“What’s that?” Mirana said suddenly, turning toward the door of the hut. Then she smiled, pulled the kerchief from her hair and shook it out. Hair as rich and black as Chessa’s swept down her back and over her shoulders. She wiped the perspiration from her face. “It’s Kerzog barking his head off. I’ll just wager the men have killed a boar, perhaps even a deer. Let’s go see. Ah, it’s a feast we’ll have tonight.”
20
Moray Firth, Northern Scotland
THE DAY WAS cool, the sun trying to burn through the light mist that stretched out over the water and veiled the land. Only the very tallest peaks poked through that heavy mist.
Merrik said, “Kiri, my little pet, this is a fine summer day in Scotland from all I’ve heard.”
“But there’s no bright sun like at home.”
“As I said, a bright summer day for Scotland.”
Kiri was sitting on his knee. “Then we’re nearly there, Uncle Merrik?”
“Aye, Kiri. We’ll sail down the Moray Firth to the trading town of Inverness, which is nestled right there where many bodies of water come together. Then just southward is the river Ness. It’s a narrow canal that feeds finally into Loch Ness. Your papa remembers a huge circular promontory or a long arm of land and rock jutting out high into the loch on the western side. On that promontory is a large wooden house, something like Malverne farmstead.”
“Will they know me? Will Papa have a mama who will be my grandmother?”
“I don’t know, sweeting. So much time has passed and life doesn’t just go on and on because he would like it to. But there will be perhaps cousins and aunts. It’s been twenty years, Kiri, since your first papa left here. None of us know what we’ll find.”
“My second papa calls it a grand
adventure.”
“It hasn’t been so far,” Merrik said, then laughed at himself. He didn’t really want to come stern to stern with a marauding Viking warship, not with all their supplies, Chessa, Laren, and Kiri aboard. Ah, but it had been a long time since his warship the Silver Raven had rowed directly at an attacking raider. His men who were the best archers would shoot at the enemy. His men in their narrow helmets and long war coats would be on both the platforms at the stem, ready when they were close enough to leap aboard the raider’s warship and then the fighting would begin. Merrik’s hand itched for his sword, once his father’s sword and his brother Erik’s sword, called the Slasher, three feet long, its blade of iron, its hilt of bronze inlaid with silver and rubies he himself had added just three summers ago south of Kiev in a tiny trading town called Radovia.
“No, not yet,” he said, bringing his attention back to the little girl. He looked over at Eller. “Does your nose smell anything? We’re quite close to land now. I can’t see much of anything through the morning mist. The summer morning mist that will probably last all day. By all the gods, this is a land that confuses the senses, aye, but it’s a rich land and there’s magic here, even I can sense it. Chessa is right. This will soon become an adventure.”
Eller tapped the side of his nose, shook his head, and kept his hand firmly on the rudder. He’d done well this trip, Merrik thought, had learned nearly everything Old Firren knew. Old Firren had died the previous winter.
“I hope Eller doesn’t get sick in his nose, Uncle Merrik,” Kiri said.
“It happened once,” Merrik said. “We were in the Baltic Sea, just coming from Birka. His nose was all clogged up and he couldn’t smell a thing. We had a close call because of it.” Ah, that had been fun.
“Inverness!”
At last they’d arrived. It had taken only eight days from Hawkfell Island, thank the gods for the warm weather and the constant summer westerly winds. There had been but one brief rain squall that had passed quickly. Everyone was excited. They’d finally reached Inverness.
There were thirty men, most of them from Malverne. All were warriors, all were ready for anything, all skilled with axes, swords, and guile. All of them had brought goods to trade at Inverness. Merrik hoped for a fine profit from this trip as well as helping Cleve regain what was rightfully his.
The trading town of Inverness looked much like the town of York some years before. Inverness was smaller, cruder, and its fortifications weren’t as impressive as those at either York or Hedeby or Kaupang. It was more like Birka, Merrik thought, but then he changed his mind. Its paths weren’t covered with planks of wood and thus the ground, when it rained, would be muddy and dangerous. That had to be often. It probably sweated rain here, he thought. It reminded him of Ireland, so very much green from all the rain, but the mist was different here, like fine spiders’ webs, open here, yet opaque over a tree or a rock. The mist was lifting as the morning lengthened toward noon, but not entirely, hardly ever entirely.
They tied the Silver Raven and the Malverne fellow trading ship to the far dock beside a trading ship from Dublin. Next to it was a vessel from the northern islands called the Orkneys and another from the Shetland Islands.
Half the men remained on board. Cleve, carrying Kiri in his arms, walked beside Chessa to the center of the small town. There was row upon row of wooden buildings, all of them shops close together selling furs, jewelry, shoes, swords and axes, bows and arrows, some for trading or selling slaves, so much more. There were open-air fish markets, farmers’ goods were arranged beneath leather covers to keep the sun off them, when there was sun. There was noise and activity everywhere, men and women bargaining, shouting, cursing customers who outwitted them, rubbing their hands together when they’d gotten the better of the bargain—once the customer had left their shop, naturally.
“Where are we going, Papa?” Kiri said, her first words since they’d left the dock. She’d seen Kaupang, but this was new and exciting. This was Scotland.
“We’re going to find a bathing hut. You’re as dirty as that louse I just picked off Eller’s head this morning. So is Chessa and so am I. I want you smelling like honey again, sweeting, so I can kiss your ear without wrinkling my nose.”
She laughed and was still laughing when Cleve left her and Chessa with an old crone at a bathing hut. It was a wooden hut with a thickly thatched roof, as were most all the other buildings. Inside it was steaming hot, a huge wooden tub in the middle with woven mats beside it. It looked like Valhalla to Chessa.
When Cleve, himself now clean, came to fetch them two hours later, a good dozen of the Malverne men with him, he brought new gowns, and for Chessa, two beautiful silver brooches, made only in the Shetland Islands, he told her. They were called silver thistle brooches because of the thistles carved into the sides and top of the brooches. And from Orkney, he gave her a gold finger ring, made of five rods twisted and plaited together. Chessa just gazed at that ring. She’d had fine jewels given to her by her father in Dublin, armlets, finger rings, brooches, many so dazzling with the purity of the gold and silver, the sheer delicateness of their fashioning, that they made Sira jealous, which was always an interesting thing to watch, but this ring was surely the most exquisite she’d ever seen. Despite all the men standing about and the old crone and Kiri, Chessa threw herself into Cleve’s arms, nearly toppling him over so unexpected was her pleasure. “Oh, they’re beautiful, the most superb jewelry I’ve ever seen. You’re wonderful, Cleve, the most perfect man, the best of—” She looked demurely at the men standing behind him, now beginning to frown, and just smiled down at her feet, saying low, but not low enough that they couldn’t hear her, “and you’re such a splendid lover and husband, more than any wife could wish for.”
It was difficult, but he didn’t strangle her. “Be quiet, damn you, or I’ll thrash you right here. By all the gods, do you want them to kill me?”
“All right,” she said, smiling at him, “I’ll hold my peace, thought it is all probably true,” and kissed him on his closed mouth. “Aren’t you an excellent lover, Cleve?”