The following day the wind was moving round into the north, and heavy cloud was scudding low across the sky, driving squalls of sleet before it. The cold was bitter. But still the weather favoured us, for once we had clawed enough searoom from the wicked coast, we found we could hold a course for wrath ness. That night, again, we laid afloat in a little voe beyond wrath, where the coast turns southward; and on the evening of the fourth day, Lochlann brought us out of a rising gale into a quiet bay with bothies about it, and a larger huddle of buildings on the hill beyond.
Another woman came to the gate. She too was dressed in plain grey homespun, but she wore a small gold cross on a chain about her neck. She was almost as tall as me, and pale haired. In the plain, shapeless clothes and veil it was hard to guess her age, but I thought her young, not greatly older than myself. She moved with great dignity. When she saw Lochlann, her face went stiff, and she said, sharply: "What do you want with us?"
"I crave shelter, Lady, for two women who are without home or protection in the world. For a short time only; for I go to seek a place where we can settle."
"Are they your women, then?"
Lochlann looked at me, the eyebrow over his one eye cocked. I answered: "I am his woman, but Anna is not."
Anna said nothing, but looked, I thought, rather frightened. The woman did not look at us, but straight at Lochlann. Her face was still tight and hard.
"Why should I take in your women?"
"Lady, I know of know reason, but ask you of your goodness and charity. You know that I have nowhere to take them, and the winter is upon us."
She looked at him, and time passed. Lochlann looked down, very humbly for him, and waited. Finally she looked at us.
"Are you with child, girl?"
I was surprised at the question -- "I don't think so..."
"But yet you may be; and this is the night when we are tasked to mind the white christ's mother, Mareidh, who was turned out into the cold of winter. No, I will not turn you away, although you be kin of the sea wolf. But as for you --" she turned back to Lochlann -- "the stable where the beasts lie will serve fitly for you. Come, women."
And she turned, and lead us in through the door. I would not have followed but that Lochlann pushed me, saying -- "Go! I will be back before the moon is full."
I stumbled up the step. As I turned to say goodbye to him, the other woman shut and barred the heavy door behind us. The woman with the cross said to her, "Show them rooms where they may lodge"; and she replied, "yes, Holy mother."
We followed her to a low building which we found was divided into little hut places, each with just space for a bedplace, a stool, and a small fire. Some of these were empty, Anna and I were each shown one. The woman pointed out where the wash place was, and the latrines. She showed us where meals would be served, and told us how we would be called by the ringing of the bell. She showed us also where the chapel was, but that was not needful for the sound of chanting that came from it had already told us. Indeed in the two weeks I was there, that chapel was rarely quiet, with chanting, or singing, or the bells -- there was one day, the day of the yule feast, when they sang and rang the bell without cease from the time the sun rose behind the mountains until it had sunk into the sea -- or muttering of prayers or reading.
In the huts, the bedplaces were made up with good springy heather, and thick warm plaids. But I longed for the bearskin I had left on the boat, and feared the nights would be cold. There were peats stacked beside the fireplace, but I had not seen folk burn peat before, so I didn't realise what these were for. I feared we would be cold.
A long time now passed before the bell rang for the night meal. Anna and I sat in one of the hutplaces. No-one came near us. We didn't speak much. Finally, as the sky darkened, the bell rang, and we saw folk walking across the green to the eating hall.
We found the meal little less lonely. The woman with the cross sat at the head of the table, where the head man would usually sit; many other women, in similar grey clothes, sat around her. We were set at the far end of the table, with the few men who were there. The folk all spoke the Gaelic, which I didn't then understand. But anyway they didn't speak much. Once we had been served -- with a plain mutton stew that was mostly barley -- one of the women started to read from a book. Everyone else was quiet and listened, although the reading was in yet another language I didn't understand. I could see that Anna did understand this a bit, though, and she started to look more cheerful.
After the meal, the folk got up, took their bowls to a trough and washed them, stacked them on a shelf, and went out without much talk. No-one spoke to us. About half of them went back to the chapel, and started singing again; the other half went straight to their little huts. There being nothing else to do, I did the same.
Our stay at the place of the white christ's women went on as it had begun. Although the folk could understand what I said to them, and were not hostile, yet they were never friendly. They spent their time between their tasks and their chapel. They gave us nothing to do. After a time, Anna started to go into the chapel, to listen to the reading and the singing. She found one or two of the younger women who would speak to her in the book language, and I saw less of her. I spent most of my days, when the weather was fine, sitting on a high point of the wall looking out over the sea; or if it was foul, huddled alone over the peat fire in my hut.
Only once in that time did one of them put herself out to talk to me. About the third day we were there, the woman with the cross came and joined me on the wall.
"You are looking for the sea wolf?"
The distaste in her voice was plain to hear.
"I am... will you tell me why he was not welcome to you?"
She looked out over the cold, grey sea, to where the dark shadows of the out islands stalked through the wind-driven scud.
"It is of his doing that I am caught here, bride to the white christ, that should have been mother of kings."
I think that she did not see the white filigree on the wavebacks, nor the grey fulmars whirling through the wind. I listened, and waited. A flurry of sleet bade us pull our hoods close around our faces.
"There has always been raiding down the length of this coast. You bloody lochlannaich strike where you will and take what you like, and we are too scattered to stand against you. So the king my father thought to buy us peace as the Sassenaich do. We are not rich in gold as they are, for your folk have already taken it, but we have men. So the King my father agreed with a King of the Lochlannaich that the host would go oversea, to help him convert the Pagans and devil worshippers among his folk; and my brothers would go as hostages for the treaty; and that in the winter when the host returned, they would bring two sons of the King of the Lochlannaich as our hostages. But at the time I am telling you of the host was gone, and the hostages were not returned.
"Because that there was the treaty, that there should be no raiding, and because that the host was gone, we had few guards about my father's summer place that year, and them mostly old or too young to weild a sword. He came, your sea wolf, in the dark before the dawn one summer's night, and he the son of the King my father was gone to fight for. And I was dragged from my bed into my father's hall to find all the women there, and all our men slain. They had taken down the great hanging from behind my father's chair, and they were piling everything of value onto it."
The whirling white crosses of two gannets swept swiftly through the gathering murk, bright against the grey. She did not watch them, her eyes caught with her fingers playing in the chain that held that other cross, bright against the grey of her gown.
"I was wearing the shift I slept in, as most of the women were; and he came up to me, your sea wolf, and told me to take it off -- right there, in front of all his men, and all my maidens and the women of the household. So I slapped him across the face. And then he turned to two of my maidens who stood by, and he said to them that they were to hold me, and that if they let me go he would have each of his men have each of them in turn, right there in front of everyone. So they held me, of course. And he cut off my shift with his dirk and used me across my father's dining table, with everyone watching, and his men making lewd jokes. And when he had shamed me for ever in the face of my folk, he left off.
"Then he said to my women, that any who now would not strip would suffer the same way; and so my women stripped. And then he went round and inspected each one. And those that were so young their maidenhair was not yet grown, he let go, all unclothed, saying to them to run till they could run no more. Then his men went round among the women, and, with many course jokes, each picked one; and he himself picked several more. Those who were picked they herded down to the door end of the hall, so that I was left among the old and the plain looking. Then they tied the women they had chosen into a line, and some of them took up my father's mead jars, and others took up the hanging with the treasure, and they walked off down the hall. And then, just as he was going out, as if it were an afterthought, he turned back to me and beckoned."
Now her eyes were up, looking out over the sea: but I think she did not even see that the murk now hid it. She was not looking at the wildness of the night, but of a different wildness of a very different night, and her eyes were bleak.
"And I went... and I went, naked as I was, though I was not bound as the others were, though I could have run at any time. They led us down to the harbour, where he had two very great ships that were already heavy laden in the water; and by now the dawn was breaking. There being no wind, and there being not enough men to man all the oars, we were set down to row, naked as we were, while those men that were not rowing with us laughed mightily at our efforts. Those who had been left behind to guard the ships argued over who should have which of the extra women, and the others lewdly discussed the merits of their own choices. A wind came out of the southwest, and we sailed north among the islands, till about the middle of the day they put into a quiet bay and beached the ships.
"And there they roasted some of my father's beasts that they had brought, and broke open the mead jars. Some few of them stayed on the ships and stayed sober, and he was one of those. So that I was kept on the ship, and was not molested then. But on the shore, each of them was having his chosen woman after his own fashion. And they were laying bets with each other -- as to who could keep going the longest, and who could find the strangest way, and who could do the most women in succession. I was shamed in that the women did not fight, but just submitted, although I still wake sweating when I remember some of the things I saw done to them.
"Towards evening, when the men were mostly satiated with food and drink and what they had done, your sea wolf called out that there would be a wrestling competition for all those women on the shore, and that the two victors would go free. So the men marked out a wrestling ground on the beach, and paired up the women two by two, and the fighting began. The men enjoyed this hugely, and yelled, and cheered, and betted among themselves, while the women wrestled and fought and injured each other.
"And finally there were two women left only who were unbeaten, and the wolf would have freed them. But I had not fought; so I said to the wolf, let me fight those women, both of them together, so that if I win all the women will go free. And he said so be it, but that if I won the women that were now to be freed would not be. And he explained this to them, and they were angry with me, saying that I would take their freedom from them; and then we fought, and they beat me easily, although they were tired and I was fresh. The men thought this a great joke. They herded the women aboard, all but the two who had fought me, and came aboard themselves, and we sailed off north in the dusk.
"Then he did to me fully what men do to women, in a little bed place that he had under the steering deck, so that at least we were not seen. And he slept, peaceful as a babe, while I wept for my shame. On the following day we sailed on north, and those that had been boatguard the previous day had sport of their women. Later in the day he had me again; and when he was done, he went out from under the deck where I lay in his blankets, leaving his belt with his sword on it behind him. So I took up the sword and went out from under the deck to kill myself upon it -- look --"
And, turning her back on the steading, she opened her mantle, undid her girdle and lifted her gown right up, so that I could see her left breast was seamed and puckered with scarring --
"But he saw me, and took the sword from me, and hurled it as far as he could into the sea; and on his face was as black and bitter a rage as I have ever seen. But he lifted me gently, and tended my wounds with his own hands, and dressed me in his own sark so that I was not naked; and he set one of my cousins to care for me. We sailed on for the rest of that day, till we came to port at evening in the north isles. And every so often he would duck in to see me, talking tenderly to me and courteously to my cousin; but out on the deck I could see his men walking warily for fear of him, and all the women were clad in one thing or another, and that they were sitting together by the mast foot, undisturbed.
"That evening we lay in an anchorage in the north isles, and the wolf came to me, and spoke softly with me, and he asked me how the world could be safe for women to live in, as they say it was once in England, before the coming of the Lochlannaich. And I said that if all folk would be baptised for the Christ, then that would be the way. But he said to me, look at the folk who have joined the Christfolk, they are no better than any others, and some of them are worse. And I was silent, for that is true. And then he said, but your Christ is for peace, is he not? And I said that that was true.
"And he said to me, if you pray to your Christ for peace, will that bring peace to the world: and I said very surely that it would, although I was not so sure, inside. Then he said, quite suddenly, as if it had burst out of him, that if I would go into the church, and pray for peace to the end of my days, he would let my women go. So I said again to him, let you be baptised, that would do more to bring peace. But he would not, saying that there were no gods for peace or goodness, or if there ever had been, they were now dead; and so I agreed to what he had said."
By now it was greasy dark, with thin rain leaking out of it. I could see her only as a lump of black against the black, and a thin voice soft against the soft thin voice of the sea on the rocks far on the ness. Still she went on, uncaring of the dark and the wet and the cold that stole through our clothes.
"Later that evening I saw him speaking with one of his men that was called Trigvi, and some others; and later he went ashore. And in the morning all the women were made to get into an old ship that he had bought there, which was barely fit for the sea, and I was made to go with them. Then the wolf came, and took the helm of the old ship, and told us to row it, for there were no other men on that ship but him. And when the women said they would not, he said that if they would row he would take us home. So we rowed; and, since that there were more of us than were needed for that old ship, we took turns to it, and went well. The wolf's two great fine ships followed us, and it was well they did, for there were plenty of other war chiefs in that anchorage that would have liked well to come after a shipload of women. But being that they were heavy loaded, and had not full crews, and the wind was against for all it was light, they fell behind, and at last, in the afternoon, when they were very far behind, we saw them raise their sails and go off northward.
"The wolf bid us row on through the night, resting when we were not rowing. In the dark of the night we came passed Wrath Ness and took the ship south across the wind, and then we all rested, while he still steered. In the afternoon we came to the point there; and he showed us this place, saying that it had once been a great church, and perhaps there might still be a Christman to be found here, and that we should row into the bay. We went to take down the sails, as he said to, and I think that those of us that were not working the ship were still looking to the land: so that we did not see him go when he left the ship, only that his mantle was left on the deck where he had been. But we were further from the land than I thought a man could swim, so that for months I believed that he was drowned, and knew not whether to rejoice or grieve. Yet I came into the church as I had said to him -- and so also did some others that were with me -- and we have prayed for peace. And also, we praised God for our deliverance, and gave thanks for the passing of the wolf; and I have even prayed for his soul, in the days we believed him dead. Yet it was he destroyed my home, and killed many of my folk, and did much harm to the women of us; and when word came to my father when that he was still in the land of the Lochlannaich of what had passed, my father turned against their king, and there was much slaying among the men of the houshold so that there was not many of them came back. And that is to his blame too, so that I cannot forgive him for it."
It was in the tired yellow light of a dying day that Lochlann's boat returned, sliding across the long west wind to the ness, and then tacking up the pewter voe like a bat among moths, to settle, wings furling, on the black and white sand of the beach. Just as the watery sun was dipping into the sea, I saw his tall figure detach itself from the greater mass of the boat, and drag itself with halting steps up the shadowed meadow. I ran to the hutplace to pack my bundle, and then to the gate lodge. As I came there, I met the woman who warded the gate coming away.
"Where is Lochlann?"
I asked: she stared at me coldly, and said something harsh and forceful in the Gaelic, stepped past me as though I were diseased, and walked off into the gloom. I ran to the gate, but found it fastened by a lock, so that I could not open it. I turned, and ran back to the church. Within, the woman with the cross was reading from a book, while others listened. I knelt at her feet -- which is a thing I am not given to doing -- and said -- "Lochlann is here, but the gate is barred and I cannot go to him.... "
She did not show by the least gesture that she had heard me, but went on reading the strange words from the book, so that it might have been rooks chattering on their nests for all the sense that was in it. At last she was finished. I said again, still kneeling on the cold, stone flags -- "Mother, Lochlann is here..."
"Be silent! do not interrupt the worship of the Lord!"
I knelt, and waited, while they chanted and sang, and night wrapped her black mantle closer and closer round the place. At last they were finished, and started to file out into the night.
"Mother --" I said again -- "Lochlann is here. Please let the gate be opened so that I may go to him."
She walked by me, not looking at me -- "It is not our practise to open our gates between the setting and rising of the sun." Another voice came out from among the women, and in the language of the North, so that I knew that I was meant to hear it -- "and we'll not change our practise just because the sea-wolf's bitch is on heat!"
The drop from the wall into the ditch was about two man heights, and the bottom was rough. In the dark there was nothing to see, but I chose a place where I thought I remembered some scrub in the ditch, and fell into a bramble thicket, so that I had no worse than scratches.
Lochlann sat hunched by a small fire of driftwood, in a sort of half cave where the sand had fallen away from under the turf. He looked more tired and unhappy than I had ever seen him. Kep -- Kep had gone with Lochlann, on the boat -- Kep announced me by leaping up and barking as at a stranger; or perhaps not, for that dog was ever too timid to bark at strangers. So that I was distracted patting the dog, and it was some moments before I realised that Lochlann had made no move. When I greeted him out of the dark, he scrambled awkwardly to his feet, and stood, facing me, looking both miserable and wary, as if he was hurt and feared to be hurt again. I smiled all the brightness of my love for him, full in his face, and went and laid my hands on his shoulders. After a moment he crumpled to his knees, faced pressed into my belly, and wept like a small child.
When, after a little time, he was done, I took him into the back of the half cave and me into his arms, and cried a little myself.
"They said you did not wish to come out to me. They said that when they had told you of my past, you had said that you would not see me, nor give me any word. They said you had chosen to be a bride of the christ. Ah, Kirsten -- " He buried his face again in my shoulder, and spoke mumblingly through my hair -- "Was that true, or will you come away with me?"
"Of course I will come, Lochlann. I will always come with you."
Now he sat up, holding my shoulders and looking hard into my eyes -- "but they did tell you?"
"She told me. It hurts me how much she hates you. Lochlann"
I locked my arms over his, so that he could not pull away --
"She is not the only one, is she, that you have forced?"
He laughed, an awful, bitter, hard-sounding mockery of a laugh, turning his head away so that I could not see his face.
"Ah, Kirsten, in all my days you are the only woman who has made me welcome of her body freely... No, she is not the only one."
"How many, Lochlann?
Still he would not meet my eyes. "I must tell you?"
"I will not leave you, loved one, but nevertheless you must tell me."
The little fire was burning down to embers. He took a hand from my shoulder for a moment to put more sticks on it from a pile he'd made to hand; and when he had built it to his satisfaction, went on staring into it.
"There were two Sami bedslaves that my father gave to me when first I was old enough to mount a woman. Then there was Sigrid, who was daughter of one of my father's jarls. She was strong and beautiful and courageous, so that when I look at you I am minded of her."
Now his face came back to mine, and it was the face that looks on death. His voice was the colour of old ashes.
"There came a feud between her folk and mine, so that my first battle was against them, when I was fifteen summers. And on the night after the battle, I was with the mob that took their steading. I saw a girl running off into the trees, and thought it was Sigi, so I chased. But when I caught the girl, I found it was not Sigi, but a cousin of hers of some twelve or thirteen summers. But -- I was hot with the fighting, and the chase, and with the relief of being alive. And she was young and pretty, and yet a maid, and had on only a thin shift -- for it was a hot night -- and even that I had torn half in two in catching her. So I forced her anyway. And by the time I had done that, and got back to the stead, the men had done with Sigi, and when they had done with her they had opening her belly with their swords, as the custom is, so that I was there only in time to hold her as she died. So I killed the cousin..."
I sat filled with a whirl of conflicting thoughts, but his distress cut through my horror and revulsion and fear -- his grief was so twisted and blocked -- so that I tried to pull him towards me to hold him. But he held me off, saying "no! If I am to tell, let me tell...."
But he paused, staring out through the dark to where the long swell hushed on the skerries.
"After that there were more skirmishes that year, and a few more women, and them I slew because that they were not Sigrid. But that winter I was sickened, and would not lie with any woman, not even my Sami. And the next summer, I was careful always to be somewhere else when there were women taken. Of course, there were girls among our own folk with whom I might have lain, but always I saw Sigi and did not.
"The next year was peaceful, so that the matter did not arise, and in the year after that, when we had a small war with the Danes, I had my own ships crew. I forbad them killing of woman -- and bairns also -- for which I was not well thought of among them, and they would not have followed me but for the respect that they had for my father. But when the plunder was divided, the women that fell to me, if they had powerful relatives living I freed them, and if they had not, I sold them. And when the men saw that they started to say that I was longsighted, not soft, and things went better for me.
"But at the tail end of the fighting, there was a woman who was just a bed-slave that some Danish merchant had had out of Eire, a fine looking red-haired woman a few years past my own age; and her name was Catriona. When she was brought to me, and I said that I would sell her, she leaped at me with her cloak pin trying to kill me. And in the struggle, I became aroused, and I forced her, and it was good for me. So I took her home to my bed that winter. And I grew to be fond of her, because she was beautiful and courageous. But she would not submit to lie with me, saying that she was bound to the white christ; and when I had come to know and like her I could no longer force her. So for a time she slept in the slave quarters.
"Then I was mocked, and she was troubled by others who would lie with her, and so she returned to my bed on my promise not to touch her. And so that winter was all that I had known of the love of a woman, before I had met you. But although she was tender with me, and I greatly desired her, she would never consent to me fucking her, so that it was not a happy experience for me. Yet I think she was well pleased when she discovered she was with child by me. And when the spring came again, and I prepared to go a-viking into Russ, I freed her, and gave her a farm close to Altborg, where she lives yet, with our son, whom she has called Gillechrist. I've offered to take her back to Eire since, but she would not go.
"Then, in Russ, we took thirty slav girls to trade in Miklagard, although we never got them there. And where a good merchant keeps his wares fresh for the market, I tried them all on the long trip down the Volga. And there was a Turkic girl I had when we raided a village for food; and much later there was another, who was daughter of a merchant who tried to double-cross us; him we killed, but her I kept for several months, and her I did sell in Miklagard. And in between there were a group of woman of Ch'in, who were whores in a town there; but they would not take our money, saying we were too big and ugly and ill-smelling for them. So we had them without paying, and I had two or three of them. And when we were coming back across the middle sea, we took a ship on which there was an arab nobleman and his family; and I had one of his daughters, and her I kept for three months, and came to like her as a person; so that when we came to Andeluz, where she had relatives, she asked that I allow them to ransom her, but I freed her instead. And then there was Mareidh, whom you have met up the hill there; and that is all, save you.
The light of the fire was dying away, so that it was hard to see him, tucked in under the bank as we were there; but his stillness had a rigidity which was frightening. His head was up, and it seemed to me that he was gazing out into a darkness that held all the evil of the world. I was frightened, not that he would hurt me, but that he had gone too far, and that I could not reach him. I sat, watching him, not knowing what to do, feeling lost and alone... And then I must have slept, for next thing it was morning, pearly grey light tearing through drifting veils of mist; and I was once again lying snug in the great blue mantle.
Copyright © Simon Brooke
1992-1996
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