Chapter 12
It took two days to pack up her life.
Samira was given a large chest, two saddle packs and a roll behind her saddle, and she stood in the middle of her room with everything she owned around her and could not begin.
Zohra began for her. "Start with warm clothes."
In went heavy wool, a felted cloak of the kind the mountain men wore, thick wraps, boots lined with sheepskin.
Her mother's kohl pot. The brass balance.
Her koummya and telek and lamt shield. A small Qur'an in a leather case.
An array of jasmine oil, healing salves and herbs, seeds for planting and several spices so she would have something of home in the new world.
The pendant case was kept with Torstein.
Torstein spent those two days in the souk with Mathias, spending silver to purchase gifts for his bride.
He came back with a hooded cloak of oiled wool, sheepskins for her saddle, gloves, a copper cup with a lid that screwed down tight, and furs he had carried from Orkney to trade and did not trade.
"This is too much," Samira said.
"You have never been cold. Not the way you are about to be."
He also bought a small ivory comb with birds carved along its spine, because he saw it on a stall and could not make himself walk on.
He also traded several items for material and cloths and garments.
He thought only of things that he could place around his homestead that would remind her of Morocco, of her home.
Then he saw an intricately carved pack of ornaments for her braids.
"That does not look like practical supplies," Mathias observed.
"No," Torstein agreed, and bought it anyway.
***
ON THE SECOND MORNING Samira set a wooden box on her father's desk.
"I have something to tell you and you will not like it."
Dawud looked up. "Then tell me quickly."
She opened it. Dark red threads, packed in linen. "Saffron. For two years I have been buying it myself. I set the price, I checked the weight, I sold it on through the spice row." Her chin lifted. "The day I was attacked, I was walking back from the last purchase."
Her father was quiet a long moment.
Then he laughed, and rubbed a hand over his face.
"Two years. Under my own roof." He turned a bundle over in his fingers.
"Then listen to me. Saffron is worth more by weight than anything you can carry, and four times as much in the north, because nothing grows it there.
" He pushed the box back to her. "Take all of it.
Waxed linen, inside the wool, in the pack that never leaves your saddle.
It is not a gift. It is capital. If that cold country turns its back on you, you will not arrive with empty hands.
I have also arranged your dowry with enough coin to help you survive in the new world. "
"Father. No, you must keep wealth for yourself. You will need it, especially with no one to remain and care for you as you age."
"Do not worry about me, daughter. I have prepared well for both of us.
You will keep your own coin and answer to no man for it.
The saffron trade stays in this house. Zohra will hold the contracts, Tiziri will keep the ledger.
Also take as many spices as you need. It will come in handy when you need to trade in the name of your husband. "
They spoke at length yet neither wanted to address the most poignant issue in the room. They would soon have to say goodbye to one another, and perhaps never see one another again. That grief of separation was something Samira had to put aside in order to continue to function.
***
TORSTEIN FOUND HER on the roof that afternoon.
"May I come up?"
She nodded and moved along the parapet to make room. He sat an arm's length away.
"What was done yesterday was done so you could travel without shame," he said.
"That is all it was. You owe me nothing.
Though I desire you, I will not take anything you do not wish to willingly give.
Not on the road, not on the ship, not back in my home.
Not unless you ask, and if you never ask, then we share a roof and I count myself fortunate. "
Samira studied the rooftops for a while.
"You do not expect me to be a real wife to you?"
Torstein wanted to grab her and show her exactly how much he wanted their marriage to be real. But he controlled himself.
"I expect only what you freely wish to give."
"I have a question," she said. "You may find it intrusive."
"Ask it."
"Is there another wife in your house? Or women you keep. Concubines." She made herself look at him. "I would rather know now than arrive and find out I am one of many."
"No." He said it before she had finished. "None. There has never been a wife, and I keep no one." He held her gaze. "And there will not be another. I will only ever take one woman to wife, and I have her."
The heat rose in her face and she looked away too late for him to miss it.
"What of you? Was there a betrothed you leave behind?" he asked.
"There has been no promised husband. My father turned away many suitors who sought my hand over the years."
Torstein stiffened and made a low growling sound. "I am glad he did, otherwise I would have murdered them myself."
Samira gasped at his words in shock.
"Do not mistake me, Samira. I am a reasonable man. But I do not share. Even the thought of another man being your husband makes my blood boil."
Samira turned the edge of her sleeve over in her fingers, blushing at the possessiveness he had just displayed. Then she changed the subject. "Tell me a little about your homeland. I have imagined frozen lands and nothing else for three days."
"There is ice and frost." He almost smiled.
"There is also a large house and homestead with livestock and farming land.
I built the house several years ago, up on the cliffs above Scapa Flow, with the hill behind it to break the north wind.
Long hall, stone to the roof beam, turf over that.
Two hearths, not one, because one is never enough in winter. "
"Two hearths."
"I built it for my wife." He said it plainly. "I did not know who she was. No woman has ever resided in it or claimed any part of it."
Samira found she was smiling and could not entirely stop.
"Who lives in it now?"
"'Tis just me in the main house. It will be your home as well and you can do what you want with it.
But there are sixteen other people who live on the land in six cottages.
They are mainly crofters, farmers and their families, including serving staff.
I also hire guardsmen from the local village who patrol the estate.
They keep the place running and protected, especially when I am away at sea. "
Torstein moved closer now, so they were almost touching.
Samira was quiet.
"What happens if I need to guard the pendant far away from you?" she said.
"Then I will come with you. As your protector."
"You cannot promise that. What about your land, your people?"
"They have managed without me before and they will do so again."
"What if your jarl demands I leave and—"
Torstein placed a finger across her lips to stop her. Then he leaned closer.
"Samira, do not fret about what has not happened. You are my wife. We will create a life together. Whatever troubles come, I'll be by your side."
Then he removed his finger, leaned in and brushed a chaste kiss across her lips.
Samira blushed, then smiled at him. They were married now. He could kiss her, but still it was the first time she had experienced something so intimate and pleasurable.
Torstein forced himself to move back. It took every amount of restraint not to take the kiss further.
But he had to admit, for something so innocent and sweet, it was the best kiss bar none.
It felt as if the moon and stars threw their aura and power into that small contact.
He knew if it felt like this just kissing her, imagine how it would be when he made her his completely.
That thought lightened his heart. He would need to tread carefully, woo his wife slowly until she willingly gave herself to him.
Torstein's heart felt elated at the concept. He could not wait to return to Orkney with her by his side.
They sat a while longer, this time just watching the stars. Finally, he rose with her and offered his hand, and she took it as they descended to the lower level to take up separate rooms.
"Why did you readily agree to marry me?" she asked, curious about his motivations.
"Because you're my destiny."
The birthmark did not itch or burn. It only tingled slightly with warmth. Samira realized then no matter how many dangers she would face in the future, Torstein Hagansson was not one of them.
***
THEY LEFT AN HOUR BEFORE dawn, the gate opened only wide enough for the animals to pass. The watchers were still at the end of the lane. Dawud's men stood along the wall with bows they had not carried a week ago.
Tiziri wept and gripped her hands. "You will send word. Whenever a ship comes south."
Zohra did not weep. She took Samira's face in both hands and turned it to the lamplight.
"In that cold country you will be tempted to make yourself small. Do not. You are the keeper of the stone, and you will walk into the new world with your chin up."
They gave each other a tearful, heartfelt goodbye.
"Thank you, Zohra, for preparing me all these years, and treating me as your own daughter."
"It was my greatest pleasure," Zohra replied.
Finally, it was Samira's turn to bid her father farewell.
"I have done a terrible thing to you," Dawud said. "I am sending my child away to save her, and I will not know for the rest of my life whether I was right."
"You were right."
He put his hand on her head as he had when she was small and said the words over her, and his voice held to the end. Then he looked past her to Torstein.
"I am handing you my greatest treasure."
"I will protect her with my life," Torstein replied.
They rode out into the dark. Samira looked back at the turn of the lane and saw only the lamps above the wall and shapes beneath them too dark to tell apart.
Everything she had ever known was behind that wall. Ahead were twelve men whose language she did not speak, but their Arabic was passable enough to understand. She was determined that she would learn their tongue before she set foot on their land.
But their customs and behavior were strange to her.
They were loud and raucous. They drank far too much for her estimation yet seemed to remain sober-minded, and for men so bulky and heavyset they were swift and light on their feet.
She wondered if this was what Ibn Fadlan had felt, the emissary so far away from home in the company of strangers.
She had noticed an expression of surprise from some of them when Torstein first notified them she was his wife and not a thrall. But they soon left well enough alone.
Torstein remained close beside her, ready to protect at any sign of threat. His heart was full to bursting with the knowledge that Samira was his now. Their lives bonded for eternity. That restlessness that had gnawed at him for so many years was completely silent.
***