River of Destiny

She sighed. She had not joined the others because she had been feeling sick again this morning. It had taken her a long time to rise from her bed. She stood looking down at the hearth thoughtfully and on impulse stooped to pick up one of the statues of the goddess Frige Eric had made for the Lady Hilda. Pagan. And powerful. She bit her lip, then slowly leaned down and let it fall back in the basket. Could it be that after all this time she was pregnant? She rested her hand lightly on her flat belly, trying to remember when she had last bled. Surely, two full moons had passed.

There it was again, the sound of scratching at the door. She moved across the floor, straining her ears. Behind her an extra gust of wind sent sparks and ashes blowing across the room from the fire and she turned, stamping them out, clutching her cloak to her. There were shutters over the windows and the door was firmly barred. She was safe, but she couldn’t help the tremors of fear which were running up and down her spine. Someone was out there, she knew it.

‘Eric?’ It was a whisper. ‘Is that you?’

He wouldn’t be able to hear her against the storm and she didn’t dare call out loud. Whoever it was knew she was in there. They would be able to see the light from her candles through the chinks in the shutters, but if she made no sound, then maybe they would go away.

The scratching sound came again, louder this time, then a soft knock. Three times in rapid succession, softly, near the bottom of the door. It was their secret sign. With a whimper of relief she grappled with the bar and lifted it from its socket, pulling the door open, filling the room with the scent of the river and dust and pine needles and a fresh blast of wind to stir the fire. It wasn’t Eric. Hrotgar stepped inside, wrestled the door shut and slammed the bar back in place. All but one of the candles had blown out and the room was nearly dark.

‘Get out!’ she cried. ‘How did you know our knock?’

He gave a low laugh. ‘I have heard him do it often enough. It is hardly secret. The whole village knows.’

‘I don’t want you here.’

‘Oh, but you do. I’ve seen you watch me, lust after me. I’ve heard no complaints when I have come to visit you and keep you company.’ He made no move towards her now that he was inside. He folded his arms, staring at her, shadowed as she was in the small room. ‘Your husband is in the service of Lord Egbert. While he slaves over this precious sword it is for me to make sure that his wife is content.’

‘No.’ She shook her head, backing away from him. She placed herself behind the table and leaned forward, her arms braced. ‘You get out of here, Hrotgar. I need no visits from you. I have never needed visits from you. I am a faithful wife.’

‘You are an obedient wife.’ He smiled at her. ‘One he can be proud of. But, you see, he needs to know that you are not missing him. He needs to know that he has as much time as he needs. If he hurries in his work because he worries about you, then all is lost.’

‘But he told me the Lord Egbert needs him to hurry.’

‘The Lord Egbert has all the time in the world, my dear.’ He paused.

‘What do you mean?’ She was studying his face, trying to understand his expression. ‘Is something wrong? Is he worse?’

‘Your husband needs a hair from your head to put in with the molten metal of the sword.’ He spoke slowly, almost dreamily, ignoring her questions. ‘Unbind your hair, Edith.’

She shook her head. ‘If he needed something from me he would come home and tell me.’

‘But he cannot come home. That is part of the magic.’

‘No. This is all wrong. It makes no sense. The sword is nearly finished.’

‘Magic is not bound by reason, my dear. Nor is it to be spoken of. He trusted me with the message and me alone as go-between, between him and the Lord Egbert.’

She hesitated. ‘And you have given me the message.’

‘So you need to unbind your hair.’

She was watching his face in the half-light of the single candle flame and she saw him run his tongue across his lips, a quick feral movement which frightened her even more than his words had done. She could feel the deep frozen terror of the rabbit confronted by a weasel. ‘If my hair is needed Eric can take a strand with his own hands,’ she said at last.

‘It is Eric who has demanded it. At the forge. And he has forbidden you to set foot there. It is for me to take it to him.’

She shook her head uncomfortably. ‘Then I will pull one out myself, and tie it to the doorpost of the forge and he can come out and pick it up when I have gone.’

‘That is foolish. And not what he asked.’ He was getting angry now. He took a step towards her. ‘Unbind your hair, woman.’

‘Edith!’ The sudden call at the door was accompanied by the thudding of a fist on the thick wood. ‘What are you doing in there? Why have you barred the door?’ The latch rattled up and down. ‘Edith?’ It was a woman’s voice.

‘Open it.’ Edith whispered. ‘Open it now.’

Hrotgar looked taken aback. With a scowl he turned on his heel and walked towards it, pulling the bar free and throwing it on the ground, then pulling open the door to let the fresh air and wind sweep in. ‘Come in, goodwife. What is all the noise about?’ he growled. ‘What I discuss with the smith’s woman is nothing to do with anyone else.’ He swept past her out into the darkness.

Edith’s neighbour, Gudrun, the wheelwright’s wife, stood staring after him, then she ducked in through the doorway and pushed the door shut behind her. ‘What was he doing here, with the door barred?’ she said suspiciously. ‘I don’t trust that man.’

‘No more do I.’ Suddenly Edith was shivering. She moved closer to the fire. ‘He came with a message from my husband.’

Gudrun bustled about lighting the lanterns and the candle which stood on the table. ‘Why aren’t you up at the hall?’

‘I didn’t feel well.’

‘And he came to find out why?’

Edith shook her head. ‘No.’ But of course he had noticed her absence. Why else had he come here?

‘So, what is wrong with you? You’re not breeding at last?’

Edith gave a wry smile. ‘I’m not sure. I wondered if it was possible. I feel sick. But perhaps it is just that my head hurts. I have been working on Eric’s jerkin after the light has gone for too many evenings. I just wanted to sit quietly and rest my eyes. There will be noise and celebration enough when he has finished the sword and we take it up to the hall for the Lord Edbert.’

Gudrun was looking at her closely. She gave a knowing smile. ‘I think there will be reason for noise and celebration in this house if I read your signs right, neighbour mine.’ She smiled. ‘But we’ll say nothing yet. Not till you are sure. Eric will be so pleased. As for the celebrations up at the hall, I doubt if that day will happen.’ She shook her head.

‘Why? It will be the best sword he ever made!’ Edith bridled with indignation.

‘No, no, I’m not doubting his skill, it is the Lord Egbert I’m thinking of.’ The older woman sighed sadly. ‘He hasn’t been seen for weeks now and rumours fly round the hall that he is dying, if he isn’t dead already. His sons and his brother wrangle and fight like dogs over a bone, and the warriors are taking sides ready to jump this way or that. They say the ealdorman will ride over from Rendlesham and the king’s reeve might come himself. Lady Hilda is white as a sheet and looks exhausted, and that man,’ she ducked her head towards the door, ‘is in the thick of all the gossip.’

‘And I have been missing it all.’ Edith grimaced.

‘Do you know how long it will be before the sword is finished?’ Gudrun pulled up a stool and sat down close to the fire, holding her hands out to the embers.

Edith gave a wry smile. ‘He wouldn’t tell me, even if I had seen him,’ she said.

Gudrun looked up at her, then back towards the fire. A log slipped and a flame lit up the lazy spiral of smoke rising towards the blackened underside of the thatch, before making its way out into the night. ‘I know he’s been home. I saw him.’

‘Then you should mind your spying eyes, madam,’ Edith scolded good-humouredly. ‘He didn’t come, you understand, and anyone who says different is a liar. He told me nothing anyway.’

‘And the message Hrotgar brought?’

‘Is not your business.’ Edith shook her head with mock exasperation. ‘Fetch that jug of ale from the sideboard, and we’ll have a sup to wet our whistles. I’m feeling better, thanks to you.’

It was a great deal later that Edith, wrapped in a dark cloak, let herself out into the night. Gudrun had long gone and the village was silent. She crept towards the forge, stopping dead for a moment as a dog barked from somewhere behind the church, then she moved on. Under the hood of her cloak her hair was loose.

The forge was in darkness, the smokeholes cold. She paused, wondering what to do, then she crept closer. Eric often slept there; he had been doing so for the last month or more. Even the thought of him so close, lying, perhaps naked, wrapped in one of the furs she had seen stacked in the corner of the workshop, made her body tense with longing. She waited, her ear to the oak door slats, listening. There was no sound from inside. Cautiously she put her hand to the latch and silently began to slide it up. The hinges creaked and she stopped, her heart thudding, gazing round in the darkness. It wasn’t her husband she feared, it was the other man, the lord’s reeve, with his lustful eyes and his leering face and his power to intercede between Eric and the warriors for whom he worked.

The door wasn’t barred. After another protesting squeak it eased open and she peered in. ‘Eric?’ she whispered. She could smell the charcoal, the leather, the very scent of the iron, the oil with which he worked and then, suddenly she could smell him, his skin, the rough smokiness of his hair. ‘Where are you?’

‘I thought I forbade you to come here, Edith.’ She still couldn’t see him, but his voice was close. She imagined him waiting, poised to see who was trying to gain entry to the forge in the dark of the night, and for a moment she pictured the knife he probably held in his hand. The thought frightened her even as it gave her a strange frisson of excitement.