Shieldmaiden (7 page)

At the head of the valley I realised we would soon pass the place where I had felled Thorfinn. I thought of Ragnar. He would trust me to do the right thing. I had promised. My head buzzed. What is the right thing? How can I bury him? There's no ale to serve… And I'm so tired…. My legs … shaking… The heat… I have nothing to dig with… Is a grave the right thing? But how can I light a funeral pyre on the wet muddy ground… I can't go on… Where will I find dry fire wood? And he's so large… Masses and masses of logs needed for that large body… he's so large… so…

‘Sigrid, hush child! Stop mumbling. Sit and rest a moment.'

‘But we must bury him!'

‘Your father will be buried. My mistress will make sure her husband gets the funeral he is entitled to. Hakon Haraldson will not refuse her that.' My legs gave way and I sat down on the muddy path. ‘Not my father, not him, not him…'

From far away, I heard Ingefried tell the boy to take the horse to Floutern Tarn and wait for us there. I tried to speak, I tried to move but I was floating in a dark cloud which filled my mouth with ash and tied my limbs to the ground.

I came to with Ingefried rubbing my gums with a bitter herb.

‘Uuugh!' I sat up spitting to get rid of the vile taste. She handed me a twig.

‘Here, chew this. It will get rid of the taste of the wormwood. The tarn isn't far now. You can drink there.'

Still spitting, I let Ingefried lead me by the hand. We emerged from Mosedale and the ground became soft and boggy. The hoofmarks left by Jarl Swein and his warriors had filled up with water but were still visible. They led to the place where I had killed Thorfinn. There was no doubt about where it was. The blood had washed away but I knew it was the right place. I ran in circles. I looked behind rocks and among the tufts of grass. Ingefried shouted at me to stop. I tried to make her understand that I must find the body.

‘Sigrid, there's no body here. Your father's body is at Becklund. Calm yourself.' She forced some more wormwood between my lips and dragged me away. We rested by the little tarn and I regained enough of my senses to realise I must not speak of Thorfinn. Somehow this seemed to make all talk unnecessary and I found I couldn't say anything at all.

We arrived at Swanhill as the shadows were lengthening. A group of thralls, ploughing the outlying fields, spotted us and supported our exhausted bodies the last furlongs. The karl leading the ploughingparty spoke with Ingefried before sending a man running ahead to warn the household of our arrival.

Hauk was in the yard and came towards us. When he saw the state we were in, he picked me up and carried me the last steps to the hall.

‘Sigrid,' he whispered, ‘Sigrid, this is a terrible day. Rest and then we shall speak.' He placed me on the bed and covered me with blankets and soft cured skins. Someone brought warm ale and my mind escaped to a dark, soothing place of dreamless safety.

The sun rose and set on my sleep many times. When I awoke I was insensible to the voices and actions of others. My mother-in-law took the keys and ran the household while I stayed in bed. I lay with my face towards the wall, dry-eyed and wordless. Ingefried fed me gruel sweetened with honey and I swallowed because it was less effort than to refuse. I heard her and Thorgunn working together. I knew they were talking about me but had no interest in what they were saying. Then one day the fire was lit in the bathhouse. I was carried out, helped to wash and left in the steamy heat, alone. I lay on the smooth, warm wooden bench. My body felt clean, fresh and warm but this seemed only to intensify the agony in my mind. I thought of my murdered father, my mother who had denied me and my love who had left me. My tears were unfrozen and I cried myself to sleep.

I woke when I felt the cold draught from the door opening and closing. My head heavy with the heat and my vision blurred by the steam, I accepted the horn of sweet mead and drank it down. Someone lay down next to me. In my confused state I thought it was Ragnar and I responded with passion to Hauk's embrace.

The night after Hauk had come to me in the sauna I retired early and closed the curtains around the bed. I lay there listening to sounds of the household preparing for the night. The table was cleared. Bedding was spread on the benches and on the floor. Soon I could hear snoring from the karls and servants sleeping in the hall. Then the bed-curtains parted and Hauk climbed in next to me. I turned my back to him and pretended to be asleep. His hand slid along my body under the covers. I went stiff.

‘What's now, Sigrid? You were frisky enough in the sauna yesterday. Does it take hot steam and mead to get you in the mood every time?' Hauk spoke softly but couldn't disguise the satisfaction in his voice. His hand gripped my shoulder and rolled me over onto my back. I kept my eyes shut so I didn't have to look at him. ‘Now listen, your father is dead, your mother has been abducted and both your brothers have disappeared. You have no one but me.'

I still had no voice but, in any case, there was nothing to argue with in his conclusion. I nodded my head once to show I understood. His hand moved across my body. His fingers began stroking me. I tried to push him away and he got angry.

‘What's the matter with you woman? You liked it well enough yesterday. What's different? I know a man has had you before. Ingefried tells me you were raped. It is better if you help me believe that. Now treat me like a husband.'

Ingefried knew before I did. ‘Are you unwell, Sigrid? You're pale and you keep leaving the hearth. I've several times had to save your stew from burning.'

‘My stomach turns at the smell of cooking. I thought it would pass but it has persisted. Maybe you have a herb to help settle me.'

She smiled. ‘And has your body given blood the usual way at each moon?' I hadn't thought to follow the changing shape of the moon so I didn't know. ‘No herbs for you my child. In another turn of the moon, we'll be sure and then we can tell Hauk his first son is on his way.'

‘I'm with child? But I…'

‘Too soon to say for sure but these are the usual signs.'

I went limp and had to sit down while Ingefried, beaming, went off on a long tirade about my mother's pregnancies, miscarriages and childbirths. I didn't listen. My thoughts were so crowded they seemed to be fighting inside my head. A baby. What was I to do? Ingefried brought me back when she stopped and put her face close to mine. Her demeanour changed, gone was the sparkle. Her eyes stared with the light blue of a cold winter's day and her lips trembled.

‘When did you first know a man, Sigrid? Who, apart from Hauk, could be the father? I told him you'd been raped by one of Hakon's men but I know I told a lie. So how long ago did you lose your maidenhood? Can we make Hauk believe the child is his? Oh Sigrid, bastard or not, my Gudrun's grandchild must not be put to death.'

6.

I was the cause of Hauk's death. I regret the way it happened. He wasn't a bad man, my father was right about that, and I brought him much humiliation and little comfort.

I was expecting Ragnar's child. It was a great happiness to me but also dread. Hauk would not be able to accept a bastard without losing the respect of all those who were already laughing about his reluctant bride. Ingefried was beset with worry.

‘Don't tell Hauk just yet,' she said, ‘if you wait you can make out the child is his. Then we can say it was early. Don't annoy Hauk. You must keep him thinking it is his child.'

I waited another turn of the moon then I spoke to Hauk. I went to meet him as he led his men back from the day's work. They had been clearing a new field and their weariness showed in their slow step. I greeted them, smiled at Hauk and, for the sake of my unborn child, I took his hand and led him to one side. I could hear the men snigger when they thought themselves out of earshot. This was part of my plan, it wasn't just Hauk who had to believe in my deception, they must all think I had turned into a dutiful wife.

‘Hauk, husband, I'm carrying your child. If Freya wills, you shall have a son.' At first he looked at me without expression. Then the tired furrows on his brow lifted and he laughed out loud as he picked me up and swung me round and round until I had to plead with him to be careful lest he dropped me.

‘Sigrid, I would never let you fall.' He held me then, tenderly, my head resting on his chest. He stroked my hair and kissed my brow and in a voice hoarse with feeling, he whispered of how he had loved me since he first saw me at the Thingmound many years before.

‘Sigrid, my little wife, all will be well now, won't it?'

‘Yes, Hauk.' I was glad he couldn't see my face.

Hauk stopped spending time with Lydia. I persuaded him to order her to do the same work as the other thralls. I smiled when I heard her shrill protest. It was a cheap victory and cost me dear later on. Hauk was attentive to me when, over the next few months, I struggled with my huge body. I kept pretending I was happy but sometimes my sorrow broke through. I blamed the pregnancy, I blamed grief for my family and for a time Hauk was persuaded. But when I asked that, if the baby were a boy, he should be named after my father, Hauk shook his head.

‘Kveldulf was a good man but names carry meanings.' I knew what he meant; wolf of the evening – a shape-shifter. My meekness melted away.

‘What are you saying about my father, Hauk?' He remained silent and would not meet my eyes. ‘My father was a brave man, a warrior, a clever man. My…your son could do worse than be named after him.' He turned then and walked off. Later his mother came to sit with me with her spinning.

‘Don't goad Hauk about his lack of fighting prowess,' she said, ‘he's my only child. I don't want him to think he has to seek honour in battle. We need him here.'

I should have listened to her then. But I didn't. I never considered Hauk as a person. He was the man I had married to please my parents and to avoid being left an old maid. I had run away before the marriage had seen three moons and, since my return, I had been sick with grief. Now I needed him to be father to my child. I neither contemplated what kind of man he really was nor what I kind of man I was turning him into.

I was mindful of my duties as a wife during the day but I could not control my dreams, which became increasingly vivid and disturbing while the child was growing in me.

‘Come sit with me a moment, wife,' Hauk said to me one morning when I brought him his breakfast. I joined him on the treetrunk he had felled, steadying my bulk by holding on to his shoulder.

‘You speak in your sleep.' I had taken care, as always, to sit on his uninjured side but now I wished I could see the colour of his scar to judge his state of mind. ‘You call out names.' The silence that followed sat heavy on my chest. Hauk took a deep breath. ‘Names!' now his voice was angry.

Bile of fear rose in my throat. I swallowed and whispered: ‘What names?'

‘Ragnar. Who is Ragnar?' There was violence in his question. I knew I must not swoon, I must not let on.

‘Don't shout at me, Hauk. He's a boy I knew when I was a child. I saw his father killed. I don't even know if anyone has told him. I keep dreaming of the killings.' I was crying now. Hauk seemed less sure of himself but he continued:

‘So who's Thorfinn? And Olvir?'

‘Olvir! But Hauk, you know who Olvir is. He's the lad who came with me from Becklund. Hauk my dreams are full of what I witnessed. I can't help what I see then.'

‘Sigrid I'm plagued by doubts. Say the child is mine. Say you love me.'

‘The child is yours.' That much I managed to lie but I could not bring myself to speak of love to him and I pretended to choke on my tears. He put his arm round me.

‘Sigrid, little wife, all will be well. I promise you, we shall re-build Becklund and then we shall have two of the best farms in Cumbria and great wealth to pass on to our children.'

My baby announced its arrival in the middle of the night three new moons after the midwinter sacrifice. I woke and at first I thought it was my nightmare continuing to squeeze my ribs. Then I realised and rose to summon Ingefried from her bed. She called a thrall and ordered a fire in the bathhouse. I went outside. Frost glittered on the hard ground and on the branches of trees and shrubs.

‘Walk around a bit,' said Ingefried and covered my shoulders with my fur-lined cloak. I threw it open, thankful to cool off. The icy air stung my chest and the pain abated. When it returned it was worse than before and I groaned.

‘Listen, Sigrid, this is just the beginning. Your waters haven't even broken yet. Don't whimper. Grit your teeth!'

Once the sauna was warm enough, Ingefried made me lie down on the bench with my legs open. She tut-tutted and made me walk around again. The pains came and went. The sun rose. There were voices outside, Hauk and Thorgunn. Ingefried was talking to them.

‘It's a bit early but I'm sure all will be well.'

‘More than a bit early! Let me see her. I want an answer once and for all!'

‘Calm yourself son. You mustn't upset her now.'

‘You most certainly will not see her. This is women's business. Go away. Your child will be brought to you in the usual manner. Thorgunn, please take him away. I'll send for you if we need you.'

My waters broke and gushed, warm and sticky, along my legs on to the floor. The pains came at regular intervals and wrenched my insides until I screamed. So the day passed into evening.

I knelt on the bench, shivering under another contraction. In the heat and steam Ingefried tried to make me breathe deeply and work with the baby. But I was full of dread and my cleft was tense and my breathing out of time. She left me with a thrall-girl and when she returned she sent the girl away and made me drink a most foul concoction. Then I remember a great fog. Pain still sliced through my body, but it didn't seem to matter. I heard screams, which may have been mine. There were voices, the voices of my nightmares and the faces that came with them, my mother denouncing me, the sound of the sword on my father's neck, the thundering hooves of the horse carrying Ragnar away from me, the crackling of the flames destroying Becklund. Then I was back there, back in my father's hall. But the roof was caving in. I had to hold it up or it would collapse on top of me. I became a giant. My strength superhuman, I strained and pushed to keep those mighty beams from crushing me. I heard myself scream. My body was torn apart, my strength waned. I floated on a cloud with my head in my mother's lap.