Sigrun's Secret (8 page)

We reached the beach and crunched across the shingle down to the water’s edge. Ingvar took me by the waist and lifted me onto the ship where my father pulled me into a bear hug.

‘Sigrun, thank the gods you’re safe,’ he said, holding me close.

I hugged him tightly, dry-eyed and shocked. There was movement behind me and I realized we were making ready to cast off.

‘Where are we going? What about mother?’ I asked, horrified.

‘She can’t travel, Sigrun,’ said my father, avoiding my eyes. ‘And someone must mind the farm while we’re gone.’

His voice was more choked up than I’d ever heard it.

‘But … I haven’t said goodbye. Gone where?’ I asked. ‘And why? What in Freya’s name is happening?’

Father let go of me and moved abruptly away to take an oar. ‘I’ll tell you everything, Sigrun,’ he said. ‘But not now.’

I looked back to land, my home, which I’d never once left. Ingvar was standing just behind me and took my hand as I gazed out across the beloved green and brown slopes and the snow-capped mountains behind. It was impossible to take in that I was leaving them. I held Ingvar’s hand tightly; it was the one fixed point in my whole world. The ropes had been cast off now and we were moving away from the beach out into the bay. The ship surged slightly as it moved out into deeper water.

‘You’re coming with us?’ I asked Ingvar, bemused. ‘I don’t even know where we’re going.’

Ingvar shook his head sadly. ‘Alas, no, I can’t go with you. Bjorn’s only taking me across the bay to Ulf and Olvir, so I can tell them what’s happened and beg their help. Father wouldn’t give me permission to go further. He says he needs every hand now to get the harvest in. Yours as well as ours. And your household will need guarding too.’

‘Guarding? Is there is still danger? Then why are we leaving? I don’t understand.’

Ingvar’s hand tightened reassuringly on mine. ‘I don’t think there’s great danger. But Halfgrim has settled only a few days’ ride along the coast, near where the market is held, and may take it into his head to cause more trouble. But your father and brother were his main targets, and they are safely away now.’

‘My mother,’ I said unsteadily, fighting to control the tears that threatened to escape. ‘What if he attacks her? How can we be sure she’ll be safe?’

‘It wouldn’t be honourable to attack a woman,’ said Ingvar, his mouth set in a hard line. ‘I promise you, Sigrun, I’ll watch over her. For your sake.’

I looked up at him, and met his earnest blue eyes. ‘I swear it to you,’ he said.

My shyness, forgotten in all the fear and confusion, returned suddenly, and I dropped my gaze feeling the colour rise in my cheeks. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered.

Ingvar led me to the side of the ship, and drew me onto a bench near the prow of the boat where we were more private. Most of those on board were rowing and had their backs to us.

‘You’re going away from here for a while,’ Ingvar explained. ‘I have a farewell gift for you.’ He smiled, looking a little embarrassed. ‘I got it in Ireland and meant to give it to you before, but somehow there hasn’t been an opportunity.’ Reaching inside his tunic, he pulled out a piece of worked silver that was tied on to a long thin band of leather. He held it out to show me, and there, resting in the palm of his hand, was an amulet in the shape of a horse. It looked very old and very precious.

‘The horse, for power and strength,’ he explained. ‘It’s very ancient and I’m told it has magical properties.’

I reached out and touched it lightly as it lay in his palm, feeling the grooves of the engravings. ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said reverently.

‘I also chose it to remind you of all the work we’ve done together over the last few years,’ said Ingvar. ‘All those horses we’ve gentled. May I?’

So saying he reached out and put the amulet over my head. The leather became caught on my long hair, and he lifted it out of the way, allowing the necklace to settle around my neck. His hands lingered on my hair, stroking it gently back from my face. I could feel myself blushing.

To hide my embarrassment, I looked down at the silver horse that lay against the plain fabric of my kirtle, glinting in the sun. ‘Thank you,’ I said softly.

‘I’ve been waiting for the right moment to give it to you,’ said Ingvar. ‘Wear it and don’t forget me while you’re away.’

‘I’ll wear it always,’ I assured him earnestly. ‘And I couldn’t possibly forget you. Must I really leave? I don’t want to.’

‘Your father needs you,’ said Ingvar. He slid his arms around me, pulled me close to him, and kissed me on the lips. The kiss left me startled and breathless. New feelings rushed through me: tenderness, affection, excitement. I understood for the first time how deeply I cared for Ingvar and it seemed he must care for me too, to give me such a precious gift and to kiss me in that way.

As I realized the state of my heart, the world seemed to rock slightly. Or was it just the motion of the boat? I didn’t think so. It was a momentous realization which changed everything, and I wondered at myself for not having recognized it before. Strangest of all, I could
feel
Ingvar’s tenderness towards me almost as if it was my own. I was confused for a moment. But then Ingvar was speaking again: ‘Three years is a long time. I hardly dare ask you to wait so long for me.’

‘Three
years
?’ I exclaimed, startled. ‘No!’

‘I’m so sorry. That’s how long Bjorn has sworn to stay away from Iceland,’ said Ingvar. ‘And now we’re almost at Ulf’s, and I must leave you.’

‘Wait!’ I cried, holding his hand tight. ‘Three
years
? Won’t I see you again? Why does father have to stay away? Is it true what Halfgrim said about him?’

Ingvar silenced me with another kiss. We embraced, holding each other tight, and I breathed in his scent of leather, wool, and sun-warmed skin, trying to hold it fast in my mind. I could sense sadness from outside myself, and somehow knew it was Ingvar’s grief at parting, which was as deep as my own.

Ingvar let me go. He stood, raised his hand briefly to my father at the other end of the ship, and then jumped off the side onto the rocks at the edge of the bay. I watched him run up the first few roughly-hewn steps leading to Ulf’s house on the barren mountainside that rose sheer out of the sea. Our ship manoeuvred back away from the shore, and headed out into the bay again, this time towards the open sea. Ingvar turned and stood waving to me. I waved back frantically, leaning over the side of the ship. His words went through my mind again and I realized he’d been asking for a promise.

‘I’ll wait for you,’ I called to him. The wind whipped my words away, and I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me over the surging of the sea against the rocks.

We rounded the watery foot of the next mountain and Ingvar was lost to sight. I sank back onto the narrow wooden bench feeling more alone than I’d ever felt before.

How could I exist away from my home for three long years? That was the anguished question that occupied my thoughts as the ship slid out of the huge bay into the open sea, tiny and unstable in such a vast expanse of unruly water. How could I bear to be parted from Ingvar for so long? And from my mother? In three years’ time I would be
old
; I would be eighteen winters. I tried to imagine spending such a stretch of time away from my home, amongst strangers, and I couldn’t. I touched the horse amulet, remembering how Ingvar had kissed me and felt my heart quicken. For some reason I couldn’t explain to myself, I tucked the amulet inside my kirtle. It was Ingvar’s gift to me, and I didn’t want anyone else to see it.

I looked at my father and brother who were busy setting the huge sail. What did they feel about this exile? The answer came to me with unsettling clarity. My father was in a state of shock and grief and my brother was furious. How did I know that with such certainty?

I’d never sensed anyone’s mood before this. My mother had tried to teach me to read auras, but I’d never become adept at it. I struggled to even see them unless I concentrated hard, and their swirls of colours were an impossible language. But this … Where had it come from? What had changed in me? My thoughts turned to the amulet. Ingvar had said it had powers.

I looked around the ship and focused on the different men on board. To my amazement, I could sense fear, dread, anger, excitement all around me. Erik and Geirmund were distressed about leaving their loved ones; the other men were excited at the prospect of travel. In a rush, I turned back the way we had come, reaching out to see if I could feel Ingvar’s mood again, as I had earlier, longing to sense him one more time, but there was only emptiness there. Perhaps we were already too far away.

I knew my mother would scorn the notion that the amulet could bring me new abilities. She had no time for magic, believing it was used too often instead of sound medicines and good nursing. All gifts came straight from the gods, she said. But I wondered … I decided I had done right to hide the amulet. It would be my secret.

My thoughts were distracted from my new-found ability by my father’s voice calling me. I went to him, unsteady on the heaving deck that seemed in one moment to drop away beneath my feet and at another to rise up hard to meet them, making me stagger.

‘Sigrun,’ father said, ‘I’m putting you in charge of the food stores. Will you familiarize yourself with what we have brought, and be in charge of handing out rations twice a day, please.’

It was an order not a request. To my dismay, I realized I was the only female on board. ‘Father,’ I said. He was already walking away from me, but he paused. ‘Please, father,’ I said. ‘Why are we leaving? Where are we going?’

‘Not now, Sigrun,’ said my father firmly.

I soon learned that one day at sea is very much like another: too many waves, too much wind, and too vast an expanse of salt water for comfort. The only variation was in whether we were scorched by the sun or drenched by rain. Neither was pleasant. And all the time, the relentless never-ending motion of the ship in the swell.

I prepared and served the food, endured the cold and the rain, and watched my father. He stayed busy and as far away from me as the small space on the boat would allow, avoiding my eyes. At night he wrapped himself in his cloak and in his misery and pretended to sleep. There was so much I wanted to ask him, but he didn’t give me the chance. Whenever I tried, he turned abruptly away from me. I felt hurt and shut out, and wished he could share his unhappiness with me.

My brother was surly and bad-tempered. He spoke to me roughly, finding fault with the food and with the strength of the ale. Eventually I gave up trying to speak to either of them. I wrapped myself in my own thoughts and watched the coast of Iceland slip by. Tall rocky cliffs and headlands filled with bird colonies gave way occasionally to bays and beaches. At times, expanses of farmland or pasture, and the occasional longhouse, were visible from the ship; at others the land seemed hostile and forbidding. I realized this must be the route my parents had taken as settlers almost twenty years before, and I wondered what they had made of it all that time ago. I wondered yet again if it was true that my father had killed and stolen to get the ship. I wished with all my heart he’d explain it to me.

When we put the last southern headland to our stern and headed out into the open sea, I felt a wrench in my heart. This was the final farewell, the absolute parting from my home. There was no turning back now.

We sailed southwards for days on a vast, empty grey sea, the ship rolling and plunging in the heavy swell.

‘Land! Land!’ shouted Erik in great excitement one morning, from his lookout in the prow.

‘The Faeroe Islands,’ cried Asgrim. ‘Can we make a stop?’

My father stood silently on deck, watching as the single mountain resolved into a green island, rising steeply from the water. The island became a cluster as we drew closer, each one green in the damp air, clouds hanging low over them. Abruptly my father shook his head. ‘We don’t stop,’ he said curtly. There was an outcry.

‘We need water,’ I said timidly, adding my voice to the others.

‘We don’t stop,’ Bjorn repeated angrily. ‘We’ll take on fresh water at the Shetlands.’ So saying, he went aft, took over the tiller and steered the boat well clear of the islands.

We were all disappointed, but it was so unusual to hear my father raise his voice in anger that no one protested aloud. Asgrim flung himself onto a bench beside me, however, and began muttering angry complaints under his breath.

‘As if it’s not bad enough that he drags us with him into this disgrace,’ he complained, ‘he has to throw his weight around and forbid us shore leave as well. We could have lit a fire and roasted some meat tonight.’ Asgrim glanced at me from under frowning brows: ‘Have you tried asking him what we’re doing here?’ he asked. I could feel anger and resentment rolling off him in waves.

I shook my head. ‘He won’t talk to me,’ I said sadly.

‘He hasn’t spoken to either of us,’ Asgrim continued, his voice rising. ‘We don’t have a clue where we’re going, or even why. He’s treating us like slaves who have to obey orders.’