Sigrun's Secret (27 page)

And then we were slowing, stopping. I was lifted clear of this man’s shoulders by someone else, lifted onto a ship, put down on the deck, and Maria was beside me. I clung to her, glad to be together.

‘Who are they?’ she whispered to me. ‘Is Leif or Thrang?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ I replied.

The ship surged forward on the sand, and we had to grasp the sides to keep our balance. Then we were afloat and moving out to sea with swift, ordered strokes of the many oars. I could see the starlight shining on the water around us. We’d escaped. Had we done right?

There was the click of flint and the flare of a light being struck nearby and a lantern flickered into life. A man stepped forward holding it aloft so that the light fell on our faces. Judging by the smell, it was the man who’d carried me here.

‘You’re not hurt?’ he asked anxiously. I could suddenly sense other feelings besides anxiety in him. I could sense … love. Then the light of the lantern fell onto his face, lighting up his long, fair hair, his blue eyes, the familiar and beloved face and I cried out in joy and astonishment. ‘Ingvar! How … what are you doing here?’

Ingvar passed the lantern to another figure in the darkness and before I knew it, I was in his arms, hugging him, pressing my face into his scratchy, smelly woollen tunic, laughing, crying and asking questions all at once.

‘Is it really you? How can it be you?’ I asked over and over again, hardly able to believe it.

‘Of course it’s me, Sigrun,’ he said, holding me very tight.

‘Maria!’ I cried. ‘It’s Ingvar! All the way from Iceland! We’re safe … we’re really safe!’ I let go of Ingvar and hugged her, pulling her over to meet him. They shook hands, Maria laughing with relief.

‘And here’s Erik,’ said Ingvar. Erik’s familiar figure emerged out of the darkness to embrace me.

‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know how I’d ever be able to go back to Iceland with such dreadful news for your poor mother.’

‘It’s bad enough, even now, isn’t it?’ I said, my delight tempered at once. ‘Father … ’

‘Yes,’ he agreed soberly. ‘It’s very bad.’ Erik turned to hug Maria, and I looked back at Ingvar, hardly able to believe he was really here with us.

‘How do you come to be here?’ I asked wonderingly.

‘I came looking for you,’ he explained.

‘Then you know … ?’

‘About your father? Yes, and I am deeply, deeply sorry. He was a fine man.’

Ingvar fell silent a moment and then spoke again: ‘I set out to warn him that Halfgrim had broken the agreement,’ he said. ‘We heard from neighbours that he’d had word your father was in Jorvik and had set out intending to kill him. So I borrowed my father’s ship and set sail in pursuit. I wanted to warn Bjorn, and fight by his side if necessary. Our ship is faster than Halfgrim’s tub and I hoped to overtake him. But we suffered a broken rudder off the Shetlands and reached Jorvik a day after him. Forgive me.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ I whispered. ‘It’s mine. My mother trusted me to protect him. But I failed.’

‘It’s
not
your fault,’ Ingvar said fiercely. ‘How could it be your fault?’ He drew me aside to a seat at the side of the ship, where we could sit down close together. ‘Don’t ever blame yourself,’ he said. He put his arm around me and I leaned against him, rubbing my cheek against his tunic.

‘Ingvar,’ I said, ‘I don’t mean to complain, but you smell repulsive.’

To my surprise, Ingvar chuckled. ‘That’s a story to chase away these tears,’ he said, gently wiping the wetness from my cheek. ‘The men whose ship was berthed next to Halfgrim’s in Jorvik described his ship to me and told me he was bound for Hedeby. We caught up with you halfway here: you might have seen our ship if you’d looked aft.’

‘Oh, we did!’ I said, remembering. ‘But too far away to recognize the sail. I never dreamed it was you.’

Ingvar’s arms tightened around me, holding me close. ‘We arrived on the beach just after Halfgrim last night,’ he continued. ‘We watched you from the dunes. I saw how jealously he guarded you, how he even dared to sleep with his arm around you, the murdering cur. He didn’t … hurt you, did he?’

‘He didn’t,’ I assured him. ‘But he was going to sell us.
Sell
us, Ingvar!’

‘We feared as much,’ said Ingvar. ‘I stayed in Jorvik only long enough to learn what I needed and arrange everything. Leif helped us discover where Halfgrim had gone and Erik packed up all your things. Three other men of your party were still away with Thrang. I couldn’t wait for them when you were in such danger. I’ve left money for them to pay passage back when they can get one.

‘When we reached this place, I could see how difficult it was going to be to get you away. We were outnumbered, and my men are slaves and farmers not warriors. We couldn’t take you and your friend by force. So we needed a strategy. When I stumbled over a dead sheep in the dunes behind the beach, it gave me the idea.’

‘Dead sheep?’ I asked, bewildered.

‘I decided the best plan would be to sneak you out from under their very noses in the night,’ grinned Ingvar, his teeth gleaming white in the darkness. ‘And to give Halfgrim a more fitting bedfellow in your place.’

‘You didn’t!’ I asked, awed. ‘That wasn’t a dead sheep you put into his arms?’

‘It was. I only wish I could be there to see his fury when he wakes,’ said Ingvar. He threw back his head and laughed; his familiar, merry laugh that always made me smile and I smiled now too, filled with warmth and comfort at the sound of it, and at Ingvar’s nearness.

‘So that’s the terrible smell?’

‘It is. The creature was more rotted than I realized and carrying it was a messy task.’

‘Disgusting!’ I smiled at the image of Halfgrim waking up with a hangover and a rotting sheep in his arms.

‘Where do we go now?’ I asked. ‘Back to Jorvik?’

‘No. Leif promised to bury your father with every honour,’ said Ingvar. ‘It will be done by now.’ He tightened his hold, knowing how distressed I must be. ‘I’m taking you home,’ he whispered. ‘If that’s what you want. Unless there are new ties that bind you more strongly elsewhere?’

I shed tears of relief, tears of longing, because I was so relieved to be safe with him and couldn’t wait to see my mother and my home again.

‘There are
new
ties of friendship,’ I said when I could speak. ‘I’ll be truly sorry not to see Leif and Thrang again. They were very good to us. And poor Leif was only just out of prison. But …
stronger
ties? No.’

I knew what he was asking me, or I hoped I did. I was afraid of saying too much or too little, wondering where we stood with one another after such a long separation.

The ordeal of the past days had left both Maria and me exhausted. Very soon we couldn’t keep our eyes open. Ingvar piled furs onto a sheltered spot of the deck for us and left us to rest while he went to the tiller, choosing to risk sailing on into the darkness to put distance between us and Halfgrim.

The two of us lay down side by side, enjoying the luxury of warm covers in the cold night air.

‘Maria,’ I said, taking her hand in the darkness. ‘I meant to offer you a choice when I finally quitted Jorvik. To accompany me home to Iceland or to stay as a free woman. But I’m afraid there’s no choice now. We’re going home.’

Maria uttered something between a sob and a laugh.

‘I thought we being drowned by Halfgrim, or slaves,’ said Maria. ‘Now we free. I very happy to go to Iceland with you.’

The following days sped by in talk and exchange of news, just as the waves sped past under our keel. The sail was constantly full and there was no need for oars except the one night we stopped at Jarlshof for supplies and shore leave.

I told Ingvar of Asgrim’s treachery, of our winter in Jorvik and the story of Leola’s disappearance. In return he gave me news of my mother and of his own family. ‘She’s as well as can be expected,’ he said. ‘She’s missing you all badly of course.’

After only eight nights we sighted Iceland on the horizon. I stood in the prow gazing on the distant mountains, a mixture of joy and sadness filling me at the sight of my home country. I’d longed all winter to be home again, but had never imagined returning without my father.

We sailed around the easternmost reach of our island, sighting glaciers, countless fjords, and dizzyingly tall, rugged cliffs filled with thousands upon thousands of sea birds, so that it made my mouth water just to look at them.

‘It must be time for guillemot eggs,’ I said to Ingvar, ‘if the birds are here.’ I thought of the delicious blue eggs, collected at great risk from the cliffs in early summer; the first fresh food of the year.

‘Soon,’ said Ingvar with a warm smile. ‘When we get back, I’ll collect some especially for you.’

I felt a jolt of pleasure at his words. ‘Thank you,’ I said. Then I sighed, thinking of my father again. ‘How shall I break the news to mother?’

Ingvar looked at me. ‘Don’t you think Thora already knows?’ he asked quietly.

I realized he was right. The goddess wouldn’t have left her ignorant of such a tragedy. My task would not be to break the news, but to comfort her.

Ingvar was right. When we sailed into the bay some days later, it was a sad group collected at the shore to greet us. My mother stood bowed, red-eyed, her face shadowed with grief. She sought my eye as soon as we were close enough, looking for confirmation of what she’d already seen. As I nodded sadly, she turned and fled, her grief trailing behind her like a dense fog. But even at that moment I noticed that she didn’t limp. Her leg had healed.

I knew it wasn’t lack of love for me that had sent her running away instead of staying to greet me. It was simple, overwhelming grief for my father, who had been everything to her. She kept to her room, and I felt her distress and despair. She wouldn’t come to the door no matter how much I knocked and called to her, and she wouldn’t take any food or drink.

Helgi and Bera came to visit, and hugged me tightly, offering words of comfort. They welcomed Maria to Iceland, treating her with great kindness. And they made no secret of their relief at having Ingvar restored safely to them.

‘How long has mother been like this?’ I asked Bera. ‘She looks very thin.’

Bera hesitated. ‘For many days,’ she said. ‘Since she saw the vision of your father’s death. She took some courage from the fact that she foresaw Bjorn’s death once before, and he didn’t die. But now there’s no hope.’

‘I’m frightened for her,’ I said. ‘She loved my father so much.’

‘I know,’ said Bera. ‘But she’ll be glad to have you back, Sigrun. She loves you too.’

On the second evening after my return, I told the sad tale of my father’s death to the whole household and to many of Helgi’s. I wanted to tell it well; to honour his bravery and fearlessness. I kept my voice steady throughout, though I shed tears as I described his final moments. I wasn’t the only one to weep. As I finished speaking, I saw my mother had come out of her room and was standing quietly by the door, listening to me with tears running down her face.

I got up shakily and went to her, and she folded me in her arms. We stood together for a long, long time and I knew at last that I had truly come home, and that I was loved.

‘Take comfort, Thora. And Sigrun,’ said Helgi to us at last, coming over, and laying a hand on each of us. ‘Bjorn died honourably and is now drinking mead and feasting in Odin’s hall with the other warriors.’

I caught my mother’s eye and knew we were both thinking the same thing. Would he be comfortable in Valhalla? Father had never seen himself as a warrior, though he had been forced to make his end as one.

There was a commotion before rising time the next morning. I heard the hammering on the door and loud voices and was wide awake instantly, my mouth dry and my heart pounding with fear. Had Halfgrim pursued us to Iceland already? Were we under attack again?

I’d scrambled into my clothes and was halfway down the ladder before the other women in the sleeping loft had even finished rubbing their eyes and yawning. Bera and my mother stood by the remains of last night’s fire. Mother was tousled with sleep, dark shadows under her eyes.