Sigrun's Secret (16 page)

I felt guilty at once, remembering that he didn’t want to be here either, and that he’d brought me because my mother had foreseen he’d need me. He needed help now, and I couldn’t see that I was any use at all.

‘Perhaps I’ll get used to it,’ I said. ‘But it feels very enclosed. If I could at least walk out of the city, it would be easier to bear. But the defences keep us all crammed inside.’

‘Yes, it’s a strange way to live, when you’re used to roaming the open landscapes we have at home,’ agreed father. ‘But you seem to have found some consolation. You’re getting on well with Leif, aren’t you?’

I became aware of my father’s close scrutiny and felt myself blush.

‘He’s … he seems very nice,’ I said self-consciously.

‘I couldn’t help noticing you holding hands last night,’ father said.

‘We weren’t,’ I said, half confused, half indignant. ‘It’s not like that.’

‘Really?’ asked father. ‘Thrang wanted to marry your mother, you know. He was one of her most devoted suitors. It would be very fitting if you married his son. And you’d be so much safer here in Jorvik than in Iceland. Away from all our family trouble.’

‘Please, don’t,’ I begged, the heat burning in my face now. ‘It’s out of the question. You know that I—’ I stopped suddenly, not knowing whether father
did
know of my feelings for Ingvar. Had he seen our farewell on the ship, or had he been too busy sailing it? I was in doubt, and the thought of telling him my secret feelings and longings was acutely embarrassing.

To my relief, father dropped the subject. Instead we talked of home and of the coming winter until the heat faded from my face and we reached Thrang’s house again. There Leif awaited me impatiently.

‘Sigrun, thank Thor you are back!’ he exclaimed as soon as I entered the house. My father raised his brows. Leif didn’t notice and drew me aside, speaking in a low voice: ‘I need a healer. Can you come with me? It’s urgent.’

My heart sank. He needed a healer. I was sure I’d be completely useless. ‘I’m not very … experienced,’ I faltered, panicking. How would I manage without my mother to guide me?

‘What’s this?’ asked father curiously.

‘An acquaintance is very sick,’ Leif told him. ‘I need your daughter’s help. I’ll take good care of her, I promise.’

‘Of course,’ said my father at once, knowing nothing of my agonizing self doubts. ‘Don’t keep Leif waiting, Sigrun.’

Unable to voice my fears, I ran reluctantly downstairs to collect my bag of medicines. I would have to try. Perhaps if I was very lucky, it would be some condition I recognized.

Maria was sitting sewing by the fire. When she saw me preparing to go straight out again, she looked disappointed.

‘Would you like to come with us?’ I asked her. ‘We’re going to tend a sick lady.’ Maria nodded, threw her sewing aside and jumped to her feet. It was the first time she’d shown clearly that she understood me. It would be good to have someone with me at this ordeal.

Leif poured out his tale as the three of us hurried through the streets together.

‘She’s called Leola,’ he explained to me. ‘She’s the girl I told you about … ’

Maria stopped dead in her tracks. I looked round, surprised.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked her.

Maria was shaking her head, backing away. Before I could stop her, she turned and hurried back to the house.

‘What … ?’ I asked Leif bewildered.

‘She won’t want to come,’ said Leif, looking uncomfortable. ‘I forgot. You see, Leola is Eadred’s niece. She’s living in his house.’

I froze, torn between wanting to help and a reluctance to go near Maria’s cruel master again.

‘Please, Sigrun,’ Leif begged. ‘Leola’s nothing like her uncle. She’s a beautiful, sweet-natured girl. And she’s so very ill. Her usual healer hasn’t been able to help her. Now her maid is afraid she’ll die. They’ve agreed to let you try what you can do. I’m depending on you. Please, please don’t fail me.’

I felt a churning of nerves and dread. Leif was relying on me. Someone’s life hung in the balance. I’d never treated serious illness without my mother present. I might kill rather than cure her.

‘Is there no one else?’ I asked Leif.

‘She’s seen the most respected healer in the city and she failed to help her,’ said Leif, anguish in his voice. ‘You’re my last hope, Sigrun.’

I tried to conquer my nerves, and nodded. I could at least examine the poor girl.

The house was one of the largest I’d seen, close to the centre of the city. Leif hammered on the door and it was opened quickly by a frightened-looking girl in a plain kirtle that spoke the slave or lowly servant.

‘This is the healer I promised to bring,’ Leif said, pushing me forward. I was ushered in at once, the door was closed behind me, shutting Leif out.

The slave girl led me into a stuffy, darkened room where the smell of unwashed body and sickness prevailed. That wasn’t the only smell either. Something strange, something I couldn’t quite identify, lingered in the air. I knelt down beside the pale-faced figure wrapped in furs. It was hard to see in the gloom, but as I tentatively touched her face, it was slick with sweat.

‘Who are you?’ whispered the figure in a voice so faint I could scarcely hear it.

‘I’m Sigrun, Leif’s friend,’ I said. ‘I’ve come to see if I can help you get better. Can you tell me what’s wrong, or should I speak to your … servant?’

A hand, bony and as cold as death, reached out from under the covers and gripped my wrist. It gave me a shock, and I almost pulled back. But the girl was trying to speak. I leaned forward trying to catch her words.

‘A sudden sickness,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know what caused it.’

Her breath smelled strange, like the room, of strong but unfamiliar medicines.

‘What have you taken?’ I asked. ‘What did the last healer give you?’

Slowly, as though every movement was an effort, the girl reached inside her tunic and pulled out a shell, threaded onto a narrow strip of leather. There were a couple of small bones attached and a bead.

‘What’s this?’ I asked.

‘A charm,’ she whispered. ‘To bring the blessing of the goddess.’

‘That’s it?’ I asked, dumbfounded. ‘What medicine did she give you? What did she say was wrong?’

‘None. She said it was a curse.’ She looked away and closed her eyes as she whispered this.

I bit back my indignation. Such ignorance! But it wouldn’t do to criticize another healer’s methods. ‘It’s important to invoke the goddess,’ I agreed as calmly as I could. ‘But in your case you may need some medicine as well. Do you have any pain anywhere? A stomach ache or tooth ache?’

Leola shook her head. I checked for fever, but there was none. I examined my patient. She was thin, but not emaciated. I could find little wrong apart from a tender belly, which could simply be her time of month. It wasn’t taut with disease or disturbance. She seemed unwilling or unable to answer my questions.

The slave reappeared with an oil lamp. By its flickering light, I could see how pale Leola was. But I still had no idea what was wrong. In desperation, I got out my bag of runes. I wasn’t even sure why; they’d never spoken to me yet. But I didn’t know what else to try. I touched my amulet for luck and courage. It helped me read people’s moods, so perhaps it would help with this.

Nervously I unlaced the leather that tied the small pouch, and dipped my fingertips in among the small pebbles as my mother had taught me. I waited for the sign, the tingling in the fingers that she said would come when I touched the rune that could help me. I’d failed to sense it so many times. But this time I had a small hope that the amulet might guide me.

I stirred the stones with my fingertips, feeling their smooth coldness, stilling my mind, opening it, and suddenly a pebble tingled against my skin, asking to be picked out. I grasped and withdrew it, my eyes shut. Twice more I repeated the process, and then I opened my eyes and cast the three pebbles onto the small sheepskin I’d laid out. The first stone: fertility. The desire to be wanted. I looked at the sick girl beside me. She looked anything but fertile. As usual, the runes made no sense to me.

I looked at the second stone: the power that is difficult to master. Was that a message to me? I thought of the power of the runes, which I could never read. The power of the medicines and plants I carried with me, but found so difficult to use; to judge which would be most effective and what dose to give.

I was useless: a fraud. I should apologize, get up and leave. I couldn’t even read the runes, how could I cure anyone? How could I be so bad at this when my mother had spent so many years teaching me?

Leola groaned and curled into a ball. It looked as if she had some kind of belly cramp. I panicked. Was she going to die, right now? I had to do something.

I looked at the third pebble. I’d picked the empty rune; the hardest of all to read. Everything and nothing. The turning point. Emptiness.

How could emptiness, fertility, and sickness go together?

I closed my eyes, trying desperately to still my mind, and held my amulet tightly. ‘Freya, guide me, help me see the truth,’ I prayed under my breath. Suddenly, it all snapped into place in my mind with an almost frightening clarity. Leola
had
been fertile. She had been with child. But now there was emptiness. She’d lost it.

‘You’ve miscarried,’ I said abruptly. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘No, no,’ whispered Leola. ‘That’s not possible. I’m not married.’

I thought of Hild at home, and disregarded her words. In any case, I was a farmer’s daughter. I wasn’t so stupid as to think babies only came when you were married. But there was a missing link. Something I still didn’t know. I looked back at the second rune, searching for its message, and this time it came to me: the power that’s difficult to control. I’d been on the right track after all, but the message wasn’t about me. Leola had taken some medicine or poison.

‘You took some potion to get rid of it. Didn’t you? That’s what I can smell and that’s what’s made you so ill.’ It all made sense to me now. I could hardly believe it. For a moment I didn’t dwell on the fact that I still might not be able to cure Leola, but was simply intoxicated that the goddess had spoken to me at last. Then a dreadful thought struck me.

‘It wasn’t Leif’s baby, was it?’

The claw-like fingers grasped my wrist again. ‘NO! Don’t tell,’ she whispered frantically. ‘I don’t know how you know about the baby, but you mustn’t tell. Swear it!’

‘Of course I won’t,’ I said. ‘I promise you.’

‘Swear it on your heathen goddess. She’s the one who betrayed me to you!’

‘Healers never tell the secrets of those they treat,’ I said, for a moment feeling like a fraud again. ‘But if it will comfort you, I swear on the goddess Eir, not to tell.’

The girl fell back on her sleeping furs, exhausted and out of breath after her outburst. She began to weep in a quiet, desperate way.

‘If I’m to help you, you need to tell me what you took to kill the baby,’ I told her.

‘I don’t know what it was. My maid bought it for me at the market. From someone who didn’t know us. An old woman.’ She paused to sob helplessly again.

‘Did you lose much blood?’ I asked.

‘Some, but not much worse than the usual monthly courses,’ said the girl through her tears.

It seemed her distress, held in until now by fear of what she’d done to herself, had completely overcome her.

I’d never seen a case like this. Where I lived, babies came when they would and if a couple weren’t married before, they married when they knew. In our small community, babies were welcomed as a blessing.

‘Listen,’ I told her, shaking her gently. ‘It’s difficult to treat you without knowing what you took. But I’ll do my best. All right? I’ll give you some medicines that will act to purify your body of the poison you took. And tonics, to help you get strong again. You must drink lots too, that’s important. I’ll make up some angelica tea. And you should eat berries. Do you understand?’ Leola nodded, but didn’t stop crying.

I got up and went to find her maid who was hovering outside the room.

‘What was it?’ I asked sternly. ‘Rue? Yarrow? Juniper?’

The maid looked at the ground, her cheeks flushing. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.

‘You shouldn’t give your mistress unknown substances,’ I scolded. ‘You could have killed her. I’ll bring some medicine. Meanwhile keep her warm and try to get her to stop crying.’

The maid nodded and then hurried to the door to let me out. I was proud of myself as I stepped out into the sunshine of the street. I’d diagnosed a patient, despite being lied to. Completely by myself. The runes had responded to my touch for the first time and the goddess had guided me. Whether I could cure her was another matter.

Leif was waiting for me outside the door. ‘Will she be all right? What’s wrong with her?’ he asked as soon as he saw me.

‘She’s very sick,’ I said, remembering my promise to Leola. ‘She thinks it’s a curse. I believe she’s inadvertently taken something poisonous.’

Leif gasped with shock. ‘Can you help her?’