Far After Gold (12 page)

“I hide here sometimes,” he said. “When I don’t want anyone to find me. Even the dogs couldn’t get in if I blocked the door.”

Grendel’s head was warm and smooth under her palm as he nestled against her. She looked down. “But you wouldn’t keep him out, would you?”

He ruffled the fur around the dog’s throat. “No, I mean the hounds. If they ever sent them out to look for me, I’d hide in here and block the door.”

“Hounds? Oli, you don’t mean they hunt people with hounds, do you?”

“Sometimes they do. A man stole something once, and they chased him with hounds. I never saw him again.” He looked at her and opened his eyes as wide as they would go. “The dogs had blood on their muzzles when they came back.”

“Oli!”

The boy giggled and laughed, and Emer managed a weak smile. “I see,” she nodded. “You have just made a joke of me.” Privately she thought it was just as well she hadn’t taken one of the broken combs from Katla’s room after all.

Chapter Seven

Oli and Emer slipped back into the steading without attracting attention, and Emer noticed a lot of activity on the wooden jetty. Oli saw it too, and gazed so intently at the line of young men unloading small boats that he tripped over his own feet. “Why don’t you go down and see what’s happening?” Emer suggested.

With a swift grin, he skipped happily down to the waterfront with Grendel racing at his side, and the young men welcomed him with breathless good humour. Emer paused and watched him, wondering what the future held for the self-reliant lad. Perhaps he had already navigated the years when he most needed parents. In many ways, he reminded her of her brother Donald at that age, and she suspected it would not be long before Oli started dreaming of sailing with Flane and Skuli Grey Cloak.

Emer went quietly unto the dimness of the hall and was much relieved to find it almost empty. She sat well back in the corner of Flane’s sleeping space and hoped no one would find her there, for she had nowhere else to go. She hated not having anywhere of her own. If she rattled the curtain across her bed space at home and flung herself onto her heather mattress for an hour, she could be certain of privacy. Here there was none, and the lack made her fretful.

She frowned. A half-formed idea had been simmering in her mind all through the morning, and at last she could concentrate on it. If Flane abandoned their bargain, which she suspected he might, she needed a plan. Not only was life as a slave unthinkable, but she doubted she would survive it.

She was probably better off dead than someone’s slave. She scowled down at her intertwined fingers, and decided she must somehow find her way to the other settlement and beg to be taken to Skye. Once there, she would find her aunt, who would send for Father and he would take her back home. The memory of her one and only meeting with Aunt Ailis was so faint that she had no memory of her aunt’s appearance, but she had no doubts that she would be accepted as family.

The slap of bare feet on the packed earth made her look up. A ragged urchin appeared at the corner of her bed space. “The lady Katla wants you,” he said breathlessly. “You are to follow me.”

Anxiety surged through Emer. She heaved a deep sigh, and did not move at once. The boy was perhaps six years old and his tunic, patched and no doubt handed down from an older brother, was several sizes too large for him. When she finally got to her feet, relief filled his face.

She followed him across the grass toward one of several small cabins that dotted the grass between the hall, the byre and the duck pond. Built of wood and wattle, they reminded Emer of a round duck-house with a conical roof. The child halted before the most dilapidated, and pointed. Emer sighed, moved to the four steps leading down into the hovel, ducked her head and looked inside.

There was no window, and the dank odour made her nose curl.

Dug out of the ground to a depth of three feet, and with wood and daub walls built above, the earthen floor was damp. The sleeping benches, slotted into the curve of the wall, were nothing more than benches with a straw mattress on top. Worn blankets lay on each bench.

Katla stood to one side of the central hearth, her arms folded. Her long blue gown was the only bright thing in the room.

Emer offered a tentative smile. Whatever she faced now, she guessed it would not be pleasant.

“This is where you will sleep,” Katla announced. “It is not seemly that you share Flane’s sleeping space.”

Dismay filled Emer. She glanced around, and saw that the hut was shabbier than the one she had slept in last night, and that had been bad enough. A wooden beaker and a couple of clay cups stood beside the cold ash of the central hearth.

“Am I to sleep here alone?”

Katla emitted a snort of unladylike laughter. “Did you imagine I would give you a private place to meet Flane? Two female slaves already share this hut.”

A shiver of distaste ran through Emer. Annoyed by the gloating triumph in Katla’s face, Emer tossed her hair back and looked the other girl straight in the eye. “You should not do this. I am as well born as you.”

“Nevertheless, you are a slave now.” Katla’s gloating expression revealed how much she was enjoying Emer’s distress.

Since Flane had bought and paid for her, Emer could not refute the statement. “Then I must ensure that my master agrees with you.” Hopefully, Flane would disagree. “We spoke earlier of my aunt on Skye,” she said. “If you could tell me of a ship—”

Katla shook her head. “There are no ships available.”

“Perhaps in a day or two—”

Katla shook her head. “Perhaps. But meanwhile you cannot stay with Flane. It is I who will marry Flane Ketilsson, not you.”

Stung by the implicit accusation, Emer said, “Believe me; I have no wish to marry him. I stay with Flane only because—”

“Because you want him!”

“It is he who wants me,” Emer said flatly. “It was
his
desire that prompted him to buy me in Dublin. My wishes had nothing to do with it. I stay with him only because I need his protection in this steading.”

Katla smirked. “No one will harm you here unless you are disobedient.”

“Already a man called Gamel threatens me.”

Katla shrugged that aside. “If you work hard and earn your keep here, no one will hurt you. But if you refuse, then you will be punished.”

Emer held on to her temper, hoping she could to persuade this woman to help her escape. “If I stay here,” she said quietly, “you will never be free of me. Would it not be preferable to let me go?”

Katla made a gesture of dismissal. “If you displease me, I shall sell you to any man who will buy you. There is always Gamel. Perhaps he will take you.”

Emer felt sick and screwed her fingers together to stop them shaking. “What have I done that you should treat me so callously?”

Katla considered her. “You have tried to take Flane from me, and I cannot allow it.”

Emer sighed. “I tell you again, on my hope of Heaven, that I don’t want Flane.”

“It matters little what you want,” Katla said. “Once Flane and I are wed, I will have the running of his household in my hands, and I will dispose of you as I wish.”

A numbing cold gripped Emer. The fleeting thought that she ought to ingratiate herself with Flane popped into her head, for he was the only person who could stop Katla carrying out her threats.

“I might ask when a longship will go to Skye,” Katla added with a malicious smile, “and get rid of you that way. Or I might choose to earn good silver by selling you to a passing trader. But as long as you are in this steading, you must work for your food.”

Emer could think of nothing to say. Her anger had gone, and left her feeling sick with despair. Flane was her only hope in this situation.

***

When Emer sat down to eat that evening, her fingers were sore from pushing a bone needle through fabric. All that afternoon she had stitched linen according to Katla’s instructions, even though she had confessed that sewing had never been one of her skills. The stitches came up uneven no matter how hard she tried, and she could never keep to a straight line. It had taken her two hours to stitch a hem. The moment Katla saw it, she ordered her to rip out the stitches.

Emer had never faced another woman’s jealousy. Here, in her father’s steading, Katla had the power to make Emer’s life a misery, and was exercising it. There were no weapons Emer could use in retaliation, and worst of all, she realised she had been naïve in thinking Katla would send her back to Pabaigh. The woman would simply sell her to a passing ship.

Emer broke her bread with trembling fingers, soaked up the juices and headed for the hall door the moment her platter was empty.

Flane caught her wrist as she passed by him. “Where are you going?”

“Katla has ordered me to sleep in a slave hut this evening. She does not like me sharing your bed space.”

He groaned, shut his eyes and pointed to the stool she had just vacated. “Sit. Katla cannot tell you what to do.”

She looked at him uncertainly. “But….”

“I will deal with Katla.”

He spoke firmly, and there was no doubt in his voice. Emer glanced over his shoulder, caught Katla’s furious glare and hastily got up again.

His palm on her arm stopped her. “Wait; listen to me. There are things you should know.”

Emer sank back to the stool one more, her hands curled into fists. Her skin rippled and shivered at the thought of all Katla’s hostility behind her.

Flane realised people listened to their conversation, and grasped her arm. “Come with me.”

He led her across the hall, pointed to his bed space and waited until Emer perched on the edge of his mattress. He frowned and stared at his nails, as if sorting words and phrases in his mind.

Emer waited anxiously.

He cleared his throat, kept his gaze on his nails, and spoke so softly Emer had to lean close to catch the words. “My parents died when I was Oli’s age.” He flicked a swift glance at her. “I was luckier than Oli, because my father and Skuli Grey Cloak were good friends. Skuli took me in and treated me as one of his family, and for that I owe him a great debt.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot, and finally looked her directly in the eye. “He longed for a son to follow him as chief of the steading, and I’m the nearest thing he has to a son. He hoped his daughter would agree to marry Snorri Longnose, but she wants to marry me. So to please Skuli, I have agreed to marry her.”

“Yes, I know. She told me.”

Flane’s jaws flexed and relaxed. “She tells everyone I agreed to marry her!” He slammed one clenched fist into the other palm so suddenly that Emer shrank back from him. “But by Thor! I’ve regretted it ever since, but how can I go back on my word? I feel obligated even though I know Skuli favours Snorri Longnose. It is only because Katla insists on me that Skuli agrees to it. Things were already complicated before ever I found you, but you have made the problem ten times worse.”

Emer caught her breath, intending to point out that it had been his decision to bring her from Dublin, but already he was speaking again.

“Marriage to her will bring me a great many good things. Gold, for a start, and a man will travel far after gold, as I’m sure you know. I would gain the leadership of this steading, and above all I will have a home and family of my own…all the things I lost when I was twelve years old.”

“Oh.” An image of Flane, long-legged and stick-thin, flashed across Emer’s thoughts. No wonder he looked after Oli. He knew exactly how the boy felt. The despair and loneliness she had felt these last few days was something Flane and Oli had known for years, always looking in, hoping for the warm acceptance she had lived with as her birthright. Emer swallowed around the lump that formed in her throat, and blinked more than once. Weeping over hurts long passed would be silly now.

“In a little while, once she and I are married, everything will become easier.” He eyed her carefully, as if checking her response. “Katla must defer to me then, and she will have to accept you.”

Emer shook her head in denial. “I disagree—”

“I want you as my bed slave,” he said sharply, cutting across her words. “She will accept you, because I wish it. There will be a place for you in my life. What’s the matter?”

Emer had tipped her head back and closed her eyes in rejection. At his question, she opened them and gazed at him. “If you think the prospect of life as your bed slave thrills me, I have to tell you it does not.”

“There’ll be no objection from anyone.” Impatience coloured his words.

Emer stabbed herself in the chest so hard it hurt. “
I
object, you selfish man! I am a free woman of my people, not your slave!”

If she’d spoken in a foreign language, he could not have looked more puzzled. “I paid good silver for you at Dublin. That makes you my slave.”

“But I should never have been there!” Pride and the injustice of it all lifted her to her feet to face him. “Do you think that bedding two women in the same household will bring a peaceful existence? She hates me already, and that will only get worse. She’ll fight me in every underhand way she can and you probably won’t even notice. Our children will be taking pot shots at each other with toy bows and arrows, and that’s if she doesn’t stab me one dark night before I have time to produce a child. It’ll be that, or she’ll poison me,” she added recklessly.

“She wouldn’t dare—”

“Of course she will. Every time you’re out of sight, she’ll attack me over some trivial thing.”

“Then she will be punished.”

“You won’t even know what she’s done unless I tell you. She won’t fight me like men would, out in the open for all to see. She’ll do it when you’re out hunting—”

“You have a fine imagination,” he scoffed.

“And you don’t know much about women!”

He gritted his teeth and glared at her for several moments. “You,” he said at last, “can go back to the slave market!”

“Well, isn’t that typical! Everyone has to warp their lives out of shape just so you can live yours the way you want it, Flane Ketilsson! What a hero you are!”