Captive Of The Viking

The great hall was by far the largest hall in Jorvik, even larger than the wooden church of St. Peter nearby. Massive wooden pillars held up the roof beams carved with grotesque faces and interlace patterns, the walls almost entirely covered with colourful embroidered hangings, with weapons, shields and polished helmets, decorative but functional, too. Earl Thored half-sat on the edge of a trestle table surrounded by some of his personal thegns, men of property, influence and loyalty, well dressed and well-armed. Their deep voices overlapped, but Thored’s was the one they listened to, authoritative and compelling. ‘I tell you,’ he was saying as Fearn approached, ‘they’ll not raid Jorvik this time. It’s wealth they’re after, not our land or property.’

‘But, my lord,’ one of the men protested, ‘they’re burning already. Why would they do that to the villages and not here?’

‘To show us what we’ll get if we don’t pay them off,’ Thored said as if he’d already made that point. ‘Scaring tactics. They’ll be looking for provisions, too. But I shall not bargain with them like a common merchant on the wharf. They must come up here if they want payment. They can carry it down to the ships themselves. Is Arlen the Moneyer here?’

‘Here, my lord,’ said Arlen from the back of the group.

‘Good. Start filling sacks with coin, then have it brought here.’

‘How many...how much?’

‘In Thor’s name, man!’ Thored shouted. ‘How do I know? Just prepare for the worst. These devils won’t go away without fleecing us for every last penny—that much I do know. Get that young lad of yours to help. He’ll have to learn the new way of fighting, though I’m ashamed to see them off in this fashion. I’d rather do it with a sword in my hand, but we don’t have their numbers and that son-in-law of mine hasn’t yet made up his mind how to deal with the problem.’ There were murmurs of agreement and dissatisfaction, too, but no open criticism of King Ethelred’s wavering policies, apart from that of his father-in-law. Then Thored caught sight of Fearn standing beside one of the oak pillars. ‘Ah, Lady Fearn, you’ll be wanting to hear news of your man. I’m as puzzled as you are. It doesn’t usually take three men two days to glean some news of the enemy. Well, we don’t need them now when we can see for ourselves where they are and what they’re doing. He’ll be back. Don’t worry.’

‘Thank you, my lord. I shall stay well out of sight until then,’ she said, turning to go.

‘No, I want you here. You can add some colour to the discussions, eh? Ye gods, woman! Where have you been?’ he bellowed, catching sight of her lower half as the group parted.

‘The ferry, my lord. Gaut was not there to row us. My maid and I—’ She got no further with her explanation before her voice was drowned by politely sympathetic laughter tinged with a masculine superiority in matters of river craft.

Pushing a fist beneath his moustache to stifle his laughter, Thored’s blue eyes creased into the weathered wrinkles of his skin. ‘Then you’d better go and change into something more worthy of a noblewoman, my lady. The Danes will not have anything as good to show us, I’ll swear. Go by the kitchens and tell them to prepare mead, beor and ale for us and our guests. The least we can do is to drink them legless.’ Unconsciously, his large hand stole upwards to grasp the solid-silver Thor’s-hammer pendant that hung from a leather thong around his neck. ‘Now, I need three of you to go down to the wharf and wait, then escort their leaders up here. And where’s the harpist? And the scribe? Let’s show the ruffians some culture while we’re about it.’

* * *

Passing the kitchen building, Fearn relayed the Earl’s orders, knowing that on her next entry into the hall, an army of servants would have attended to every detail, relying on his word that the Danes would be there to bargain, not to wreck. Inside the confines of her own thatched dwelling, she found that Haesel had anticipated her needs, laying out an indigo-dyed woollen kirtle to be worn over a fine linen shift that showed at the neckline, wrists and hem. Fearn had worked gold thread embroidery along all the edges that glittered discreetly as she moved, picking up the deeper solid gold and amethyst of the circular pin that held the neckline together. Her circlet of patterned gold and garnets was one of several she owned, but when she asked Haesel to pass her jewel casket, she discovered that it had been packed, along with extra clothes and shoes in a lined leather bag, the kind used for travelling. ‘What’s this about?’ she asked her maid.

Haesel sat down on the fur-covered bed and looked pensively at her mistress, obviously finding it difficult to give a convincing explanation.

‘Haesel? Have you been seeing things again?’ Fearn said. ‘Tell me.’

‘It’s not easy to know what I see and what I think I see, lady. I don’t know what it means, but we were travelling, and there was a strong wind...blowing...you needed your cloak, but you were wearing the one you made for your husband. So I packed...well...everything I thought you’d need...and...’

‘Wait a moment! You say I’m wearing Barda’s new cloak? But he’s taken it with him.’

‘Yes, lady. That’s what I don’t understand. Unless he allows you to wear it.’

Fearn looked at her maid in silence. As a mere sixteen-year-old, she had served Fearn for the last four years when her family’s house caught fire. Her father had been a potter on Coppergate, but the kiln had exploded and Haesel had been the only one to survive, albeit with severe burns to one arm and the side of her throat. Her mass of fair curls had now grown back and the sweet prettiness of her features more than compensated for the wrinkled red skin that she usually managed to hide under the white veil swathed around her neck. Fearn had soon discovered that Haesel possessed a strange talent for seeing into the future, though it was often rather difficult to make out how the information related to events, as it did now when Barda’s cloak was not in Fearn’s possession. By now, however, Fearn had learnt to take the predictions seriously, although they were both enigmatic and quite rare. ‘So what have you packed, and where shall we be going?’ she said.

‘Your jewels, clothes, shoes, your recipe book of cures. I couldn’t get your harp in. I know nothing about where we’ll be going, lady. Just the wind blowing.’

‘Then we shall just have to see what happens. Was my husband there?’

Haesel shook her head. ‘No, lady. He was not with you.’ It happened occasionally that she withheld information she thought either too unreliable or not in her mistress’s best interests to know in advance. There had been many men there in her sighting, but Barda had not been amongst them.

* * *

The Dane known as Aric the Ruthless had hardly expected that the four longships in his command would be able to slip into Jorvik unseen, even so early in the morning with the sun obscured by clouds of smoke rising up from the riverside villages. His men had needed to take provisions on board after rowing against the current all the way from the river estuary, and since it took too long to ask politely for foodstuffs, they had taken it without asking. Coming to the last navigable bend of the Ouse, Aric noticed that the trading wharves and jetties were devoid of merchant ships and the stacks of produce that usually littered the area. The only sign of life was a small group of armed men waiting, grim-faced, to meet them. So, the Earl of Northumbria had come with his elite corps to conduct him, personally, to the place known as Earlsbrough.

Their greeting was civil, though hardly warm. One warrior drew his sword from his scabbard, catching the light on its menacing blade. But as Aric stepped off the gangplank, he called to him to put it away. ‘We have come here to talk,’ he called. ‘Which of you is the Earl?’

‘The Earl of Northumbria awaits you in his hall,’ the leader said. ‘He prefers not to trade with you for Jorvik’s safety here on the wharf like a merchant. Be pleased to come with us.’

‘What, and be surrounded by Englishmen?’ Aric said.

‘Bring as many men as you wish, Jarl.’

* * *

The walk took a little time, though they soon discovered that their Danish words so much resembled the Anglo-Danish spoken in Jorvik that there were very few misunderstandings. Adjusting the beaver-skin cloak on his broad shoulders, Aric walked with his hosts and a group of his own chosen men through the deserted dirty streets of Jorvik to the mournful cry of seagulls and the yapping of dogs chasing an escaped pig. The air was tense with uncertainty, for the rank odour of smoke still clung to the invaders’ clothes. None of them were under any illusions that the show of politeness would last, for at the nod of a head or the click of a finger, they could all slaughter one another without a qualm.

Earl Thored stood waiting outside the stout wooden doors of the great hall, unmistakable to Jarl Aric by his imposing figure, tall, broad-shouldered, with a shock of thick white hair echoed in the luxurious drooping moustache, an exceptionally handsome man of some fifty years, and experienced. He greeted Aric with a brief nod, noting the Dane’s appreciative look at the fine carvings on the doors and crossed gables. ‘Not so different in Denmark, I don’t suppose,’ he said, leading them into the hall.

‘The same in most respects, my Lord Thored. Our requirements are the same as yours.’

‘Our requirements, Jarl, are for peace above anything.’

‘Then we have that in common,’ said Aric, determined not to be wrong-footed by the older statesman. ‘I see no reason why we cannot agree on that. Eventually.’

Thored’s look held an element of scepticism for the Dane who had just led a series of raiding parties along the East Anglian coast. The ‘eventually’ was something that would demand hard bargaining, with no guarantee that the Danes would not return for more next year, as soon as the days lengthened. But his look was also laced with an unwilling admiration, not only for this man’s youth compared with his own, but for his undeniable good looks, which Thored was sure would have the women enthralled. More used to looking down upon his men, Thored found that their heads were level and that the Dane’s keen grey eyes had already swept the hall in one observant stare, as if to assess the wealth contained there.

In the yellowish light from lamps and candles, Aric’s hair shone sleek and pale, pulled tightly back from his face and gathered at the back into a short plait. A narrow gold band was set over his forehead, his sun-bleached brows and short neat beard emphasising the square jaw and determined set of his mouth, which Thored took as an indication that he would be no pushover. A chill crept along Thored’s arms and neck. Thirty years ago, he, too, had had this man’s arrogant stance, legs like tree trunks encased in leather breeches and a slender waist belted low down on slim hips. He, too, had made women blush like girls.

Aric’s thoughts on Earl Thored ran along similar lines with admiration for his elegant deep red tunic and the massive gold buckle at his belt, a sign of authority. Negotiations with this old fox, he thought, would have to proceed with care, for although the Danes’ demands would have to be met, one way or another, he had heard that Earl Thored was a man with more than one strategy up his sleeve. Other things he had heard about the Earl were less complimentary, things which would have to be addressed today while there was a chance. His king, Swein Forkbeard, had given him the task of taking four of the ninety-four longships up the coast to Jorvik to treat with Earl Thored on his behalf. Swein was also aware of Aric’s other mission which, although secondary to the business of Danegeld, was of great importance to his family’s honour. Aric himself might have only twenty-seven winters under his belt, but he was one of King Swein’s most trusted jarls, a military leader of numerous missions across the North Sea. He would make sure his name was remembered as a man who got what he came for.

Tipping his head towards his hovering wife, Thored beckoned her forward to begin her duties, showing the guests to their seats in order of precedence with no more to go on than their clothing and the number and size of gold armbands, pendants and cloak pins. Standing further back down the hall, Fearn held a flagon of red wine, waiting for the signal to begin pouring it. But her attention was instantly kindled as the Danish leader moved into the direct light of a lamp hanging from a low beam, casting its glow over the smooth back of his flaxen hair with its stubby plait resting on the beaver fur of his cloak. Clutching the flagon close to her body, she strained her eyes to search for the darker streak on the fur she knew so well, then for the band of red and green tablet-weaving in a zigzag pattern that bordered the hem. As he turned in her direction, she saw how the bands continued up the two front edges, and she knew without a shadow of doubt that he was wearing the beaver-fur cloak she had gifted to her husband only weeks ago on his feast day. Casually, he threw one side of the cloak over his shoulder to reveal the brown woollen lining that she had spun from the native sheep and woven on her loom after weeks of work. Barda had worn it, to her dismay, to go on this latest scouting expedition for the Earl only because the nights could still be cold this early in the year and because the beaver fur was brown, easily hidden in the woodland, waterproof and hard-wearing. Fearn knew that neither Catla nor Hilda would notice, but the revelation buffeted her like an icy blast of the north wind, rippling the surface of the wine in the flagon. Her body shook and she was unable to tear her eyes away from the evidence that must surely mean Barda had been taken or killed, for no man would willingly give his cloak to the enemy.

Yet even as she stared, frozen with shock, the powerful Dane stared back at her as if she were the only woman in the hall. The distance was too great for details; only the compelling force of his dynamism released in her direction from two unpitying eyes seemed instinctively to understand the reason for her wide-eyed expression of outrage that he was daring to wear the garment she had made for another man.

Screams, accusations and frenzied shows of anguish would have been most women’s reaction, at that point, forcing some kind of explanation ahead of the Earl’s diplomacy. Yet it was not the Dane’s arrogant stare that kept Fearn silent, but the certain knowledge that it would not serve Earl Thored’s purpose to embarrass either their Danish guests or him, and certainly not to have Barda’s mother screaming and wailing and, naturally, Hilda, too, at such a critical moment in the proceedings. She must keep her secret knowledge quiet. She must. Against all her impulses to challenge the man, she must wait until the right moment. Or perhaps not at all. Perhaps the knowledge would emerge in some other way, when the Danes had gone.

Aware of a discomfort against her ribs, she realised she was pressing the flagon tightly against herself, almost to the breaking point, and that of all the emotions chasing through her numbed mind just then, incredulity and relief were the only ones she recognised. The Dane was still staring at her while Earl Thored told him who she was. Trembling, Fearn turned away, thankful that it would not be her to pour his mead, but Hilda.

* * *

The rest of that momentous discussion passed like a strange dream in which the information she held struggled in her grasp, waiting for the moment of release that did not come as she moved like a shadow through the hall. Usually, she was aware of men’s eyes upon her but, this time, she was aware of only one man’s, though she tried to evade them. But by the time she was obliged to respond to his request for wine instead of mead, he had shed the cloak to reveal a fine tunic of honey-coloured wool, which she knew would have been dyed with onion skins, its braided edging round the neck and sleeves glistening with gold thread, the delicate circular pin at his neck surely of Irish origin. For the first time, she came close enough for him to see into her eyes when, in spite of herself, she saw how his own narrowed eyes widened fractionally as if responding to a trick of the light. She saw the tiny crease between his brows come and go as he spoke in the mixture of English and Danish everyone in Jorvik understood. ‘Lady Fearn,’ he said, holding out his drinking horn to her, ‘I understand you are the daughter of the previous Earl.’

Earl Thored, seated opposite, interrupted. ‘The exiled previous Earl.’

Aric continued, ignoring the correction. ‘Do you miss him still?’

The rich red liquid wobbled as it poured, though Fearn tried to keep her voice from doing the same. There was hardly a day when she did not think of her parents. ‘I miss all those who are taken from me suddenly,’ she replied, purposely filling the horn up to the brim so that it would spill when he moved it away. Movement and speech were suspended as the drinking horn was held motionless, as two pairs of eyes locked in combat, hers challenging him to an admission of murder, his countering her challenge with his own brand of indifference. By this time, several men had noticed what was happening, laying silent wagers on the outcome. Aric the Ruthless would not be beaten by a woman, especially not by Thored’s foster daughter, though Fearn’s only aim was for him to tremble and spill the blood-red wine on the table as a sign of his guilt. He would surely understand her message.

Slowly, and without a tremor, the drinking horn was taken smoothly to Aric’s lips and tipped, not a drop escaping, its curved point encased in a silver cone pointing upwards. A ripple of applause accompanied the laughter, but with a look of contempt, Fearn turned away, sure that the Earl would have something to say about her behaviour towards his guest at a serious meeting. But for her, the meeting was an ordeal from which she was not allowed to excuse herself, even though she was now sure of the reason for her husband’s disappearance. This she was obliged to keep to herself for the time being, though Catla had expressed concern. ‘I don’t know where he is,’ Fearn told her, truthfully. She, too, would have liked to know whether he lay dead in the woodland or tied up in one of the longships.

Distancing herself from Catla and Hilda, Fearn went over to sit with Arlen the Moneyer and his wife Kamma. Obeying instructions, Arlen had filled sacks with coins and some hack silver—chopped-up disused pieces to be melted down for newer coinage—helped in the task by his young son, Kean, a good-looking lad of some ten years. He smiled as she sat beside him, clearly honoured by her presence.

‘Do you understand what’s happening, Kean?’ she whispered.

‘Oh, yes, my lady. The Danes are demanding a great deal of my lord Earl.’