Sigrun's Secret (15 page)

‘She needs clothes of her own though,’ Leif said with a grin. ‘Yours are too big for her.’

I spent the next two days quietly indoors with Maria, trying not to let my fears about my brother overpower me. We sewed a new kirtle that fitted Maria properly, and made up my own overdress from the blue silk father had bought me. I cut a leftover scrap into the shape of a flower and stitched it to the front of Maria’s new kirtle.

‘This is a sign that you’re a freed woman,’ I explained to her. ‘You’re no longer a slave. Do you understand?’

Maria looked at me, but gave no sign of understanding. I took her hands in mine.

‘I free you,’ I said again, slowly and carefully. ‘I’d like you to stay here and be my friend, if you’re willing.’

Maria looked down, and a little colour crept into her face and neck, but I still wasn’t sure if she understood.

We laid out my new herbs and medicinal plants, tying the ones that needed drying into bundles and fastening them to the rafters. I chatted to Maria, relieved to have companionship through the long, lonely days. She seemed to listen although she didn’t reply. Sometimes she looked intently at me, or frowned. Once she smiled. I was especially glad of Maria’s company as Leif was mainly out, busy in the city. Erik didn’t come back and I began to worry about him.

I longed constantly for father to return, but when I finally heard the longed-for sounds of his arrival above stairs several days later, I froze, feeling dread gather in me like ice. How would I break the news? Father swept into the room, ruddy and wind-blown from days at sea, Thrang close behind him.

‘Well, Sigrun!’ exclaimed my father cheerfully. ‘We concluded Thrang’s business well, and brought him back a richer man.’ He embraced me, lifting me right off my feet and holding me close. I smelled sea and fresh air on his tunic. ‘How did you manage in our absence?’ he asked.

‘I have bad news,’ I said abruptly.

My father paled at once. ‘From home?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘It’s not mother. But Asgrim has left, and taken the ship.’

‘What?’ My father’s voice was thunderous. His rage grew as I related the tale. His words of fury were interrupted by Thrang who was listening quietly from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Have you checked the store?’ he asked.

‘Store?’ I turned to him, confused. He was looking very serious.

‘Surely not,’ said my father in a voice that wasn’t quite his own.

‘Sigrun, did you and Leif leave the house unattended at any time before he left?’ asked Thrang.

‘No, I … ’ I remembered the trip to the market. ‘Yes, we did.’

Thrang had already crossed the room and was dragging a pile of furs from one corner, levering up a trapdoor that had been concealed under them. He grasped a taper, lit it at the fire and descended a short ladder into the space under the floor. When he emerged again, his face was sober.

‘Well?’ demanded father harshly.

‘My goods are still there,’ said Thrang heavily. ‘Yours are gone.’

‘Even the chest?’ asked father.

‘Even the chest,’ confirmed Thrang.

I remembered my father’s money chest and Asgrim’s greed as he’d looked at it.

‘It was hidden down there?’ I asked. My hands were as cold as ice, and I didn’t feel steady on my feet. ‘That was the work you did before you went away?’

Before father could reply, we heard the door opening upstairs and the heavy tread of many footsteps overhead. Thrang slammed down the trapdoor and pulled the rugs across it. ‘That’s our crew coming for a meal,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk more of this later.’

Unn had so much work to do preparing food for so many that she let Maria and me lay bread, meat, and fruit on the tables upstairs and pour the ale. I worked in a daze, unable to think straight. The men had been at sea for days. They were in high spirits, knowing they were about to be paid, and ate and drank heartily, filling the room with their loud, cheerful voices. Only my father sat shocked and silent, hardly touching either food or drink. When the crew had gone at last, I sat down beside him, put my arms around him and leaned my head against his shoulder.

‘What was in the store, father?’ I asked him softly.

‘Everything of value,’ said my father with a groan. ‘Money, calfskins, wool; everything I was going to trade. Thrang offered it to me as a place of safe-keeping. I couldn’t leave goods of such value aboard ship. We entrusted the secret only to Asgrim, who helped us carry everything here.’

The true depth of my brother’s betrayal struck me. He’d knowingly robbed us of everything we had, leaving us not only stranded here, but penniless too. How would we live? ‘Have we nothing left?’ I asked.

My father pulled a purse from his tunic. ‘This is full. But it’s all I have.’

‘Oh, and I stupidly spent money on medicines,’ I said. ‘If only I hadn’t!’

My father waved that aside. ‘It was only a small sum,’ he said.

‘And there’s an extra mouth to feed,’ I confessed. ‘Father, I haven’t introduced you to Maria yet.’ Nervously, I beckoned Maria forward, and she came to stand shyly in front of us. ‘She was being badly treated,’ I explained awkwardly. ‘So Leif paid for her, and I’ve freed her. I hope … that’s … that you don’t mind … ’ Of course my father wouldn’t be angry with me. But it was such a bad time to include an extra person in our household. My father’s courtesy didn’t fail him for a second. He held out his hand to Maria, and she tentatively put her own into it.

‘Welcome, Maria,’ father said gravely. ‘I hope you’ll be happy with us, and I’m sorry that you’ve caught us at such a bad moment.’

Maria nodded and then retreated hastily to the fireside.

‘Don’t despair, my friend,’ said Thrang. ‘This is a misfortune, indeed, and that headstrong lad of yours needs a whipping, but you’re among friends. You won’t starve. My home is your home, for as long as you need it.’

‘Thank you, Thrang,’ my father replied, his voice heavy. ‘I’m grateful to you. But I don’t choose to be a burden on anyone. I’ve become used to being a man of wealth and standing, you see.’ He gave a short, rueful laugh. ‘And I would prefer to think better of my son than I do right now,’ he added sadly.

‘Father, how will we get home?’ I asked, voicing my main fear.

My father hugged me. ‘I’m afraid that day is a long way off, Sigrun, my dearest,’ he said. ‘Asgrim will surely have returned by then.’

‘If he returns at all,’ I said fearfully. ‘Erik said he hired some desperate men. He’s gone after them.’

‘We must hope he’ll return; that they’ll both return safely,’ said father.

‘And if the worst comes to the worst, we’ll take you home ourselves,’ Thrang promised. ‘I’d love to see Iceland again, and pay my respects to Thora too.’

‘Thank you,’ we both said gratefully. Thrang made the long, arduous, and dangerous journey sound like a short ride to a feast with neighbours. But the offer, generous as it was, didn’t solve how we would get through three long years with no ship and no money.

We were all still sunk in gloom when Leif returned home towards evening. As soon as he’d embraced his father, and welcomed him back, we told him of the robbing of the storeroom. Leif was sympathetic but abstracted, and seemed to have troubles of his own on his mind.

‘Did your business not prosper today?’ I asked him as I brought him ale.

‘What?’ Leif asked. ‘Oh, yes, that went well enough.’

He then sank deep into thought once more, sipping his ale without seeming to taste it. I could sense he was worried. I wondered for a moment if he was thinking about our troubles, but I recalled he’d worn a worried frown when he’d walked into the room. I sat beside Leif at supper and found him an absent-minded host. He broke off mid-conversation and stared into the distance.

‘Is something troubling you?’ I asked him at last.

‘Oh … nothing you need worry about,’ he replied. ‘You have more than enough on your mind.’

‘Leif, you rescued Maria for me, and cared for us both while father was away. I’d like to help,’ I told him. ‘Sometimes just talking about a problem can lighten it.’

Leif sighed. ‘I’m as helpless in this as you are in your troubles,’ he said and rubbed his hand across his face.

‘There’s a young woman I know,’ he said self-consciously. ‘She’s ill.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, my sympathy stirred. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘As to that … I don’t know exactly,’ said Leif. ‘Her maid told me she has a fever and can’t see anyone.’

‘Has she seen … ’ I began tentatively, ‘anyone who can help? A healer?’

‘Yes, the best that Jorvik has to offer. Her uncle is a wealthy man and close to the king himself. She’s in good hands.’

‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘I shall pray to Eir for her too.’

Leif covered my hand briefly with his. ‘Thank you,’ he said softly. ‘And I’m sorry to hear the latest news about your brother. I had no idea that my father had let Bjorn use our secret store. Otherwise I’d have checked sooner.’

‘It would have made no difference,’ I said sadly. ‘It was already too late by then.’

My father and I went for a walk together on the following day. We kept to the quieter streets, avoiding the market stalls.

‘Tell me the story of how you came by Maria,’ he asked. I told him, dwelling on the cruelty of the man on the horse, but omitting mention of my offer to swap my amulet for her.

‘She was being dragged behind a horse, you say?’ my father asked.

‘That’s right. She fell and hurt herself. It was the cruellest thing I’d ever seen.’

‘The first time I saw your mother, she was being dragged along behind a horse,’ said my father.

This brought my head up in shock, to stare at him. ‘No!’ I exclaimed. ‘My
mother
? How could anyone treat her like that?’

‘It’s true,’ father told me. ‘If you think Halfgrim is evil, you wouldn’t want to have met his father. I was being dragged too, and the pace was punishing. I helped Thora up the first time she fell. The second time I couldn’t reach her. That’s how I came to kill the chieftain whose name I stole. I’d already made up my mind to do so when he killed my sister earlier that day.’

I gasped. ‘No,’ I whispered, appalled. ‘Your sister … ?’

‘Yes. She was with child and couldn’t run behind the horse. It was the worst day of my life. Even worse than the day I was first captured. It haunts me still.’

I was dumbfounded. My mind recreated a picture of how it might have been; my mother dragged along the ground, bruised and hurt, my father unable to help, already driven mad with grief for his sister, so full of anger and pain that he was moved to kill. I shuddered. This was a very different view of his motivation. A different story to any I had imagined up to now. It was tragic, honourable, and it moved me deeply.

‘And then you decided to steal the ships?’ I asked hoping he wouldn’t shy away, close up as he had done up to now.

‘That was your mother’s idea. We had King Harald’s army on our heels, pursuing the man I’d killed. Your mother had a vision of us sailing away on the ships, and … er … persuaded me we should take that escape route.’

‘So you ran away together, even though you’d only just met?’ I asked curiously. ‘That must have been so strange.’

‘Very strange. But we were in so much immediate danger that perhaps the strangeness didn’t strike us until later.’

‘Why did you never tell us?’ I asked him. ‘Why keep it such a secret? Told like this, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘Don’t you see? Our safety depended on people believing that Svanson had sailed to Iceland and settled there. Your mother chose a location away from the main trade and travel routes from Norway. We hoped to remain peacefully there, far out of the way of anyone who’d known him. If I’d told the real tale, it might have spread and reached his kin. We especially couldn’t risk you or Asgrim knowing the truth. Children are apt to blurt things out to strangers, no matter how carefully you warn them.’

‘But not now that we’re older,’ I objected. ‘You can trust me now.’

Father nodded and sighed a little. ‘We always meant to,’ he said. ‘But how do you find a good moment to reveal such a secret? We put it off from year to year.’

Father took my hand and drew it through his arm. I leaned on him as we walked. There was a moment’s peace between us as we each thought about what had been said.

‘I think you might have won Asgrim’s loyalty better if you’d taken him into your confidence,’ I said instead. ‘On the journey here, perhaps.’

‘It’s possible,’ my father admitted. ‘But I’m not sure he’d have listened. The temptations of adventure and easy wealth had too strong an appeal to such a hotheaded young man.’

I stayed silent, burning to criticize my brother’s conduct.

‘I don’t know what we can do about the situation he’s left us in,’ said my father. ‘I can accept Thrang’s hospitality; he offers it freely and I, Erik, and the others can work for him. I’ve been generous to him in the past. But we’ll need money living in a city like this. We can’t make a purse last one year, let alone three. It’s troubling me.’

‘Three years here!’ I gave an involuntary groan.

‘Are you very unhappy?’ my father asked. ‘Did I do wrong to bring you with me?’