Avalon (34 page)

Probably five months gone then, Merewyn thought, feeling helpless. "Well," she said, "you must lie down. I'm sure of that. Into the straw with you!"

She helped Brigid up the ladder which led to the loft above

the loom room where the woman slept, and she took Orm with her since he must at this age be kept an eye on.

Brigid subsided at once, her moans lessened. She went to sleep.

Merewyn returned to the Hall, poked up the fire, filled the cauldron with good smoked lamb and water, then sat down to nurse Orm. While he tugged at her breasts, she had anxious thoughts, and she said a prayer for Brigid, the first prayer she had said in ages. She had not lost her faith exactly; it was there underneath, but it was hard to remember private observances when there was no church to go to, and both Sigurd and Ketil thought Christianity negligible, fit only for silly women — not worth talking about.

But she was concerned for Brigid. She knew that a baby bom before its time meant danger, and she wished very much that there were someone to send for Asgerd, her mother-in-law, who lived ten miles away on the White River with her sister.

She went up to look at Brigid, who was sweating and groaning now, though still half asleep, and there was blood on the straw. "Holy Blessed Virgin," Merewyn whispered. "From thy great mercy, help this poor woman. Or tell me, Lady, how to help her."

When she came down again, Ketil was back, and cross at first because the lamb was not ready. She explained, and he shrugged.

"If the babe comes Hving, it must be exposed, of course, for it will be no good to us. On the other hand, it'd be a pity to lose even so stupid a thrall as I have given you."

Brigid had been part of Merewyn's dowry from her father.

"Exposed," repeated Merewyn faintly. This custom of leaving unwanted babies on a hillside until nature dispatched them was one she had heard of with a trembling revulsion.

"However," said Ketil, munching on a slab of dried codfish, "Asgerd's skill might save the mother, and I shall take two horses and fetch her."

"Thank you. Father," said Merewyn gravely.

Ketdl returned with Asgerd when the May night sun had lowered behind the Hafnarfell mountains, but there was still light. By this time Merewyn was frantic. She had locked Orm into the bed-closet; told him to behave himself and go to sleep. She had raced up and down to the loft, bringing their precious mead for Brigid to drink, bringing hot cloths to put on the convulsed belly, turning under the fouled bedstraw.

She was so much reUeved to see her mother-in-law that she kissed her on the cheek. Asgerd looked amused. "Well, well —" she said. "What a to-do about a lewd thrall! You should have always locked her bed loft every night and kept the key. However, I suppose I must see how matters are going." She calmly ate some boiled smoked lamb, which was now cooked, drank mead, and hoisted herself up to the loft, grunting a bit, for she was portly.

Merewyn followed with a whale-oil lamp, and watched as her mother-in-law examined Brigid first on the belly and then inside.

Soon Brigid gave a screech, followed by a long sigh.

"Hold the hght closer," said Asgerd to Merewyn. "Ah, there it is, and you'll not have to expose it for it's already dead. Only a girl, anyway. Now I shall try to save your thrall. She has lost much blood."

"She might die?" Merewyn whispered. When Asgerd nodded, Merewyn tried desperately to think of Christian prayers for the dying. Those that the priest and Bishop Ethelwold had used for Merwinna. She made the sign of the cross and did her best. Brigid seemed not to listen. Certainly Asgerd did not. She watched her patient carefully, and when the tiny afterbirth slithered out, she grabbed for Brigid's now flaccid belly, and squeezed hard on the womb beneath the flesh.

An hour passed. Asgerd gave Merewyn various orders — a stool to raise the woman's hips — hot water to cleanse her — more mead to strengthen her. Get rid of that unfinished infant. Bury it in the midden pile. All those orders Merewyn obeyed, and said a prayer for the scarce-formed little creature she buried.

It would go into limbo, had it been a Christian, wouldn't it? Yet it had never breathed, nor been baptized. Where then would it go? She did not know, but when Asgerd finally came down into the Hall, saying "I think she'll do now, but that woman is not rightly made to bear children, and I think her —" she darted a cold look at Ketil, who was sipping from his drinking horn and waiting to be fed, "a very poor thrall to be the chief part of a dowry."

Whereupon Merewyn burst into tears.

Both Ketil and Asgerd stared at her. "Thunders of Thor!" cried Ketil waving his knife with a hunk of smoked lamb on it. "What ails you, dottir? The wench is saved, and though I think Asgerd's remark discourteous, we must remember that she has put herself out considerably to be of help — and we thank her."

"I know," said Merewyn, wiping her eyes on her cloak. " 'Tis not that. At least..." She trailed off, unable to explain how the many differences between this home and England had suddenly overwhelmed her. And that if Brigid had died — she knew no sure means of easing, either physically or spiritually, the passing of the poor thing. "I wish Sigurd was here," she said very low.

Asgerd gave a reluctant chuckle, and winked at Ketil. The two were for once united in a common thought. Unreason; tears; longings for a husband who was only on a few days' trip; young wives acted this way when they were breeding. At least daft, half-foreign and base-bom wives might, thought Asgerd with sudden anger, which she did not see as jealousy. She had accepted Merewyn, she could even admit that the girl had a certain comeliness — if one liked dark red hair and freckles and those greenish eyes — but she would never understand why Sigurd had turned down many a handsome, well-dowered maiden in the district for this one.

"I expect," said Asgerd pursing her mouth, "that you have some place prepared where I may sleep the rest of the night?"

"Oh, to be sure," said Merewyn flushing. Hospitality was the

first law, but she had forgotten everything in the turmoil of Brigid's phght. "I must warm the eiderdowns." She ran to the other bed-closet — the one for guests. It, like her own, like Ketil's, opened off the Hall. The guest closet was dank and chill. The piled eiderdown quilts gave out a musty smell, for Brigid had not aired them in weeks, / should have seen to this, Merewyn thought, conscious of her mother-in-law's disdainful sniff.

While Merewyn hauled the eiderdowns near the fire and spread them on benches, she heard the sound of voices outside, and amongst them unmistakeably Sigurd's.

"Oh, thank you, Blessed Lord," she whispered, and ran to the door. She saw her husband, and their three menservants behind him. Under the silvery midnight sky, Sigurd caught her up in his arms and kissed her many times. "Still not abed, elsknan min?" he asked without surprise. In winter everyone slept a lot — not much in summer. "Have you food for hungry men?"

"I think so." She tried to remember what was left in the cauldron. "Dried fish, and skyr anyway — your mother's here."

"My mother?"

She explained breathlessly, thinking all the time how big and strong, yet tender, Sigurd was, and how his blond hair curled a Uttle over his ears, and that his short beard and mustache smelled of the sea spray, and that they would lie together tonight.

They walked into the Hall, and Sigurd made the proper greetings to Ketil and Asgerd. Then he went to their own bed-closet to see Orm; upon finding him fast asleep, Sigurd did not disturb the little boy. He touched him gently on the head, then shut the door.

WTien he came back, Merewyn had a plateful of food ready for him. The menservants were clustered as usual at the end of the forty-foot Hall, and she fed them too.

"What price for the fleeces?" asked Ketil, as soon as Sigurd had swallowed a few mouthfuls.

The young man sighed. "Not good. Though I finally went

to Reykjavik, but there was a trader in from Norway with a load of live sheep, big fat ones, and that was all anyone wanted much."

"Tcha!" said Ketil, scowling. "This is a poor business you have here, and the profits from farming get worse yearly."

"We've had a couple of bad winters," said Sigurd slowly.

Asgerd's sharp glance went from Ketil's face to that of her son. "You both did much better when you went a-viking!" she snorted, and turned the eiderdowns which Merewyn had forgotten.

Ketil slammed down his empty drinking horn. "Asgerd speaks the truth!" He got up and stalked around the fire, frowning.

Merewyn drew herself in, tight and anxious. She looked towards her husband and whispered, "Sigurd, you promised, you swore to me you wouldn't."

Nobody heard her, even Sigurd, yet because there was love between them, he knew what she was thinking. And though much taken up with his own concerns, he had understanding of his wife, and her natural horror of Viking raids.

"Ketil Ketilson, my foster father — " he said formally, because he wanted to penetrate the mead-anger he saw rising in the older man, "Though I had scant luck in Reykjavik, yet I heard news which may be of interest to you. To us. Your kinsman, Erik the Red, is back from his exile. He has spent these years as an outlaw, exploring an uninhabited land he found to the west of us. He Hkes it much, and so much wants to go back there with colonists that he will give anyone who joins up square miles of this rich land. The cHmate is very mild, and the grass high and thick. He has named the place Greenland."

Ketil's attention was indeed caught. He came over to Sigurd, and said, "Repeat what you heard! Erik is back?"

Sigurd nodded. "And will be at the Althing next month looking for colonists."

"He will give away miles of rich land?"

"So they said. And he has already established some homestead for himself up a pretty little fjord in that Greenland."

"What nonsense you talk," cried Asgerd rounding on her son. "I can see where you're tending, and think you've lost your wits. Is Erik Thorvaldson, the outlaw, a man to trust? A man to lead anyone anywhere? He was exiled from Norway, exiled from Iceland for murders, and —"

"Asgerd Orsmdottir!" interrupted Ketil, while his face scar grew purple. "Remember you speak of my kinsman! And he has done no murders — only man-slayings. A very different matter in which honor is involved." The two older people confronted each other angrily, and Merewyn felt immediate sympathy for her father and husband, no matter what it was they were discussing. She wasn't entirely sure.

Sigurd, who hated bickering, downed his homful of ale and said quietly, "My mother — these are men's affairs, and nothing is decided. We must wait for the Althing. In the meantime, I wish bed — with my wife. And am sure you need yours, after the long ride and the care I know you've given to Brigid. All this will wait until later." He stood up, put his arm around Merewyn, and said, "Good night."

Asgerd stayed several days, as was customary, and Merewyn was grateful for the expert, offhand care she gave Brigid who quickly recovered.

Sigurd and Ketil had many a private talk together, especially when they shared the High Seat at meals, but the two women who sat on the Cross Bench at the end under a gable could not be sure what the men were saying, though Asgerd strained her ears to listen. Merewyn did not pry, even alone in bed with Sigurd, with whom she had such happy nights of kisses and deeper pleasure that she scarcely thought of anything else. And everyone was preparing for the journey to the Althing, except Asgerd, who said sourly that such expensive junketings were

not for her, and she was anxious to get home to her sister; to a household properly run, where the clabbered milk called "skyr" was always tasty, and there was abundance of such delicacies as fried whale blubber, raw shark, and pig's liver; where the four woman thralls were efficient, and the eiderdowns aired daily — not in haphazard fashion.

Merewyn received these criticisms in guilty silence, and tried to do better, aware that in Asgerd's eyes — and alas in that of others too — this was a shamefully impoverished household, and that it was partly her own fault since she had stopped her husband and father from their yearly Viking raids.

On June 5th, Asgerd finally left Langarfoss. Sigurd had gone up the Langa River in search of a strayed ewe, Ketil had stalked off to inspect his ship as usual, and had taken tools with him. It was again a brilliant blue day, with high white puify clouds, everchanging, and the golden pyramid of Baula Mountain looking near enough to touch.

Merewyn waved goodbye to Asgerd who bobbed along on one of their horses, escorted by Cormac, the Irish thrall. Merewyn sighed relief, and went to the loom room, where she straightened out Brigid's clumsy weaving. She entered the Hall, and turned the spitted hindquarter of a lamb which was roasting over the fire. She snifi^ed the aroma happily. Fresh meat for a change, but she'd have to smoke the forequarters for the journey to the Althing. And it was such a skinny lamb, the only one Sigurd had dared to spare from the flock. Still, thought Merewyn, determined to be hopeful, the sheep will soon fatten up in the summer pastures, and Sigurd did well at fishing. They had a surplus of drying codfish, enough to sell to the dalesmen, or barter for hay. Even for linen to make me a new headdress, she thought.

She picked up Orm and carried him outside, settling herself on the bench with her wool and spindle. Spinning and weaving at least I do well. She glanced down the road to Borg where Asgerd had vanished earher, then put her spindle down in

astonishment. There were two men on horseback coming towards Langarfoss.

"Blessed St. Mary, not guests!" she murmured, at once concerned about the amount of lamb she was roasting. Would it stretch?

She squinted hard and still did not recognize the men. One was bearded and dressed like an Icelander. The other was not, though there seemed something familiar about the tilt of his head and the way he wore his mantle fastened on the left shoulder. The shaggy mounts were certainly Icelandic.

As they drew near, the one who had no beard waved his arm. She returned a decorous salute and walked down the homestead path to make the proper greetings. Orm trotted behind her.