Hush: An Irish Princess' Tale (23 page)

A gift for a
þræll?
Something has changed.

He takes my hand and pulls me over to the casket. I stare down at the loot. Delicate gold chains and bracelets. Engraved silver cups and bowls. Dazzling jeweled books. Anyone could recognize the superior Irish craftsmanship. I don’t want stolen jewelry. I turn away.

Hoskuld catches my elbow and swings me back around. “Is my bold Beauty actually being shy?” He holds up a brooch of twisting gold threads. “This would be a fine choice.” He goes to pin it to the shoulder of my dress. I wrench myself free and back away. Hoskuld’s eyes cloud with confusion. But he doesn’t press me further.

“Come take care of these,” he calls to a woman
þræll
“Separate out the jewelry.”

She carefully wraps the treasures in softened leather, packing the jewelry back in the casket and everything else away in a barrel.

Hoskuld puts his arm around my waist. “Your dress
is bloody from that Irish whore. I heard how she hit you. And then you went right on and helped take care of the injured. You surprise me. You’re a strong one. A worthy one.” He looks down at me with pride in the set of his jaw.

I want not to care. But it feels so strange to be praised, so strange and good, even if the words are Hoskuld’s.

“Don’t you worry about her.” Hoskuld brushes his lips over my ear. “I’ll sell her to the biggest lout in Iceland. She’ll pay for what she did to you.”

The poor Irish woman. I look toward the mast. She’s still tied there. And a man stands beside her, talking. He’s a priest! My hand reaches toward him involuntarily.

“Surprised, are you?” Hoskuld pulls back and smiles. “Ransom for holy men is the highest. I hope this cleric is an important one, my Beauty, my worthy
þræll.”

I walk away from him and stand at port side, staring at the distant coast of Eire. My mind plays over the brooch I refused. That’s how this all began—with my looking at a brooch in a silversmith’s while my poor brother Nuada became a Viking’s victim. A circle closes around me, locking me in place. I feel like I cannot move. What’s happening to me?

I’m so tired. It’s as though I haven’t slept
ó Samhain co Imbolc—
from the beginning off all to the beginning of spring. I hold on to the rail for support.

We sail the rest of the day and I nap on and off. At one point I wake to see Torild kneeling over my patient. She unwinds his bandage. I go kneel beside hen

“You do it,” says the sick man in a feeble whisper. He flicks a finger toward me. “Please. You”

Torild pays him no attention. She leans over his wound and sniffs loudly.

“You,” manages the sick man. “You promised.” A tear rolls down the crease across his temple into his hair.

I don’t understand anything that’s happening.

Onion,” declares Torild. “The wound stinks of onion. His bowels are perforated”

The man stares at me with the bluest eyes. I take his hand. If Torild is going to sew his bowels, I’ll help.

Torild turns her head to Hoskuld, who’s been watching from the side, along with several other free men. Hoskuld comes over and goes down on one knee beside her. “A wound like this poisons from within,” says Torild.

“Ragnar is a good man, a good companion,” says Hoskuld.

The man called Ragnar squeezes my hand.

“He will suffer unrelenting pain,” says Torild.

Hoskuld drops his head. His chin falls on his chest. His eyes close.

“His screams will shake the faith of everyone who hears them,” says Torild. “And then he will die anyway.”

Hoskuld stands and walks to his companions. They move as a unit to the other side of the deck.

Torild takes out a pair of gold earrings from a chest. She slaps my hand away from Ragnar’s with a
tsk.
She puts the earrings on him and bows her head. “Accept this payment for his entrance to the afterlife,” she mutters. “Please.”

“Please,” echoes Ragnar, but those eyes are on me, blue ice in his sweaty face.

Two
þrælar
lift him with one swift motion and swing him over the side. I clap my hand over my mouth to hold in the scream.

That’s what he meant.

Now he’s gone, drowned at sea.

And after I promised.

How many people have I failed? This will be the last time, I swear to myself.

The sails are lowered and all three ships are tied together again. We’ve near a small, rocky beach. It’s late afternoon. The raven cage is uncovered, so I know we’re not raiding. The birds screamed for a while, then finally calmed down.

The three
þrælar
closest to me talk in hushed tones. They disagree over what the burial of my patient would have been like if we’d been back in the north country.

“He would have been placed in the stern of a boat loaded with food, drink, his horse, his dog, his most prized possessions.” The man looks around, then whispers, “Even
þræll
or two. The ship would have been set afire and let loose to sail down a river out to sea.”

“Never,” says another. “He wasn’t rich and important enough for that.”

“Right,” says a third. “If he was that rich, he’d never have agreed to go to such an isolated and distant settlement as Iceland.”

“Hoskuld is going to Iceland,” says the first, “and he’s
both rich and important.” He rubs his chest in satisfaction at his argument.

The other two go quiet and look distant for a moment.

“Well, he wouldn’t be burned, anyway,” says the second man finally. “He’d have been buried in blue clay, covered with stones.”

“And perhaps,” adds the third man, “perhaps inside that grave he’d be in a small boat with some jewelry.”

I’m fascinated. The rites of these people are so strange. And I’m surprised that a burial at sea should be so different from their normal burials. But this wasn’t a burial: Ragnar wasn’t dead yet; he was disposed of, as though he didn’t exist. Hoskuld was trying to protect morale, but how can a secret do that when everyone knows it and everyone pretends not to?

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Hoskuld and his companions—the other free men on this journey—gathering at the prow of our ship. Something’s about to happen.

I leave the
þrælar
and move as close to those men as I can without making it obvious that I’m eavesdropping.

The priest’s hands are tied behind his back. I learn they’re going to exchange him for the ransom on this isolated beach. Apparently a Viking arranged this with another priest, who is to bring lots of silver. All this negotiation in the middle of a raid.

Two weeks ago I would have shaken my head in disbelief at such action. But I know a little bit about Hoskuld by this point. If I assume all Vikings are like Hoskuld, then I can understand what this other man did now. Vikings may act like they’ve lost their minds, but it’s false. They’ve always got an eye on business, even when they’re attacking like maniacs.

“Take me, too,” screams the Irish woman. She’s still in the sheep pit, tied to the mast, but she’s standing tall and her voice is strong. “I’m rich. I’m the niece of a king. I’m worth a ransom.” She can’t have heard what they’re saying from where she is. And she doesn’t understand Norse anyway, I’m sure. But she’s figured out what’s going on.

She’s smart.

Hoskuld looks at her. Does he understand Gaelic? He walks over and questions her in Norse.

“You stupid Viking!” screams the woman. “Don’t you even know the Gaelic word for ransom? What about
rí tuaithe—
tribal king—do you know that? What words do you know?
Dàn—
gift—you idiot. My father will give you a gift for me.
Dàn dàn dàn.”

Hoskuld hits her in the side of the head so hard, I wonder if she’ll go deaf. I jerk back and choke in a yelp.

“Don’t you go feeling pity again,” he says, looking at me. “She’s a vixen. Vicious.”

He didn’t understand her words. He doesn’t speak Gaelic But he understood her tone. He knew he was being insulted. Maybe she’s not that smart.

Hoskuld climbs out of the sheep pit and produces a thin rope. “I’m going ashore again.” He comes at me, then he stops, and with his eyes fastened on mine, he drops the rope. “You can do more good with your hands free, Beauty. Besides, you’ll be under watchful eyes.” He jerks his head toward a man who’s clearly standing guard. “I won’t be long.” He leaves me with a kiss.

Hoskuld and a group of three companions take up swords and shields. They disappear on the shore with the hostage priest. While they’re gone, a man tells stories—this time about Thor. But I’m too sleepy to listen. I sink to my haunches and doze off.

“Sister.” The word is in Gaelic. I open my eyes to see a young man jump into the sheep pit. At first I’m so groggy from sleep, I think he’s talking to me. My Nuada. But then I see he has two hands.

I stand and look around. The ships are sailing under first moonlight. I slept a long time.

The Irish woman stares at the new man. “Findan!
You didn’t let them take you captive, did you?”

“They’re no better than savages. Father heard the priest was being ransomed here, so he sent me with a ransom for you. Instead, they took the money and me .”

“Is every man on Earth a complete dunce?” The Irish woman curses, with words that I’ve never heard from a woman’s mouth before. “Rabbit eaters. You let rabbit eaters catch you.”

“So did you,” says the man, Findan. But he sounds more frustrated than angry.

We Irish don’t eat rabbit. But, like this woman, I’ve heard that Vikings do, though I haven’t seen it yet.

Findan puts his head in his hands and sways on his feet. For a moment I think he’ll fall under the sheep and get stepped on. Instead he climbs out of the pit and sits on the deck not far from me.

I wonder why his hands aren’t tied. Does Hoskuld think he’s such a fool he wouldn’t have the sense to try to escape? The man sighs loudly. I think he’s crying. Maybe Hoskuld is right that he’s worthless.

Young
þrælar
hand out dinner. One of them gives me a slab of beef jerky and an apple. It’s late to be eating, and I find I’m ravenous. I seek out a second apple and eat it, core and all. I chew on the meat like a wild thing, and energy comes. I find I’m actually jumpy.

Hoskuld squats in a circle with his companions. They’re arguing, I wander closer.

“It was wrong to take that Irish man—that Findan—when he came only to bargain. We’ll regret it.”

“That’s true. If word gets around, everyone will be afraid we Vikings won’t keep our part of deals. No one will pay us ransoms anymore”

Hoskuld pounds his fist on the deck. Capturing Findan was his idea, clearly. “That Findan has no brains. Who will care if he’s gone?” But, despite his fist-banging, his objection lacks force. He knows he’s made a mistake. And the others know he knows it. They’re quiet for a moment.

Finally someone says, “Findan must be released. Where’s the best place to dump him?”

“And not just him,” chimes in someone else, “the woman, too. She’ll never be of use to anyone.”

“Tir Chonaill. It’s not far. We can get rid of the two of them easy. I’ll take care of everything.”

I go back to sitting on the deck near the Irish man. Findan. I watch his sister. I won’t fall asleep now. I will fend off the weariness that waits beside me like a hungry dog.

“Pull in near those rocks,” someone says. It’s darker now. It must be close to midnight.

“Can you swim?” one of Hoskuld’s companions asks Findan. He’s the one who said he’d take care of everything.

Findan doesn’t answer.

“Irish don’t swim any better than Norse do,” says another man. “We have to set them on the shore.”

All three ships lower their sail. Then ours rows ahead. I stand up so I can see. That’s my home out there, my Eire. Yet I have no plan. I feel suspended in time.

And now we’re beside the rock. The ravens set up their clamor anew.

“Get off,” shouts the man who spoke to Findan before.

“Not without my sister,” shouts back Findan, in passable Norse.

“She’s coming. And good riddance to her.”

I watch as another man jumps into the sheep pit to untie the woman.

Hoskuld comes to stand beside me. He puts an arm around my waist and says in my ear, “You’re worth ten Irish women, even royalty like her.”

I look into his eyes. Hoskuld is the most powerful chieftain of Iceland—he could change the whole way people do things in the new settlement, the whole way they think about slavery. If he wanted to. He turns his back and looks out over the water. But I keep my eye on Findan’s sister.

The woman is free. She races through the sheep, leaps onto the deck, and rams right into me. Again! Head first, smack in the middle of my chest. I’m flat on my back, breathless.

Hoskuld swirls around. “You vile vixen!” He picks up the Irish woman from behind.

“Did you think I didn’t see you?” she screams at me in Gaelic, kicking and thrashing. “You and your sneaky eyes. You were up to something. Well, you can’t hurt us now, filthy pig.” And Hoskuld hurls her over the side.

I lie here looking up at stars, amazed at everything. And I sob, silently.

What are all these tears about? I cried after we stole those children. Cried and cried. I’m on the verge of crying all the time these days. And I hate crying. I have no respect for adults who cry. I’m stronger than that. I’m the one who helped Torild.