Chapter 18
They questioned the man on the shingle while the sun came up.
Torstein stood behind him with his arms folded and did not speak, and the man looked at him more often than he looked at Mathias.
"Silver," the man said at last. "A man at Dyflin. We were to take the woman off the ship before it crossed and bring her south again. He said she would be easy."
"What man?"
"A churchman, by his clothes. French tongue. I never had his name."
Samira saw Leif and Torstein look at each other over the prisoner's head.
"And you thought nothing of stealing a man's wife from his own shore," Mathias said.
"Wife?" The man spat blood. "He said she was a thrall-woman bought in the south.
The Hagansson's bed-slave with no kin north of the sea.
" He looked at Torstein, and for all his fear there was something almost like complaint in it.
"There's no blood-price on a frilla worth the having.
Who comes for her? Nobody. That's what he said. That's what everyone will say."
Torstein moved. Leif caught his arm before his fist could connect with the man's face.
"Let him finish," Leif said quietly. "He's telling us something we need to hear."
***
THEY TALKED ABOUT IT in Hrafn's hall with the doors shut and the prisoner locked in the byre.
Samira sat by the fire in dry clothes with a cup of hot ale between her hands and listened. She had picked up enough Norn now to follow most of it. What she did not follow, Leif leaned over and explained to her in the mix of Arabic and Latin.
"The marriage in Fez was a true one," Leif said.
"Nobody here doubts it. But it was made by your law, before your people, in your tongue.
Not one free man of the north stood witness to it.
No bride-price was counted out before men who could swear to it at the Thing.
If anyone stands up in Kirkwall and says you are his frilla and not his wife, there's no man in Orkney who can prove otherwise. "
"You were there," she said. "You saw."
"It is not enough. It does not hold here."
"And a frilla, a thrall," Samira said slowly, "has what?"
It was Mathias who answered. "Nothing. She can be cast aside when her man tires of her. If he dies, she has no claim on anything he owned. Her children have no claim either. And any man who harms her pays a thrall's price, if he pays at all."
The fire cracked. Samira looked down into her cup.
"If Torstein fell," Leif said, "in a storm, in a fight, from a horse, it would not matter what was said in Fez. You would be alone in a country that does not know your name, and anybody could take you. As these men tried to take you this morning."
Torstein got up from the bench and came around the fire. He crouched in front of her so their eyes were level, the way he had done on the ship when she hid her arm from him.
"They are right, Samira. If anything happens to me, you remain unprotected under our law." He took the cup from her hands and set it on the floor. "I am not deciding this for you. I am asking you."
She waited.
"Marry me again. Here, by our law, before free men, by oaths spoken and a blessing of the local priest. I will count your bride-price into your hand before witnesses.
It will be written down. After that, nobody in the north can call you anything but my wife, and if I fall, what is mine is yours, and any man who lays a hand on you answers to the jarl.
" He held her gaze. "The oath I made you in Fez by reciting the shahada still stands.
This does not undo it. This is giving you my name while you live here. "
Samira looked at him for a long time.
"Allah heard us the first time," she said. "Your God can hear us now."
Torstein nodded and let out a deep sigh of relief.
***
THEY WERE WED THAT evening in a small chapel by Father Donnan. Oaths were exchanged, the wedding witnessed, and everything written down and recorded.
Torstein counted her bride-price into her two hands before the crew and Hrafn's household. Silver pennies, English and Danish and one from Byzantium, twenty marks of it, heavy as a stone. On top of it he laid a gold arm ring.
Then he drew a sword from its sheath. It was old and plain, the grip worn smooth by other men's hands.
"My father's," he said. "And his father's before him. By our custom you keep it for our son."
She took it. The weight of it pulled her arms down, and she had to brace to hold it level.
The crew were watching her. Leif had told her the night before that a bride gives the groom a sword in return. She had her jambiya, shorter than the koummya she used.
She held it out to him hilt first.
A murmur went around the men. Torstein looked at the knife for a long moment. Then he took it and slid it into his own belt, and his hand stayed on it after.
The oaths were short. He swore to keep her and to hold her as his wife. She swore the same, and he had to help her with the Norn.
Before the priest could raise his hand to bless them, Torstein stopped. He reached inside his tunic and drew out a small parcel wrapped in faded cloth, the one he had carried against his chest since Glenorchy.
For your wedding, Morag had said. Ye'll ken when ye have need of it.
He had laughed at her. He was not laughing now.
He unwrapped it in his palm. Inside lay two rings. The larger was silver, worked all the way around with an intricate eternity knot that had no beginning and no end. The smaller was finer, its band traced with a ring of tiny roses, each flowing into the next in the same unbroken line.
Samira looked at them, then up at him. "Where did these come from?"
"An old healer in Glenorchy gave them to me last winter. Before I ever set sail." His voice was rough. "She told me they were for my wedding. I told her there would be no wedding."
He took her hand and slid the rose ring onto her finger. It fitted as though it had been made for her.
Samira took the silver ring from his palm and slid it onto his. It fitted him just the same.
"She knew," Samira whispered.
"Aye." Torstein closed his hand over hers. "It seems she did."
Father Donnan cleared his throat, then blessed them in Latin with his eyes on the sky.
Then the priest wrote the charter. Their names, the date, the silver, the witnesses. Leif made his mark. Mathias made his. Njal made his.
When the quill came to her, Samira dipped it and wrote her name beneath the Latin in her own script, curling right to left across the bottom of the vellum.
"It is my name," she told the priest. "Now it is written in both our tongues."
***
Kirkwall, Orkney
FROM THE MOMENT THE snekkja pulled into the cover of the Orkney cliffs, Torstein sensed something was very wrong. He'd had a bad feeling the moment he spotted a welcoming party at the wharf, and Kolbein Ottarsson and his daughter Estrid among them.
The whole town seemed to be on the shore when the snekkja came in.
Samira saw Estrid before she knew who she was. A fair-haired young woman in a fine blue gown, standing beside a broad gray-bearded man in a fur-trimmed cloak. The crowd gave both of them room.
When Torstein stepped down onto the shingle, the young woman came straight to him and laid her hand on her belly. The swell of it was plain beneath the gown.
"You've come home in time," she said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Your son will be born before midwinter."
Samira felt the ground fall out from under her.
She looked at Torstein. She could not help it. She waited for him to deny it and in the space of that one breath, she could not be sure he would.
His face had gone white.
"Estrid." His voice was very quiet. "Take your hand off your belly and say that again. Slowly. So I can be sure I heard you."
"You heard me." The gray-bearded man stepped forward. "My daughter carries your child, Hagansson. The jarl favors you, and I have long wanted our houses joined. Now they will be. The wedding will be before the month is out."
"Kolbein." Torstein turned to face him. "I have never laid a hand on your daughter. Not once. Not ever."
A murmur ran through the crowd.
"You were seen together several times," Kolbein said.
"I spoke to her at different feasts. In front of the jarl's whole hall." Torstein raised his voice so the back of the crowd could hear. "I sailed for Fez in the spring. I have been gone since. Look at her, Kolbein. She's not more than four months gone. Count it. I was at the far end of the world."
"That is true." Leif came up beside him.
Estrid's face had gone red. "You cannot prove he never—"
"Before I sailed, I slept at my homestead, alone, or at my parents' hearth," Torstein said.
"Ask anyone in Kirkwall. Ask my mother." He looked at Estrid, and there was no softness in it at all.
"Whoever's child that is, they are not mine.
And I will not raise another man's son foisted on me under false pretenses. "
Estrid turned away. Her shoulders shook. Samira could not tell whether it was grief or fury.
Kolbein was not finished. "You made a promise to this house."
"I made no promise. You made one and put my name to it without asking.
" Torstein reached back and took Samira's hand, and drew her forward.
"And even if I had, it would not matter.
This is my wife. Samira. We were wed in Morocco by the law of her land, and again in Thurso by the law of ours, by oaths and the church and before witnesses. "
Leif drew the charter from its case and held it up.
"They were married at Thurso. Blessed by Father Donnan, who holds the church there for the jarl.
Bride-price counted into her own hands before free men.
The sword given and the sword taken." He held the charter up so the crowd could see the marks at the bottom.
"We all witnessed it and will swear to it before the jarl. "
Kolbein jabbed a finger at the curling script beneath the Latin. "And what is that?"
"That is my name," Samira said, in Norn. It came out clear and hard. "I am not his thrall. I am his legal wife twice over."
The crowd was silent, but most were surprised that Samira spoke in their own tongue to defend her position. Norn was exclusively spoken in Orkney, Shetland, Caithness and the Northern Isles.
Then Estrid's eyes found hers, and there was nothing but pure hatred in them.
Kolbein stared at the vellum and gritted his teeth. "But Estrid was supposed to be your wife. She was supposed to be mistress of your household."
"Samira is my one and only lawful wife," Torstein said. "If I die tomorrow, all I own is hers, and our children's after her. Not Estrid's. Not her child's."
He looked at Estrid then, one last time. "And before all witnesses I declare that Estrid will never set foot in my homestead. Not as a guest. Not for any reason. That house is reserved for Samira and the children she will bear me. No one else."
Kolbein's jaw worked. "The jarl will hear of this."
"Let him hear it. I will tell him myself," Torstein replied, still clutching Samira's hand.
At that moment a deep rumbling voice could be heard from behind them. "No need. I have heard enough," said Jarl Thorfinn Sigurdsson as he walked through the crowd.
People bowed in deference.
"Kolbein and Estrid, why are ye causing so much trouble? My man and his crew have nae even had a moment to step onto our shores and ye are arguing. Can ye not see they have endured a long journey?"
Kolbein and Estrid tried to splutter in protest but the jarl raised his palm to silence them.
Then he came directly towards Samira. He simply studied her a moment, his eyes softened slightly as he looked at her, then his gaze flicked to where her hand was joined with Torstein's.
He took in Torstein's stance and noticed the slight shift as Torstein stood a little in front of Samira as if to protect her.
Then the strangest thing happened to the usually dark, brooding and serious-faced jarl.
Thorfinn threw his head back and burst out laughing.
His smile, truth be told, was rather disconcerting; he had very sharp, unforgiving facial features.
He then pulled Torstein into a hug, thumping his back and gripping his shoulder. "I see you have found what it is you have been seeking all these years. Now, step aside and do not shield yer wife from me."
Torstein grinned, nodded and then brought Samira forward to meet his jarl. "This is my wife, Samira al-Idrissi."
Samira bowed slightly in reverence and smiled at the jarl.
Thorfinn's brow went up. "The merchant's daughter?"
"Aye, the very one," Torstein replied.
Thorfinn shook his head with a smile. "I asked ye to retrieve a parcel and ye bring home a wife instead."
"Actually, Jarl, Samira is the parcel, or at least part of it. I have the pendant here in my boist. I ask that you take it and secure it in your hold. Many have tried to steal it already."
Thorfinn took on a surprised look. "Well, then I see there is much to discuss away from prying eyes.
" He took the boist and held it tight, even refusing to give it to his guardsman.
"Tomorrow night I will have Ingibiorg, my wife, host a celebration feast in honor of your return.
Rest tonight for I can see the journey has been a long one.
Then come and see me in my private chambers before the feast. I will have extra guards posted at your estate tonight. "
Torstein thanked him then stepped away.
Kolbein chose that moment to try and speak to Jarl Thorfinn, but he simply said, "If Torstein Hagansson says the child is not his, then it is not his. His marriage to Samira is binding. Your daughter's claim will not stand. Perhaps 'tis time you found another house to join."
Thorfinn then greeted the rest of the crew and soon they were inundated with families of the crew coming forward to greet their menfolk.
***
SAMIRA DID NOT SPEAK until they were alone at the top of the beach. She was still a little overwhelmed by all that had transpired since they stepped off the ship.
"You did not tell me about Estrid," she said.
"There was nothing to tell. Her father has pressed that match since before I sailed. I refused it every time."
"And the child?"
"Not mine." He turned to face her. "I swear it on my father's sword, Samira. On anything you want. I have never coupled with that woman."
She looked into his face for a long moment.
She believed him. But still she felt a slight ache in her chest. She was a stranger in a foreign land with customs that were different.
There was so much to learn of the people and region, so many adjustments.
What if his people did not accept her? What about the pendant?
She was frowning so much with worry, until she felt gentle lips kiss her brow and she was enveloped in strong arms.
"Love, do nae worry so. No matter what happens, we will face it together. Now, come, let me show you the home I built for you."
***