‘Why, then?’
‘I saw the way he looked at me sometimes when I was churning the butter or building the fire. I saw the hunger in his eyes and I was afraid that when I came of age he’d want me to help warm his bed, as my mother did while she still lived.’
‘So you fled.’
‘Yes, lord.’
As reasons went, that was far from the worst I had heard, and it was hard not to feel sorry for her. We Normans tended not to keep or trade slaves, the bishops having preached that both practices were sinful, though as always there were a few noblemen who disagreed with the Church’s judgement and kept them to help with the running of their households. As we had found in the years since coming to Britain, however, slavery was common among the folk who lived in these isles, as it was among the Danes and the Moors, who perhaps once a year would venture north to these shores, bringing boatloads of dark-skinned, black-haired women and children from distant, sun-parched lands, who spoke in tongues no one could decipher and whose strange beauty entranced all who set eyes upon them.
Eithne was no beauty, but she was young, and to many men that was more important.
‘How did you end up at Elyg?’ I asked.
‘Does it matter, lord?’
I supposed it didn’t, not really, but I was curious, and when she saw that my interest was genuine, she sighed and told me the whole story. In fleeing Dyflin with the few coins she’d been able to scrape together, she had been able to find passage with a trader, only for their ship to be ambushed when they were less than a day out of port. The captain of the raiders had seen Eithne and taken a fancy to her at first sight, and rather than resist him she had pretended to love him in return.
‘I thought it would be easier that way,’ Eithne said sadly. ‘I didn’t realise I’d thrown off one yoke only to place another around my neck.’
He had taken her back to his hall in Kathenessia, and had married soon after. From what she told me it seemed he had been kind enough, treating her well and clothing her in the richest fabrics he could afford and bestowing her with silver bracelets and brooches, and she had kept up the pretence, realising that she was unlikely to find greater happiness anywhere else. Then this year, hearing that there might be glory and fortune to be won in the Fens, he had ventured south, and since he could not bear to be apart from Eithne for long, he had taken her with him.
‘And now everything has come full circle and I find myself back here,’ she said bitterly. ‘The last place I wanted to be. If Ravn sees me—’
‘He won’t,’ I replied confidently. Even if he still lived in these parts, this Ravn might not even remember her after so long.
‘But if he does—’
‘Even if he does, you’re safe with me.’
‘You promise you won’t take me back to him?’
I was about to say, only half in jest, that that depended on how much he was willing to pay to see her returned, for, though it shames me to say so, I was briefly tempted. I remained desperately poor, and the reward for dragging a fugitive slave back to her master would go some way to replenishing my coin-purse. Yet I had vowed myself to her protection, and I was not one to go back on my pledges, especially given that I’d already tricked her the once, into coming with me. She trusted me, and I would not betray that trust.
‘I swear it,’ I told her. ‘And, after I’ve done what I’ve come here for, I promise to see you safely back home. Where is home for you, anyway?’
‘A small village that doesn’t have a name, where the great river empties into the wide western sea.’
That was no great help, for such a place could be anywhere. ‘Do you know where exactly?’
She shrugged. ‘A short way downstream from the city the Danes call Hlymerkr.’
I nodded, though I had never heard of such a place. How I’d manage to take her home or even when exactly, I hadn’t yet worked out. But I would.