at the front, this gave them a view of the rowers’ backs, though the men were denied the luxury afforded to the two passengers of a pile of furs to sit on. So far, they could not grumble about the comfort, but the strong winds of Haesel’s vision were not very far from their minds as they sat cross-legged and subdued, aware of the utter helplessness of their predicament. Fearn placed her arms around her maid, who was visibly shaking and close to tears. It was a new experience for her, too, as were the stares of men who had not seen their wives for two years. ‘Where are they taking us?’ she whispered, clinging like a limpet.
‘To Denmark, eventually,’ said Fearn, ‘but first they’ll have to row down the river to reach the sea. Don’t ask me how far, how long. I have no idea. They’ll want to keep us alive, though, or we’re no use to them.’
‘What use?’ whispered Haesel.
Fearn merely sighed. They wriggled into the furs and watched the wharf move away, taking the crowd of Jorvik men off into the distance along with the thatched rooftops, the outline of St. Peter’s church and the few territorial dogs that yapped at the longships with dipping oars like the legs of a centipede. They felt the powerful rhythmic lurch as the oarsmen pulled in unison and heard through the oak timbers the rush of water. They noticed the change of smell as they moved through the smoky fug of the city, then the appearance of alder and willow along the banks, the affronted squawk of ducks protecting their new downy progeny.
The oar master shouted a command and immediately the oars were suspended over the water as the acrid smell of smouldering thatch and mud walls reached their nostrils, just before the devastation came into view. A blackened ruined village sent clouds of grey ash into the evening sky, slowly passing them by, peopled only by a few miserable owners who rooted about for possessions or burnt remains of food. In a moment, Fearn was at the side of the ship leaning out to see if there was anyone she recognised, shading her eyes against the glare of the water, but unable to offer them the slightest comfort.
‘Sit down!’ The unmistakable sound of Aric’s deep voice was not to be argued with.
She turned to him, her face reflecting her anguish. ‘I know those people,’ she said. ‘You’ve destroyed their houses and taken their food. How will they live?’
‘That’s their problem,’ he said, callously. ‘My problem was to feed my men. I solved it. So will they—one way or another. Now sit down. We shall be stopping as soon as the light goes, then we’ll eat and move on again at dawn.’
She would like to have told him to keep his food, stolen property, but realised that she had not eaten since morning. Much as she rebelled at the thought of eating the villagers’ food, she hoped they would forgive her for it, for Haesel’s sight had not suggested that they, too, were in danger of starving. She also knew that there was some truth in Aric’s uncaring words that, one way or another, they would find something to eat from the hedgerows or in Jorvik itself, where kindly people would help them to rebuild.
Watching him walk through his men to the other end of the ship, she could not help another comparison of the Jarl to the wretch who had been her husband, who had shamefully betrayed her foster father’s trust by abusing a woman who was fleeing from the very danger he was meant to be assessing. By association, she felt tainted by his baseness. People would point to her as the wife of a rapist who, to all women, was the lowest of the low. Perhaps it was as well, she thought, that she would be out of sight for a year, especially of the Lady Hilda and Catla who would never believe the worst of her son. But what would that year be like in the company of this man who appeared to get whatever he wanted?
* * *
The same question, by coincidence, was occupying the mind of the man himself as he joined his two most trusted companions. Oskar, a year older than Aric and as experienced in warfare, was from Lindholm where his young wife and infant son waited for his return. As he smiled at the wound on Aric’s thumb, his comment was typically unsympathetic. ‘Fought you, did she? Lovely set of tooth-marks, though. Quite a trophy.’
Aric looked at it, huffing with annoyance that he was the only man to have been injured and then by a woman. ‘Still bleeding like a stuck pig,’ he muttered. ‘I must have lost my wits, Oskar. I was supposed to have brought the lad away. I can imagine what they’ll have to say when I get home with that one in tow.’
Oskar’s grin widened. ‘Probably send you back to get him. Come over here. I’ll bind it up for you before we stop for the night. We don’t want your blood on the bread.’ No ship ever set off on this kind of expedition without being prepared for wounds of some sort, so now linen strips were torn and wrapped round the honey-smeared wound over which had been laid a pad of moss, while Aric was treated to the banter of Oskar and the other companion, Hrolf, who was curious to know what he proposed to do with the captive woman and her maid. ‘We could have used the lad,’ he said, reasonably, ‘and you know how some of the men feel about having women on board.’
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with them yet,’ Aric said, irritably, ‘but I don’t need your suggestions, either. We have to join forces with Swein in Lundenburh before we set off for home, so we’ll see what he has to say.’
‘And if he forbids it, we throw them overboard, yes?’ said Hrolf.
‘Fool,’ said Aric. ‘Let’s concentrate on finding somewhere to stop.’
Oskar winked at Hrolf. ‘So where will the next bite-marks appear, I wonder?’
In other circumstances, Aric would have welcomed the suggestions of his companions about how they might deal with a problem. But not this time. He had acted on some powerful impulse when he had adopted the Moneyer’s proposition of an alternative to taking his nephew. The woman had filled his mind since his first sight of her that day, not only for her stunning beauty but her courage, too, for she had suspected her husband’s death well before it had been spoken of. It had taken some guts for her to challenge him so cleverly while filling his drinking horn, hoping he would spill it like a pool of blood on the table, then to keep the knowledge to herself until the right moment. Without a doubt she was certainly a cut above the other two whose shrieking had filled the hall, but from whose line did she derive her strange eye colour? And how much of her fierceness was the by-product of being abandoned by her parents and brought up by women who wanted none of her? She had naturally expected the Earl to put up a fight to keep her with him and so had he, but Thored had seen greater value in the boy, caring little for her distress. He, Aric, had acknowledged Kean’s plea to look after her, but in truth he did not know how he would do this when revenge was his motivation for the life of the sister he had lost to the Earl. And as chance would have it, it was the Lady Fearn’s husband who had been killed that day, albeit in quite different circumstances. So now he would keep her in thrall to him for the year of her mourning. A just revenge for the death of his sister.
Now, he himself must strive not to be spellbound by her looks, as he was in danger of being, unless he armed himself against her. Still, she would not be in a hurry to let a man near her after her experience of marriage, for it was obvious that she had been in fear of the man she had lost. The recent memory of holding her close to him, struggling and screaming, was both sweet and bitter, for if he thought to damage her by this thraldom, he must recognise that she was already suffering from the Earl’s handling of her life, so far.
* * *
On a wide stretch of the river, the four longships were anchored and lashed together side by side so that the men could come and go across them, share the food and ale, and keep a lookout for danger. The marshland on both sides made this unlikely. The morning raids on the villages had provided them with a plentiful supply of bread and sides of cured bacon, cheeses, eggs eaten raw, honey and apples, oatcakes and a churn half-filled with newly made butter. Since they had eaten very little for the last two days but dried fish and stale bread, the meal lasted well into the night, most of the ale being taken, so the men laughingly told them, from the houses of the priests.
Privacy was not easy to come by for the two passengers, but nor had it ever been, even at home. So when food was brought to them as night fell and lanterns were lit, Haesel hung an extra piece of oiled wool across the opening to give at least the appearance of seclusion while they drank buttermilk with their food and listened to the noisy eating of the Vikings whose table manners, it had to be said, were little different from those of the Jorvik men. Later, as they lay between the furs, neither of them feared much for their safety while Jarl Aric and his two companions were just beyond the makeshift curtain, but Fearn thought it more than a little odd that their captor had spoken no word to her, not even to ask after her welfare. Perhaps, as he’d said, her likes did not concern him.
Escape being out of the question with so many bodies around and icy water on all sides, they listened to the rush of the river on the other side of the oak hull and felt the gentle movement of the ships as they bent and creaked together. Before Fearn’s eyes closed, she watched the glow of lanterns through gaps in the wool curtain and the movement of men adjusting ropes and stowing baggage beneath the slatted deck. Then, as an owl hooted to its mate across the river, she whispered a prayer of thanks for her safety and for a night of freedom from harassment. For how long this freedom would last she did not dare to speculate, for she believed she might have gained it at a very high price.
Naturally, an element of guilt crept into her prayers, for wives did not usually express relief at their husbands’ deaths. She tried to alleviate the dark thoughts by searching her mind for Barda’s merits, but found nothing to recommend him. Earl Thored had insisted on their marriage and, in the end, her objections had been overruled. Now the situation had worsened, if that were possible, since the arrogant Dane had referred, not too obliquely, to her probable fate. After which, she would no doubt be obliged to redirect her life yet again.
As she had searched her mind, so she did with the Dane and found, to her interest, that his concern for her comfort had, in one day, exceeded Barda’s of two whole years. He had returned her knife to her and the beaver cloak, ordered a horse for her to ride and furs for her to sit on. She fell asleep while thinking of the gold embroidery around the neck of his tunic, wondering whose hands had worked it.
* * *
She woke as Haesel parted the curtain, holding a wooden bucket of river water in which to wash. From the deck came sounds of shouts and yelps, then the lurch of the ship as men leapt over the side or hauled themselves back in, slopping the water in the bucket. Haesel’s cheeks were pink with embarrassment. ‘They’re jumping into the river,’ she said, ‘naked as the day they were born. There’s wet everywhere.’
‘Swimming, you mean?’
‘Washing. It must be freezing.’
The water in the bucket certainly was, but Fearn managed well enough to wash and tidy herself, combing her hair with her antler comb, one of the many and varied contents of the leather bag that Haesel had packed in advance. The Moneyer’s wife had also added things, like Fearn’s golden crucifix given to her by the priest when she was baptised. He had taught her to read and write in Latin, too. She found her sewing tools, as well as the tablet-weaving she’d been working on, carefully rolled to keep it from tangling. Her wax-tablet book and stylus was also in there, a detail that Fearn found touching. Now she would be able to make notes.
With her hair plaited and braided with green wool, she broke her fast on cold porridge with buttermilk and honey. The kindly quartermaster had sent two pears for them, so rather than ask where they’d come from, Fearn ate hers with gratitude before venturing out to see what was happening. Standing with his glistening bare back to her was Aric, his wet pigtail dripping between his shoulderblades, his dark linen loincloth sticking to him like a second skin over slender hips, with droplets of sparkling water dripping into a pool around his bare feet. His calves and thighs were as taut and hard as polished oak.
He turned as she emerged and stood upright, waiting as she usually did for a person to decide which eye to speak to. His mouth opened and closed, and then, to give himself time, he hitched up the wet cloth and tightened it. ‘Ah, Lady Fearn,’ he said, holding out his bandaged hand. ‘Perhaps you could rebind this for me?’
She looked at it with distaste. ‘I suppose so,’ she said, calmly, ‘since it was of my doing. Do we have dry linen?’
Holding his hand in the air, he called to the far end of the ship, ‘Oskar! Bandage!’
Her eyes wandered over the shipload of half-naked men slithering about in various stages of undress, laughing and tousled, some of them combing wet hair and beards. Yet her gaze was held, rather against her wishes, by the man before her whose sun-bronzed skin rippled over bulging muscle and sinew, over powerful shoulders and a chest like those men singled out for their wrestling skills for Jorvik’s entertainment. He saw where her eyes went before they locked with his. ‘Well?’ he said, quietly.
She blinked. ‘Hold your hand out,’ she retorted. ‘I need to take this one off.’
Bantering shouts diverted his attention as she began to unwind the soggy linen. ‘Are you coming in to bathe with us, lady?’ they called. ‘We’ve warmed the water for you.’
Aric grinned. ‘Enough!’ he called. ‘We man the oars at a count of two hundred.’
‘Hah!’ said Oskar, holding out the linen strips. ‘Which of them can count to two hundred?’
Fearn took them from him, flicking a haughty eyebrow. ‘Twenty counts of ten?’ she murmured. ‘Yes, it’s healing. I don’t need the moss, just the honey. Hold still. It won’t hurt.’
The two men exchanged grins, appreciating their beautiful captive’s attempt to patronise them in retaliation for her plight, taking the advantage the bandaging offered to watch her hands skilfully tending the row of punctures on his skin. They noted her graceful figure braced against the rocking of the ship and took time to admire the smooth honeyed complexion and the long sweep of black eyelashes on her cheeks. They had time to see the swell of her perfect breasts beneath the linen and wool, and the neat waist tied with a narrow leather girdle. A leather purse hung from this beside the knife in its fur-lined sheath and a rope of beads hung from her neck at the centre of which was a large chunk of cloudy amber, nestling into the valley of her breasts. Just for a moment, the two men would both like to have been that piece of amber.
‘There,’ she said. ‘Try not to wet it. It will heal faster if it’s kept dry.’
Aric turned his hand over and over, then nodded his thanks. But Fearn had already turned away to help Haesel fold the skins and furs, pretending not to have seen. She did not hear Oskar’s flippant question asking if Aric thought she might bite him some time, but Aric was not as amused as his friend had expected. ‘It was not done in play,’ he said, pressing the wound. ‘Far from it. If she’d done this to her lout of a husband, he’d have knocked her down.’
‘Well, so do many men when their women step out of line,’ Oskar said.
‘Do you?’
‘Hit Ailsa? No. Never had to.’
‘No man has to, Oskar. There are better ways than that to deal with women.’ There was a tone in Aric’s voice that his friend had not heard before, that made him wonder if Aric was telling the whole truth when yesterday he’d said that he didn’t yet know what he was going to do with her. Was revenge his only motive? Oskar thought not.
