Daughter of Fire and Ice (11 page)

‘Then why did Bjorn … ?’

Thrang shook his head. A moment later he got up and moved away. I sat still, a sense of loss swirling in me. I took little notice of what was happening around me, until I heard shouts and realized people were getting up and moving about.

‘The bridal couple must be bedded!’ shouted the chieftain. Someone picked up Ragna, another man took Bjorn by the arm. Before she was carried off, Ragna sought me out with her pale eyes and smiled at me. It was a spiteful look. It proclaimed victory. I turned my face away and didn’t watch as the two of them were led off to a private room at one end of the house. I could hear laughter and ribald humour. But it wasn’t funny. Not to me. The man I loved was going to his marriage bed with another woman.

My jealousy overcame me, and once more I couldn’t breathe. I pushed myself painfully to my feet and stumbled out of the house, desperate to get out of the smoke and the noise. I wanted to get away from the house, but was too weak to walk far. I sought shelter under an over-hanging eave and crouched down, wrapping myself up tightly in my cloak, watching the rain beyond the roof pour down in torrents.

I sat and looked out on the night as the house settled down to sleep behind me. It was heavily overcast. The long, light nights of summer were definitely failing now. I could only just make out the outline of the ships in the bay below, and sheep grazing on the hillside. Their teeth made sharp tearing sounds as they pulled up the grass. Dully, I wondered where they had been when we arrived. The fishing boats too, lay upturned on the beach below. Where had they been concealed? I found I didn’t care very much. We’d been tricked. Self pity overwhelmed me. Despite my determination not to give way, tears spilled from my eyes, trickling down my face.

I missed my family. I longed for my mother’s embrace. If only I could hear my father speak to me. He was always good with words of comfort. I missed my brother too and ached with the longing to hug him, even though he never liked it.

For the first time, I truly wished I’d never left them to follow Bjorn. I wished I’d risked the oncoming army, tried to dodge through their lines in order to stay with those who loved me. As things stood now, I would have to watch Bjorn sharing his life with another woman, while I was shut out, pushed aside.

This thought brought anger and my tears ceased. Anger was easier than grief. It made me strong. I thought of Bjorn and Ragna being together right now. I imagined them happy, loving one another, and my fury burned so hotly that I clenched my fists into my palms, my nails cutting into my skin. I wanted to beat Bjorn for agreeing to this.

It was in this mood, that I was disturbed by a noise nearby. Further along the wall, a small shutter was pushed open. A shadow emerged, climbing out through the opening, and fell onto the wet grass. I could hear a woman’s angry voice calling from inside the house. Ragna’s voice, surely? It was unpleasant to be disturbed, and I half turned my back on whoever it was. But then a familiar voice spoke to me.

‘Thora? Is that you? Are you all right?’

I looked up to see Bjorn crouching beside me.

If he’d come sooner, I’d have flung myself into his arms and wept. I would have turned to him for solace. But now all I could feel was my fury and my disappointment. I needed to vent it on someone.

‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded angrily. ‘Have you tired of your bride so soon?’ I could hear the bitterness in my voice. Bjorn could too. He recoiled from me in shock.

‘Thora, how can you say such a thing?’ he gasped. Then he lowered his voice, no doubt worried that his bride might hear him: ‘I did this for you!’

‘Well, I wish you hadn’t,’ I retorted vehemently.

Bjorn flinched as though I had struck him. ‘You can’t mean that,’ he said hoarsely.

I felt a small amount of my anger against him drain away. He sounded hurt and vulnerable. ‘I married so that you could be free,’ he said, his voice low, but urgent. ‘To honour the promise I made to your father. Do you really believe I wanted to marry anyone but … that I could … ’ He stopped, unable to continue.

I saw a glimpse of how Bjorn must feel. He’d had a bride forced on him against his wishes, and he was bound to her. I felt guilty as I remembered that promise he’d made to my father on the clifftop. He’d sworn to protect me, and now he had done so, at great personal cost. He must feel as bleak as I did. I hid my face in my hands as tears of pain and disappointment forced themselves into my eyes.

‘Thora, I’m so sorry,’ whispered Bjorn. He drew me into his arms and held me close, and I could feel him trembling. For a moment we crouched together in the wet grass, finding comfort in the closeness. Bjorn pulled me closer, and softly kissed my cheek. I felt a yearning for him that made me forget everything else for a few heady moments. Another kiss, and then, as I didn’t object, he touched his lips to mine. I was reaching up to kiss him back when the full force of our situation hit me again and I pulled back. This was wrong. Bjorn had married another woman this afternoon. We couldn’t be together. Abruptly I pushed him away. We sat staring at one another in the darkness.

‘Thora … ’ Bjorn began but he didn’t seem to know how to continue.

I struggled to regain control over myself, to use my training to appear indifferent. On impulse, I thought it might be easiest for both of us if Bjorn thought I didn’t care for him. I had to send him away.

‘Don’t touch me,’ I told him fiercely, searching in my mind for something final or even hurtful that I could say. I found it: ‘I don’t kiss slaves,’ I told him.

I struggled to my feet, pushing him away from me. I didn’t look at him as I ran out into the rain. I didn’t want to see the hurt in his eyes or his aura. My body was stiff and sore, but I forced it to run on down the steep slope to the beach. I glanced back and saw that Bjorn wasn’t following me. He stood where I had left him, close to the house, watching me.

‘Go back to your bride!’ I shouted at him.

Then I twisted my ankle on a stone and fell. I gasped with pain, unable to move. I just lay there in the cold, feeling the rain drench me, running down my face and plastering my hair to my head.

I don’t know how long I lay there. Perhaps only a few moments. Strong arms scooped me up and lifted me. I thought it was Bjorn and clung to him as he carried me back up the steep slope as though I weighed no more than a baby lamb.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered.

‘I know you are,’ he replied, and I realized it wasn’t Bjorn I had my arms around after all. It was Thrang. The discovery made me weep, my sobs racking my chest and stealing my breath.

Hay Time

Heyannir

I’d hoped to leave the island behind us immediately, but, in the event, it was hay time before we were once more aboard ship and rowing out of the bay.

For my part, the weeks had been spent tending to every old man with arthritis and old woman with the toothache from miles around. Word spread fast that there was a healer at Thorkel’s longhouse, and I had to be sparing with my stock of medicines. I also spent long days out hunting for the plants that I needed, scouring the unfamiliar terrain and searching the sparse fauna for something more than grass. The islanders no longer minded me taking their plants.

One of my first patients was Ragna’s father, Thorkel, himself. He had an ugly gash on his arm that looked recent, but was already weeping pus from an infection. As soon as I saw it, I knew he was the man who had slain Kai that night out in the bay. I owed him two great grudges. I cured him, but laced the salve I gave him with pepper and told him the stinging he felt was a sign of healing. I didn’t feel bad, not after what he’d done. He deserved it.

I saw little of Bjorn. He spent most of his time aboard the ship, supposedly supervising construction of a shelter on deck for Ragna. Her father insisted she was not exposed to the elements during the voyage.

‘The old fool,’ Thrang muttered to me on one of his brief spells on land. ‘He thinks he’s keeping her safe. But while we tarry here, the nights darken and the autumn storms approach.’

I suspected, or perhaps hoped, that Bjorn kept to the ship to escape the company of his bride. And, though I admitted it only reluctantly to myself, I knew he wished to avoid me too. We hadn’t spoken to each other since the night of the wedding. I longed to apologize, to explain why I had said what I did, but I knew I must not. It was better like this. In any case, I had no chance to speak to Bjorn at all. If he came to the house, Ragna’s watchful eye was always on him.

I had to listen to many conversations among my companions about the bargain Bjorn had made. All were unhappy about the loss of ship and goods, but it seemed only Thrang and I minded the addition of Ragna. I heard her spoken of mostly as a ‘pretty little thing’ or ‘harmless enough’. Only I could see her aura and I feared the worst.

When at last we sailed, the deck was fuller than on the previous leg of the voyage. We now had the people and equipment from both ships loaded onto one, and enough hands to man most of the oars. We were twenty people on board, twelve men and eight women. We’d lost Kai, and gained Ragna. She had her own little cabin, built aft on the deck, taking up valuable space. There was just enough space in there for a bed, so that she could sleep sheltered from the elements.

The wind had an autumnal chill in it as well as misty rain as the sail was hoisted and we sailed out onto the open sea. I was so happy to be afloat again that I went forward to my old post at the prow of the ship. There I slung an arm around the sea-serpent figurehead and gazed out on the swell, swaying with the movement of the ship beneath my feet. Unlike last time, Bjorn never joined me in the prow. He stayed aft at the tiller or helped Thrang and Stein with the sail. He slept aft too.

‘He didn’t join Ragna in her shelter, you know,’ Asgerd told me after the first night at sea, a wicked grin on her face. ‘He just wrapped himself in his cloak and slept on the open deck like the rest of us.’

I felt a certain measure of satisfaction, but I knew it was wrong of me.

‘He doesn’t wish to set himself apart,’ I said mildly. Then I changed the subject. ‘There are new people from the other ship I don’t know. What are the women called?’

‘The dark haired woman is Enys. She’s Brian’s wife. They’re originally from Ireland, I believe. The young, pretty girl is Asdis. And the dark-skinned woman is Hild. Not her real name. Svanson renamed her after he bought her. And you know my daughter Astrid, of course. Ten winters and my greatest pride,’ smiled Asgerd fondly. She lowered her voice. ‘I can’t tell you how I feared for her growing up a slave in Svanson’s household. I know why he brought her on this voyage, though he brought no other children. She’s going to be a beauty in a few years. Her situation is quite different now. Far safer.’

‘Yes indeed,’ I agreed with a shiver, thinking of Svanson and his cruelty. ‘And how’s Erik?’

‘Come and ask him.’ Asgerd led me to her husband, who sat wrapped in furs leaning against the side of the ship.

‘How’s the cough?’ I asked. I had given him the herbs I’d gathered for him days ago.

‘Better, I think. It hurts less.’

‘It’s done you good.’ I nodded my satisfaction, checking his brow for fever and his pulse on his wrist. Both seemed normal, Eir be praised. ‘I think you’ll do well now.’

‘Thank you, Thora,’ said Erik. ‘I’m sorry it all caused so much trouble.’

I laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. ‘I expect they were lying in wait for us anyway,’ I said.

The swell increased as we left the islands behind us. It stopped raining but the sky was low over our heads, a lowering ceiling of iron grey. Occasionally white birds flew past us, heading back the way we had come.

‘What are they called, Thrang?’ I asked him as he paused by me.

‘Fulmars,’ Thrang told me. ‘See the way they just skim the surface? That’s how you know what they are from a distance. They’re flying south. We’re late to be going north.’ He looked anxiously at the sky as he spoke.

The mild, southerly wind blew more strongly as the day wore on. I resumed my post at the prow, relishing the pitching of the ship. More and more of our people were succumbing to sea sickness behind me. As before, it didn’t affect me. The only feeling I experienced was exhilaration. The lift of the ship beneath my feet was pure pleasure to me; as we surged up the side of the wave and then plunged wildly down the far side, I laughed into the wind, urging it to keep blowing. It suited my mood to be pitted against the elements.

I was interrupted by Bjorn, who approached me for the first time.

‘Thora,’ he called. It was hard to hear him above the wind, the flapping of the sail and the slapping of the swell on the underside of the boat. ‘Will you come and see Ragna? She’s sick.’

My insides lurched more than with the greatest wave. Was I now to go and nurse Ragna? If I were to show her the same tenderness she showed me, she would be well served.

‘I have no cure for sea sickness,’ I told him. ‘Nothing I’ve tried works.’

‘Come and see her anyway,’ Bjorn insisted.

I didn’t want to seem resentful, so I went with him to the shelter where Ragna lay wrapped in furs and blankets. I felt her pulse and her brow which was clammy with sweat. She was groaning, clutching her stomach, and looked as white as a newborn lamb.

‘I’m dying,’ she moaned.

‘Unlikely,’ I said briefly, glad that Bjorn had left us alone. ‘You’re seasick. You need to come out into the fresh air and look at the sea. And you need to eat and drink.’

She groaned loudly and then glared at me. ‘You’re brutal. That would kill me.’

‘Nonsense,’ I said bracingly. ‘I don’t get seasick myself, but Thrang told me these things and he’s an experienced sailor.’

‘You must have medicines,’ she pleaded.

‘I’ve tried them. They make no difference. I’d never been to sea before, so I never learned any cures.’

‘You’re lying,’ she hissed. ‘Send Bjorn to me.’

I got up without a word and left her. Bjorn was adjusting the sail with Stein, and wasn’t pleased to be sent back in to his wife. He re-emerged in a few minutes looking even more annoyed.