Chapter Six #2
As they entered the main hall, she wondered if this was just a general meeting place or Tormod’s residence.
When many of the crowd followed them inside, she decided on the former.
Inside, the hall was large, with a fire pit in the centre.
Benches lined every wall on which Bjorn and many of the other men who had accompanied her here were already settling themselves with platefuls of food.
Tormod called across the room to an older woman who had been standing close to Bjorn.
As she moved towards them, she gestured for two other women to accompany her.
Both of these other women wore wide, metal collars and Aoife assumed they were thralls.
She’d heard the Norsemen kept a lot of thralls, many of them from her own people, although these two had the dark hair and blue eyes of the Dal Riatans—perhaps they had been purchased in Ath Cliath or captured on the islands north of here.
The woman looked her up and down, then nodded approvingly at Tormod. She took her arm and led her through a door in the back of the hall into a short corridor. The thralls followed a short distance behind.
Aoife tried to look back to see Tormod, but he was now surrounded by the villagers and the woman was guiding her onwards.
The room they stepped into was smaller than the hall, although spacious enough to prove her husband was a man of status.
She shivered, despite the wooden walls and thatched roof making the space much warmer than the bleak stone walls of either her father’s fort or the abbey had ever seemed.
“You will see him soon enough,” the woman said. Aoife smiled at the sound of her own language. She was surprised the woman spoke Brythonic so well. “You did not expect me to know your language?”
“No. I know nothing of yours,” Aoife confessed. “Although I have heard a few words that sounded like Northumbrian. I know a little of that language.”
“Then I will have someone teach you. It is only right the jarl’s wife can speak to her people. What is your name?”
“Aoife.”
“Aoife.” The woman repeated it a few times, then nodded as if satisfied she had got it right. “And I am Ragna. Bjorn, Arne and Ulf are my sons. Tormod, my nephew. Everyone refers to the four as the brothers of thunder.”
“Why?”
“The four of them are inseparable, and Tormod is their leader,” Ragna explained. “He is named after the thunder god.”
“I see. I have met Bjorn.”
“Ulf and Arne were there as well to accompany you here. You will get to know them soon enough. Bjorn will be a loyal friend to you as long as you and your husband get along together. The others… they may take some time to accept you. Arne is the scarred man.”
The way in which the woman spoke made her think there was more significance to this than she was currently grasping.
“We will feast later to celebrate the wedding of our jarl. Before then, you will bathe and we will find you nicer clothes.” Ragna let go of her arm and stepped back to look at her carefully. “Why are you dressed like a holy woman? I thought they were not allowed to marry?”
“These are novice’s robes. My stepmother sent me to the abbey, but I had not yet taken my vows,” Aoife explained. “My mother died when I was young, birthing my brother.”
A sly grin spread across Ragna’s face. “Ah, so it was your stepmother who sent you to the Church? And married you to a Norseman?”
“Sort of, yes.” It seemed like an easier explanation, and it wasn’t as if it was completely untrue.
“That explains much. Well, you will not need those clothes again,” she said, gesturing for the two thralls to assist her. “Now we will get you ready for your wedding.”
Aoife froze for a second. Surely Ragna wasn’t expecting her to undress in front of them? Ragna clapped her hands and the two thralls began to help loosen her cloak and then her robes, ignoring all her attempts at covering herself.
“We are not afraid of our own bodies here,” Ragna said, smiling at her in amusement.
“Now step into the water and let us wash you after your journey. You Britons do not wash nearly enough—and you have the cheek to call us barbarians. The bathhouse is not yet finished, so this will have to suffice for now.”
Aoife hid a smile. She had noticed that very thing about Tormod as they’d travelled here. He lacked the stench of so many of her father’s men and even some of the monks.
She was urged to climb into a large half-barrel and found herself standing in warm, soothing water. Once she was clean and her hair washed, she did, indeed, feel much better.
Ragna busied herself laying out new clothes and undergarments and removed the brooch from Aoife’s cloak before casting it into the pile of unwanted robes. When she turned to look at Aoife, her hands flew to her mouth.
Too late, Aoife realised that, although the pain had now gone, her skin still bore the marks of her latest beating. She’d been at Mass when she’d had a vision of a burning field, the stench of the smoke strong enough it had made her sick to her stomach. Brother Pasgen had not been amused.
“You have been beaten,” Ragna said. She spoke to the thralls and one of them hurried out of the room while Ragna walked in front of her and gasped.
Aoife glanced down and saw the dark blue-black bruising on her knees.
“Why was this done?” Ragna touched one of the bruises, causing Aoife to wince. She didn’t feel she could refuse Ragna’s demand to explain, and neither she could she tell them the truth, not yet. Maybe when she became a wife, the curse would leave her? She hoped so.
“I became unwell during Mass… and it angered the priest.” That was true, just not the whole story. “And my knees are bruised from praying.”
Ragna regarded her for a long moment, then tsked. “If Tormod gets his hands on the man who did this to you… He would never treat a free woman this way, nor allow it in his village.”
“Truly?” Aoife asked before she had thought it through.
Ragna’s eyes narrowed. “For being unwell? Of course not. Our punishments fit our crimes here. And Tormod is a fair man. It would not befit his position as jarl to mistreat his wife. Welcome him to your bed and give him strong sons and you will not displease him.”
“What if I displease him?” Aoife wasn’t sure why she asked. This woman was Tormod’s aunt and more likely to side with Tormod than with herself. However, in the absence of any other support Ragna’s advice was all she had. “I’m not sure what to do.”
Ragna smiled and put a hand on her shoulder, then gave it a gentle squeeze. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Tormod does. He will be gentle with you.”
Aoife couldn’t express the feeling of relief sweeping over her at Ragna’s words. One of her concerns about her marriage had been laid to rest even as she still worried what welcoming him to her bed would be like.
By the time she was clean and dressed in an ankle-length dress, sitting by the fire with Ragna combing out her long hair, she felt better than she had in years, even if her gut was churning with anxiety about her wedding night.
The thrall had brought ointment for her bruises, which had helped with the pain.
These people were showing her more care than she had experienced before and she felt safer now than she ever had in her father’s fort since her mother’s death, and far, far safer than at the abbey.
“Now,” Ragna said. “You must rest before the wedding feast begins.” She indicated the furs piled thickly on the bench at the side of the room. “I will return later and help you dress.”
Aoife didn’t think she’d be able to sleep. However, as soon as she lay down and pulled the furs around her, warmth and exhaustion overtook her.