Hush: An Irish Princess' Tale (17 page)

I know the message is true. I wish it wasn’t. I wish I could just turn into vapor. Disappear.

The day passes.

The Norse girl holds up her hands and says a word. She points at her shoes and says a word. She touches her nose and says a word. Then she says the first word again and waits.

It takes a second before I understand. I point at her hands. She tells me how smart I am. Then she says another word. I point at her nose. She cheers and kisses my cheek.

She names the objects around us. Tunic, eyes, teeth, arms, hair. She teaches me her name—Thora—and she calls me Aist. I listen and learn. What else is there to do?

In the middle of our lessons, an old man comes to inspect Thora and me. It becomes clear that Clay Man’s going to sell Thora, but not me.

Clay Man takes coins and goes to untie Thora’s rope from mine.

Thora. She’s all I have left.

I step in the way. I lift my chin straight up to the sky and open my mouth wide in a silent scream. Then I look through him, as though I have the power to wither him to nothing.

Clay Man’s hands go to his chest. He walks a few steps backward. He gives the old man back the coins.

Clay Man ties me to him again, waist to waist, and we walk the market in a line: Clay Man, me, Thora. Defiance starts in my toes and rises to my ankles. It makes me walk slowly. So slowly, Clay Man has to match his pace to mine, or else face dragging me stumbling along. He says something to me—words I know mean to hurry. But I don’t.

And he slows down. I knew he would. Thora keeps
her eyes on the ground through all this. I have no idea what she thinks.

Clay Man buys buttons, arm rings, neck rings. All of silver. He buys carnelian and rock crystal beads. He buys sword chapes with the shapes of falcons and hawks on them. He shows me everything. But defiance has now risen all the way to my eyes. I look away. I am not a magic being. But I am my parents’ daughter. I am Brigid’s sister. I am a princess. I walk tall like a stork.

I belong to no one. Like a stork.

Thora’s eyes go from Clay Man to me and back. Then she stares at the ground again.

Clay Man gives up on trying to impress me with jewels. He buys me strange food. He’s not stupid; he knows how hungry I’ve been. It dawns on me that he’s been hungry before. Savagely so. He understands the need. Underneath everything, he understands.

We eat.

Thora and I walk the hills outside the town of Hyllestad, up in the southwestern part of the north country. We’re collecting wild herbs and legumes to dry and put into boxes—a typical morning chore. The rest of the slave girls who live with us aren’t far off. We can see them in the distance picking plants, just like us. It’s a rule that we all have to stay within sight of one another.

Thora nudges me.

I look where she’s pointing.

Two
þrælar—
slaves—are carrying a small wooden chest, following their master off into the hills. The master carries two shovels.

“That chest holds the master’s silver hoard,” says Thora. “Jewelry, buckles, coins. They’re going to bury it someplace secret in case there’s a retaliatory attack from the south. Remember them,” she says. “Later, when they return, watch what happens. You’ll see I’m right.”

Thora speaks Norse to me. And I understand her. Not always entirely, but most of the time well enough.
We’ve been together for only a few months. But she’s my constant companion, and she chatters nonstop.

“Here, eat this” Thora rips me a long blade of grass and sticks one into her own mouth.

I chew on it and shiver from the sour taste.

“Isn’t it great?” Suddenly she furrows her brow. “Don’t chew grasses at random, though. Some can be poisonous. You know what that means, right?” She narrows her eyes at me, as though she’s trying to figure out if I’m a half-wit or not. “Listen, just eat what I eat, and you’ll be all right.” Thora knows all these plants, for this is her homeland. Not this very town, but somewhere north of here. Thora’s been all over this land in her short life.

The
þræll
girls we live with now come from the north shores along the East Sea. Clay Man either stole them or bought them for practically nothing on his way across from Russia. As each one joined us, Thora greeted her and asked all about her. I listened, but my Norse wasn’t so good then, not nearly as good as it is now, and I didn’t catch details. Some of them have been bought and sold over and over. Thora has. She’s been a
þræll
since she was six, in three different countries already. And she pays attention. By this point, she knows a lot about the world.

I wonder if Maeve had been a
þræll
before.

Up ahead I see a tall stone cross. I stop and look from it to Thora.

“It’s a quarry,” says Thora. She’s gotten very good at answering my eyes. “Hyllestad is famous for its stone. And there are lots of carvers here. That cross has been set near the road, ready to be fetched by the buyer.”

I’m confused. A cross? This town isn’t Christian, I know that very well. It’s heathen, like most Norse towns. In fact, last week a boatload of townsmen set off south toward a Norse settlement to burn a church. That’s why people here are preparing in case of retaliation; that’s why that man and his
þrælar
went off to bury his treasures.

I’ve eavesdropped as men from the town explained all this to Clay Man. They said Christianity is creeping up through the countryside like a disease, threatening their gods: Odin and his son Thor, and Vanir, who is really a group of gods in one—including the fertility god and goddess, Frey and Freya. There are other gods too. Lots of them. So many I can’t keep them straight, no matter how many times Thora tells me about them. The heathen church-burners are warriors for their religion, the poor fools. They don’t know anything about salvation. I heard a man say they are determined to stomp out Christianity before it reaches the Viking stronghold at the mouth of the River Nidelva, to the north.

Those words made my throat close. The River Nidelva is where Bjarni came from, the Viking who wanted to marry me. The Viking who either is now at the bottom of the harbor in Downpatrick or who killed my family.

I face Thora and put my hands on her shoulders and furrow my forehead and raise my brows. I need for her to understand, to answer me: What are these heathens doing, making stone crosses?

She tilts her head. “Want to go see it? Don’t worry. A Christian cross can’t hurt you. Come on.” She walks off.

I’m beside her in an instant. And I realize I can answer my own question: These people are practical. I’ve been watching them interact with Clay Man long enough to know that. Their dislike for him shows in their faces, but they trade with him anyway. So why should they hesitate to fill an order for a cross that will sit in a church or in a Christian graveyard? Business is business, after all. I remember the Christians in Miklagard who watched the slave trade in their own market and didn’t say a word. Heathens or Christians, it doesn’t matter—business is business.

Thora and I walk solemnly toward the stone cross. The closer we get, the more I realize that it’s unusually large. It towers above us. It might be double our height. I walk around to the front, look up, and both hands fly to my mouth, I’m so startled.

“What is it?” Thora smoothes my hair. It’s such a natural act, but so unexpected that I cling to her. “What happened?” she says tenderly. I lead Thora with my eyes to the image.

Carved into the stone right where the two parts of the cross come together is an animal, a darling four-footed animal. I recognize it. It’s the same creature I saw on the silver brooch in Dublin. But while the silver brooch was deceptively delicate in its charm, here the things that curl around the animal are not vines, but vipers. They circle, ready for the kill. Their fascination is deviant, and fatal. Nothing can save the animal now.

I couldn’t save Brigid.

“Is it the runes that frighten you?” Thora stands and touches the linear letters beneath the figure. “Some people think letters are wicked magic. But they’re ignorant. I saw an ordinary boy learn to read and write them. He said the runes on stone tablets usually just tell the tales we all know from sitting around the campfire at night. Don’t be afraid.” She pulls me to my feet. “There’s enough real stuff to be afraid of without letting stupidities terrorize us. Come on. We’d better hurry. Gilli’s waiting”

Clay Man’s name to everyone else is Gilli. And Thora’s right; he has stopped out on the road with the rest of his
þrælar.
He’s looking back at us with annoyance.

I turn sideways and lift my chin, offering Clay Man my profile, I am as haughty as a princess-made-slave can be—a thought that makes me almost laugh in its pitifulness.

“Don’t act stupid, Aist. One of these days, Gilli is going to whip you for not jumping at his orders. Get up.”

I count inside my head. It’s important to keep Clay Man waiting long enough for him to remember his fears.

“I don’t understand why he doesn’t beat you, but he’ll beat me, I’m going.” Thora runs ahead, “Your next owner won’t be so daft,” she calls back. “He’ll whip you blind. Or worse. You’d better learn fast what it means to be a
þræll.
Come on. Please.”

Clay Man will never sell me. But Thora’s right; he might beat her. I get up and rush after her to catch up with the others.

Still, Thora takes the time to rip out a snatch of grass. She rubs the roots between her hands, holds them to her nose, then to mine. I know this smell; it’s vetiver, the aromatic oil Mother puts on her wrists. Her wrists, arms, neck. Her voice. She exists somewhere. Or I hope she does.
Mathir—
Mother. Oh, Lord, what I would give just to see my mother.

Thora takes me by the hand and pulls me. Somehow she knows that’s exactly what I need now. Friendship is a blessing.

We walk along the plank road. Pigs cavort in the side ditches. I pinch my nose closed to keep out the stench. A woman coming from the other direction runs up to me and knocks my hand away from my nose. “Filthy
þræll.
Don’t act like that smell bothers you. You ugly thing. Can’t even keep your shoes tied.”

I look down, curl my shoulders, and walk faster. I am no filthier than she is. And my shoes are tied perfectly.

“Ugly,” says Thora in a quiet, low voice, “stupid, clumsy, fool, coward, thief.” She says the words in a dull singsong. “Get used to it. Like I told you. They’ll say anything, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. You’ll see I’m right. Tonight, when that man with the treasure box and the two
þrælar
returns home—you’ll see then. Ugly, stupid, clumsy, fool, coward, thief. Everyone hates
þrælar.
You’ll see.”

Hating
þrælar
makes no sense. People work hard here. We’ve been here a couple of weeks and Thora explains everything. But I’ve been watching too, so I know this for myself. Hands are red and rough. Arms and legs are strong as tree trunks from all the physical labor of just plain old daily living. And
þrælar
help at everything. They do the worst jobs. It makes no sense to hate them—to hate us.

We pass the central longhouse, with its high doorsill
that Thora told me keeps out the winter snow, and the curving walls and roof, where men attach fresh shingles that reek of pine resin. In the time we’ve been here, I’ve never entered the longhouse. Town meetings take place there. And banquets. I wish the muscovite in the window frames allowed a better view inside. Thora says the banquets are a spectacle, with sagas, songs, dancing to harp and pipes. It sounds almost like an Irish celebration.

A man repairs the sides of a boathouse, working cow droppings into the holes between the logs left after the spring thaw. A boy with dark hair, a
þræll
obviously—since most free northerners here have blond hair and blue eyes—sits on the ground nearby. He repairs a net.

Thora follows my eyes. “That’s a linen net. For catching salmon and trout in the streams. They get salted or smoked for winter. You can’t fish when the streams freeze.” Salmon. I love good Irish salmon.

It seems the entire town is remaking itself. Good weather means the workload increases.

The next building we pass is a mystery to me—a Norse home. Every home has thin skin over the windows, like our manor house back in Downpatrick. All I can see from the outside is shadows. And they’re mostly up on high stilts anyway. I’d have to go up the ladders to get a really good look—and no one would let me do that.

This one isn’t on stilts, though. A woman opens the door and calls to a child playing with a goat.

I lag behind to look through the open door. There’s only one room. Tapestries cover the walls, straw covers the floor. The ceiling is painted in rose patterns. Beds are built into the two corners I can see, and there’s a long table with two benches down each side and a butter churn on the floor nearby. Chickens peck here and there. A raised fireplace sits right in the center with a smoke hole above it. An iron pot hangs from a rafter over the fire and gives off the sweetest aroma.

I breathe deep and linger. Real families still exist in the world.

“Get on with you, nasty thing!” shouts the woman.

Her tone breaks the spell. My eyes dart to her face, but any trace of motherliness that might usually be there has been masked by her hatred of
þrælar.
I hurry to catch up with Thora.

“That’s cowberries with honey and pears boiled together,” she says, knowing immediately why I lingered. “It’s one of the best smells ever”

It’s a good smell, but there are much better ones. I remember Brigid and me trying to stave off hunger our second day away from home. We stood by the stork mustering and I talked of bread dipped in hot sheep milk.
Brigid talked of cakes fried in pig fat. Both smell better than this cowberry mess. I blink back tears.

I bet everyone in town knows what that family’s eating today. They can’t help but know. The houses cluster with small gardens between—herbs, leeks, beans, peas. Outside town lie fields of barley for beer, rye for bread, flax for cloth. On hills overlooking the bay livestock graze. But all is close. No one’s ever out of shouting distance, of course. In Eire a person can survive alone. They can’t here, not if the winters are as savage as Thora says.