Sigrun's Secret (11 page)

‘Father,’ I said hesitantly, ‘why did you leave mother quite alone? Wouldn’t it have been better to leave either Asgrim or me to care for her?’

‘I couldn’t leave Asgrim,’ said my father at once. ‘He was in nearly as great danger as I was from that man.’

‘You mean Halfgrim?’ I asked timidly.

Father nodded. ‘I was going to leave you with Thora. Only she foresaw that I needed you.’

I felt confused. ‘But, father, I can’t protect you with visions like she can.’

‘She seemed to think that you would help me in some way,’ he replied.

I touched my horse amulet and wondered what, exactly, my mother had seen. What role did I have to play? We were nearly back at the beach now. I could see the sea ahead of us between the trees. I could also glimpse the men bathing naked in the stream where it ran down out of the wood.

‘I’d better not go and embarrass them,’ I said, drawing my father to a huge fallen tree trunk. ‘And I want to talk to you about the things Halfgrim said. Father, is any of it true? It would help so much if you’d explain.’

I held my breath, half expecting him to get up and leave me, to avoid my questions as usual. But he didn’t. Instead he leaned his elbows on his knees and sank his head forward onto his hands, hiding his face.

‘Oh, Sigrun,’ he groaned. ‘How hard your mother and I have worked to protect you from this knowledge, so you could grow up without the shadow of fear hanging over you.’

A slow, sick feeling grew in my stomach. So this was it, after all. My father was an impostor. I dreaded to hear it, but I had to know. ‘So … Halfgrim
was
telling the truth?’ Every nerve in my body longed for my father to deny it. I was scarcely breathing; I was so tense, waiting for his words.

‘He was telling the truth he knows,’ said my father at last. ‘The truth he was told. But there are many truths, Sigrun, and few of them are absolute.’

‘Please, father,’ I begged. ‘No riddles.’

My father took a deep breath, and I could sense the pain in him. He didn’t want to talk about this. Perhaps I was being selfish, insisting on hearing. But I needed to know what my parents had done to get us the life we had lived for all of my fifteen years. Most of all, I needed to understand.

‘Well then. It’s true that I killed a chieftain called Bjorn Svanson and made off with his ship. I’ve borne his name since that date, so I’m indeed an impostor, Sigrun.’

I caught my breath, horrified and fascinated at the same time. I didn’t speak, waiting for my father to continue.

‘But so much lies behind a simple tale like that, my daughter. So many blighted lives, so much pain and suffering. It’s not as simple as it might seem at first glance. I was much younger than you are now when I was captured and forced into slavery. You can’t imagine … I’m not denying my guilt. Many would call it a crime. But there were circumstances that made it seem quite different at the time. Even now, I regret nothing, especially when I think what could have been, had I acted differently.’

Father looked at me earnestly, asking for my understanding. I nodded faintly. My thoughts were in a whirl of confusion, trying to see my father in this new light.

‘And was my mother a slave too?’ I asked.

‘No, Sigrun,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Not that it makes a difference: slave or master, it’s all a matter of chance. It doesn’t make you a better or worse person. But no, your mother was a prosperous farmer’s daughter. My sword, Foe Biter, belonged to her father, who had been a warrior in his younger days. I met him, briefly. Svanson stole Thora from her family the same day he took me from my master in place of tribute,’ my father told me. ‘He needed a healer to take to Iceland. But the first thing he did to both of us was tie us … ’

‘Bjorn!’ shouted Erik’s voice from the beach.

‘No!’ I exclaimed, frustrated. After weeks of silence, a lifetime of silence, in fact, my father was finally relaxed and speaking freely.

‘I’m busy!’ father called. ‘Can’t it wait?’

Erik was coming towards us. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, casting an apologetic look at me. ‘But there are locals on the beach. I
think
they’re friendly … ’

My father leapt to his feet at once and reached out a hand to pull me up too.

‘Come, Sigrun,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what they want. Stay close.’

I followed him, afraid that more danger awaited us. The men were small, broad, and dark haired. They were barefoot, and wore homespun cloth that any Viking woman would be ashamed to dress her man in. It was shabby and dirty, and badly woven. They carried no visible weapons however, and when they spoke, my father seemed to understand what they said, though I could not.

‘They’re speaking Saxon,’ said Leif quietly to me, noticing my puzzled looks. ‘They’ve come to make sure we aren’t going to be attacking their village, I expect.’

I turned a horrified look on him. ‘Do … ?’ I began and didn’t know how to continue.

‘Oh yes, it’s a Norse pastime to raid the villages on this coast,’ said Leif. ‘No one from Jorvik would prey on this country, of course, but the ships from Norway and Denmark do.’

I remembered Ingvar’s dreadful tale and shuddered. ‘Then they’re very brave to approach us,’ I said.

‘I suppose seeing us bathing reassured them,’ said Leif with a grin. ‘You can’t do much pillaging with your clothes off.’

I saw that all our men bore signs of having dressed hastily, their hair still dripping, and laughed a little.

‘Ah, what wouldn’t I give to take part in another raid,’ said my brother coming to stand on my other side. ‘Think of the glory and riches I could win!’

I looked up at him, taken aback, and saw a far-away look in his eyes. I recalled Ingvar’s tale and remembered that Asgrim had been with him on the raid he’d described to me. How could Asgrim have been a part of that and yet still want to commit such acts? This wasn’t the brother I thought I knew.

‘I went all the way to Dublin and back last year,’ he told Leif over my head. ‘We passed endless settlements but only once did we stop and plunder. Helgi had the courage and ambition of an old woman. If it hadn’t been for the pirates attacking us on the way back, we’d hardly have seen any decent action all year.’

I was shocked to hear my brother speak so rudely about Helgi who’d always been so good to us, but I bit my tongue, knowing it would make him furious to be criticized by his little sister.

My father finished speaking to the strangers and turned to Erik, clearly pleased. ‘Let’s get a fire going, shall we? I think we should invite our guests to eat with us.’

There was a bustle at once, as the men lit the fire and I began to prepare the supper. I could see there would be no opportunity to learn more from father tonight, and was bitterly disappointed.

The mouth of the river Ouse was bristling with ships. Huge cargo vessels, letting down vast sails as they swung into the narrow channel, smaller boats that looked as if they’d been out fishing, and a warship under oar, its sides lined with colourful shields. I stared in amazement. There were smaller craft too, manned by one or two men, hugging the shore out of the way of the larger ships. We slid past some and followed others away from the sea, inland past tall trees, tended fields, and marshy plants.

I pushed my damp hair back off my face and sighed with the heat. Now we’d left the open sea behind us, it had intensified unbearably. It was like a shimmer in the air, making it thick and heavy to breathe, and causing the perspiration to break out on my skin.

‘It can’t be natural that it’s so hot, surely?’ I remarked to my brother. He scowled at me.

‘Don’t be so ignorant, Sigrun,’ he said. ‘The summer is far hotter in the south than at home.’

I felt stupid and wished I hadn’t spoken. My brother never seemed to have a kind word for me these days. But then he seemed to relent. I saw a rare flash of the old, friendly Asgrim, as he said more mildly: ‘This heat is nothing to high summer. Wait and see.’

High summer. Sun month. That was almost a year away. I didn’t want this painful reminder that it would be so long till I saw my home again. I could only bear it if I didn’t think about it.

The men rowed up the river in the heat all day, and I was kept busy taking drinks to them. One young man passed out at the oar. I revived him with a cloth dipped in cool water and persuaded him to lie down in the shade in the bottom of the boat. I’d never truly appreciated the climate of my home country before.

At last the city was in sight. A vast number of buildings stretching into the distance; more than I’d imagined could exist in the whole world. Around them, a huge rampart of earth with a timbered wall atop it, the wooden posts sharpened to vicious-looking points.

‘Is that Jorvik?’ I asked Leif wonderingly.

‘It is!’ he said. His eyes shone, and I could feel his pleasure at arriving home. It rolled off him in a joyful cloud.

‘What’s that … wall thing?’ I asked, afraid of revealing my ignorance again, but curious to know.

‘Those are our city defences,’ said Leif. ‘Not everyone welcomes the Norse presence in Jorvik. King Alfred of Wessex, for example, would be glad to drive us out.’

There were shouts ahead. Several craft guarded the entrance to the city, and one was heading straight for us, a man in the prow signalling us to pull over.

‘You’re approaching the city of Jorvik!’ he called. ‘State your business if you want to proceed.’

‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ Leif assured my father, who was looking surprised. ‘They know me.’

The other ship, full of armed men, came abreast of us and three men jumped aboard. ‘Your business in Jorvik?’ the first man asked.

Leif stepped forward, spoke to the guards and I felt the atmosphere relax. As Leif had said, the guards knew him.

‘Trader?’ the man asked, before he left, with a glance around the ship.

‘I have goods to trade,’ acknowledged my father. ‘But my main purpose is to visit my friend.’

‘Where are you from?’ asked the Jorvik man. ‘Norway?’

‘Iceland.’

After a cursory search of the ship, we were permitted to pass on into the city, though my father had to pay a tax to ‘King Siefred of Jorvik’.

‘Why do we pay a tax to their king?’ I asked.

‘That’s the way with kings,’ father said. ‘They organize defences and soldiers so everybody feels safe to work and trade here, but they all have to be paid for. And of course the king lives high on the money too.’

As we drew closer, I stared at the Jorvik houses. They were not very like our houses at home, nor yet like the stone dwellings on the Shetlands. They were a mixture of timber, plank, and what looked like sticks and mud. The smell was powerful. Mixed with the stench rising up from the filthy water of the river, was a fug of stink from the town itself: latrines, animals, droppings, cooking, and smoke. I put a hand over my nose, fighting the urge to cough and splutter.

‘Breathe deep, little sister,’ said my brother with a wicked grin. ‘This is city living for you, in all its glory.’

‘How can you bear it?’ I asked, my whole face creased with disgust.

‘By closer acquaintance with all its pleasures,’ he replied.

I assumed he was talking about the drinking habits he’d learned in Dublin, so I didn’t ask him any more.

We rowed towards a quay of hewed stone where many ships were already moored and it took all the men’s concentration to manoeuvre our boat into a narrow berth. Once the boat was safely moored, my father organized stowing the oars, refolding the sail, and gave Erik instructions to clean the ship.

‘We’ll need to keep at least four of us aboard at all times,’ father said to Erik. ‘All of them sober. There’ll be plenty of thieves and tricksters around in a city this size. Do you mind taking first watch? I’ll relieve you later.’

Erik agreed, and my father beckoned Asgrim and me to follow him ashore. And so we entered the great city of Jorvik.

Houses were built back to back, side to side. Between them ran narrow, dusty streets crammed with people walking, trading, talking, and arguing. There were dirty children running about, and men on horseback. I saw a woman leading a goat on a rope and a lad driving a pig with a stick. I was surrounded by people brushing past me, by ear-blasting noise and offensive smells. Their emotions crowded in on me unpleasantly and I fought hard to hold them at a distance.

‘How many people live here?’ I asked, appalled, as we were caught in a crowd almost as soon as we’d left the ship.

‘I don’t know,’ my father answered, hurrying to keep up with Leif who was threading his way confidently through the streets. ‘I would guess many thousands.’

I felt the unfamiliar press of humanity around me, so many people packed into this defended, bustling, noisy place, and did something I hadn’t done for years. I reached for my father’s hand and held it tight, dreading that I might lose him in this terrifying place. He gripped my hand comfortingly in return and gave me a quick, reassuring smile.

Thrang’s house was down a side street, part of a long row, facing another line of houses just across the road.

‘Why do they build them so close together?’ I asked bewildered. I’d been wondering the same thing all the way through these stinking, overfilled streets. ‘Where do people grow their food and keep their animals?’