Authors: Jen Black
Involved in her thoughts, Emer came to a sudden stop when a rocky outcrop blocked her progress. Water swirled in at the base, and the sheer wall reared high above her head. Reluctantly turning to walk back to the steading, she hesitated. The settlement was out of sight and no one knew her whereabouts. It would be silly to return and face more persecution from that dreadful girl. Emer wandered a little way along the beach, found a large smooth sheet of rock warmed by the sun, and sat down.
If only she knew where to go to find help, she would leave in an instant. But the mountains enclosed the long narrow valley in which she sat, and though it was midsummer and the sun beat down on her head, pockets of snow remained on the shadowed face of more than one peak. Swathes of forest clothed the lower slopes and ran down to the water’s edge. There was no sign of any other settlement.
A small boat caught her attention. Someone was working hard rowing from fish trap to fish trap along the loch, but it was no one she knew. Squinting against the sun, she saw more boats strung out on the sparkling water. The men would be hunting game, working on the land or baiting fish traps. Scanning the landscape for Flane, she saw no sign of him.
When she felt calmer, she walked back to the hall. If she wanted food and a bed, she had no alternative but to stay at the steading. She entered the hall with some trepidation, and found the women hard at work. Some spun wool, others sewed and another wove cloth. The shutters stood open above the tall loom and shed light on the darting fingers of the woman who wove the cloth. The weaver worked with one ear cocked for gossip as she separated the coloured strands without conscious thought and threw an occasional comment over her shoulder to her companions.
Emer sighed. Without wool, spindle and loom, the gown she wore would be her only gown for the foreseeable future. She looked around. All the women wore good linen gowns and over tunics. Colourful embroidery decorated their hems, sleeves and sometimes the neckline. She thought of the three good gowns waiting for her in the big chest at home and could have wept. No doubt her sister would wear them. By the time she had grown to fit them, everyone would have given up hope of seeing Emer again.
A small child, too young to be let loose outside, pulled a wooden horse on a leather thong straight across his mother’s toes. The young mother let out a screech of pain. The child turned, shocked and wide-eyed, and then ran to lean across her knees to ensure she was unhurt.
Emer realised the women watched her, some covertly and others with bold stares; but none of them had been in the bathing hut and they all broke eye contact when she tried to engage with them. Heat crept into Emer’s cheeks. She made up her mind and walked briskly across the hall before she could change her mind.
“Hello,” she said with a smile. “I see you are all very busy. May I help with something?”
There was a long silence, long enough for Emer to regret her overture of friendship. Then the woman in the corner, still nursing sore toes, nodded towards the child. “You could take Steini outside, if you would. He’s bored.”
Steini stared at Emer with something close to hope in his huge blue eyes. Emer stared back and then held out a hand. “Shall you come with me?”
The boy trotted forward and his small hand reached up for hers. Emer smiled, and shot a glance at his mother. “We won’t be far away.”
She guessed Steini was no more than two years old, but he walked well. His hair, so fair it was almost white, had been ruthlessly chopped and fell in a straight line above his small nose and curled silkily around his ears. Flane probably looked like him when he was two years old.
Surprised at the sudden thought, Emer repressed a snort of laughter and grinned down at the chubby, upturned face. “Shall we go and see the ducks?”
***
Emer, Steini and his wooden horse spent a splendid afternoon looking at ducks, geese, sheep, lambs, that summer’s calves and any other live creature that crossed their path. The child’s undemanding enthusiasm soothed Emer’s battered spirit.
She delivered him safely back to his mother when appetizing smells announced it was time to eat, and was disappointed when her overtures of friendship met with nothing more than politeness. The woman gathered her child to her with a smile and a quick word of thanks, but did not linger to talk.
Her glance flicked frequently to a point somewhere beyond Emer’s shoulder and when Emer turned, she found Katla watching the encounter with a frown. All at once Emer understood Steini’s mother’s restraint.
Emer wandered across to Flane’s sleeping place, and found him stretched out full-length, hands clasped behind his head, staring at the roof beams. Surprised, she hesitated, unsure of her welcome. It was, after all, his bed place and not hers. He grunted at her arrival, got abruptly to his feet and stalked across the hall without a word.
Emer stared after him, mystified.
He chose to sit among the young men on the far side of the hearth. Emer perched on the bed he had vacated, and fought off worrying thoughts and fancies. It was clear he had thought better of bringing her to the steading.
But what would he do with her now she was here? If he didn’t want her, then what would happen to her? A cold feeling of dread started up in the pit of her stomach. A slave was the property of his master and could be sold on a whim. That meant—she swallowed hard against a lump in her throat—that meant Flane could sell her whenever he chose.
Emer took her food from the slave who brought it, and realised with a jolt that she was as much a slave as the woman who had served her. Maybe she was unwise to fight him so strongly. She looked around the hall, thinking she had not noticed another bed slave. The married women would not allow it, of course. The single men, like Flane, appeared to sleep alone. Perhaps they were required to keep their slaves elsewhere. It was a puzzle, then, why Flane kept her with him in the hall.
She ate slowly, relishing the taste of the succulent meat and tried to think of reasons for Flane’s behaviour. Inga waved at her from the far end of the hall and she caught occasional glimpses of Thyri and the other women from the bath house. Once she caught a tentative and fleeting smile from Steini’s mother.
Emer studied Flane from beneath her lids. He ignored her, but the young man sitting next to him smiled across the hearth, Emer signalled a question with her raised brows. The young man pulled down the corners of his mouth, shrugged and looked away. She did not know what to make of his gesture, and her anxiety increased.
No one bothered her, so she had ample time to observe how deeply Flane drank, and how much he laughed and flirted with the young women. She glanced now and then at Katla, sitting with her parents at the far end of the hall and saw how annoyed the girl was with Flane’s behaviour. At one point she got up and would have left her privileged position at her father’s side to go and join Flane, but Skuli Grey Cloak took a firm grip of her arm and pointed at the stool she had just vacated. For a long moment father and daughter glared at each other, but eventually Katla sank back into her place.
Amused by the incident, Emer looked back at Flane. Wood flamed high on the hearth and firelight flickered on the ring of gold in his ear and emphasised the many shades of yellow in his hair. With nothing better to do, she thought of butter, primroses and honey and found each shade among the long strands. He had shaved at some point in the day, and the curve of his hollow cheeks, deep-set eyes and lean face held her attention.
In return, he seemed to ignore her. As he laughed, talked with the young men and downed a horn of ale, he seemed relaxed; but every now and then, almost as if he felt her eyes on him, his head lifted and for a brief moment he looked directly at Emer. Then he frowned, irritation clear in his face.
At the end of the evening, Emer curled up on the very edge of Flane’s bed space, as near to the hall door as she could get. She had no clear idea of what might happen when he retired, or indeed if he intended to retire at all, but it seemed wise to have a clear line of escape should that become necessary. She yearned for a good night’s sleep, and thought regretfully of her small fragrant bed in Pabaigh where she slept the moment her head touched the herb pillow and woke only when her mother shook her shoulder.
In a small, vicious gesture of defiance she yanked a corner of his blanket over her cold feet and turned her back on the hall.
She awoke with a jerk when Flane arrived, and lay rigid with every sense alert as he crept stealthily onto his sleeping space. The straw and heather mattress rustled beneath him, but the wooden platform did not bend or squeak beneath his weight. Emer resisted the huge urge to open her eyes and see what he was doing.
There was a long silence. The mattress rustled again and she sensed him hovering over her, felt his breath warm on her cheek. Her heart raced in her chest. What—? Was he going to—? Air moved against her skin, and the blanket tickled as it shifted over her. He would take it for himself, she thought crossly, and leave her to freeze. A moment later the entire blanket settled gently over her. Astounded, Emer waited, but the blanket stayed where he had put it, and there was no further movement.
Emer opened her eyes just enough to ascertain he had settled down.
He sighed heavily. Slowly the tension left her limbs, but sleep eluded her as she pondered the reasons for his disquiet and unease. He had hardly spoken to her today. The change in their relationship must have something to do with Katla. Emer did not know what he thought of Katla, but she could not imagine him accepting Katla’s complaints very well at all. It was much more likely that they’d argued.
Emer wondered what that might mean for her. Would she be allowed to stay? Or would Katla demand that he got rid of her? If she did, what would he do with her?
***
When Emer woke next morning, Flane had vanished. She looked round for Oli. At least he would speak to her. Sure enough, he caught her glance, skipped across and agreed to her plan to walk out of the settlement and explore the countryside. She needed to know the land if she was to have any hope of escape, but did not think of confiding her need to Oli. He was far too young to share her burdens.
“I’ll get some bread from Inga,’ he said, excited at the prospect of a day out of the steading. ‘She’s in the kitchen today, and she’s nice.”
He made his dog wait outside. “Grendel can’t come in because he steals food.”
Emer followed him to the kitchen area behind the hall. With a yelp of surprise and delight she recognised the women she’d met in the bathing hut, working away at making bread, plucking game birds or gutting fish.
The cooking fires made the room hot, but they were all red cheeked, cheerful and greeted her with smiles. Inga bustled over to greet her. “Why, you’ve set the cat among the pigeons, my dear! Such an uproar! Katla’s never been so put out in all her life!”
“Why? What have I done?”
“As if you didn’t know! Why, it’s that young devil Flane—he brought you back and Katla’s so jealous of you she won’t speak to him until he sends you away.”
Emer’s heart lurched. No wonder he’d grunted at her yesterday. A tongue lashing from Katla would make anyone grumpy. “I noticed no one seemed prepared to speak to me if she was anywhere near. What will happen, do you think?”
Inga and the others, who were all listening, laughed. “That’s what we’d like to know!” Inga said cheerfully. “But I’ll tell you one thing. That young Flane is not one to take kindly to being told what to do.”
Emer bent and kissed Inga’s rosy cheek. “I’m so pleased I’ve found you all. I wondered where you had disappeared to.” She looked around to include them all. “May I sneak in here and talk to you sometimes?”
“But of course! Katla never sets foot in here. She wouldn’t want to get her hands greasy. You keep out of her way for a few days and it’ll all blow over. Let Flane sort it out. Now, young man,” Inga beamed down at Oli. “What can I do for you?”
He grinned. “We want to go and explore,” he said. “So we’d like some bread, please. Then we needn’t come back till evening.”
Oli led her to the river tumbling down through wooded banks, and across the large stepping stones set firmly in the rushing brown water. They walked steadily through a valley into the hills behind the steading where Emer found pleasure in the fresh air and the fragrance of green things growing all around her; it was also a release of tension after the stares and strange atmosphere of the hall.
When Oli led her to a sunny hollow where a smaller stream slowed and pooled on a sandy bottom, they stopped to rest. Emer and Oli started on the bread and soft white cheese Inga had given them while Grendel sat with strings of drool hanging from his muzzle until Oli fed him a chunk of bread.
They drank the peaty brown water from cupped hands. Tiny fish darted under golden brown stones at the first sign of their shadows, and Oli’s attempts to catch one ended in failure. Emer giggled at his frustration, and realised it was the first time in days she’d even managed to smile. Grendel stretched out beside her in the sun, his spine warm against her hip while she leaned back on her hands and watched the boy chase minnows.
“Oli, how long has Flane been with Skuli Grey Cloak? Do you know?”
Intent on trawling cupped hands through the golden brown water, Oli did not look up. “He came when he was my age.”
“Did his parents know Skuli? Is that why they came?”
“He’s like me,” Oli said in matter of fact tones, watching his quarry dart through the water. “His father and Skuli were friends. When Flane’s parents died, Skuli brought him back here.”
“Ah.” Emer remembered the sleepwalking incident when Flane had known what to do for Oli. She’d suspected there was something Flane hadn’t told her, and now she knew what it was. He’d been orphaned young, too. She recalled his odd comment on the longship as they left Dublin, when he’d spoken kindly of Skuli’s wife, Gudrun. She had probably been kind to him when he missed his mother. It was odd to think of such a big man missing his mother, but he would have been no bigger than Oli at the time.