Not that I felt in the beginning that it was ever my hall to hang things in, or that I had much share in Heldeby, apart from the land he gave me as my morning gift. For weeks I felt like a stranger. At first I was greeted with wonder, their lord’s new wife, but in time that faded and what remained were barbed tongues and cold eyes. For what no one told me until I arrived, one of many things, was that he had two sons from his first marriage: Orm, who wasn’t much older than Eadmer and whose face from his brow to his neck was a welter of red blotches, which he had a habit of picking at, a habit that only made them worse; and Ketil, who had seen only ten winters and was a sickly thing, always too thin, and who never ate as much as he should. Skalpi was devoted to them and lavished on them gifts of horses and hawks and bows and arrows, but for all that they were forever scowling, or at least they always were in my presence. They both resented me for taking their mother’s place, which I could well understand, but they also resented their father for reasons I couldn’t work out at first.
What happened to his first wife? At first I thought she’d died, because that’s what my mother had told me and because no one at Heldeby would utter a single word about her, even when I asked them directly. I thought they were just being respectful, and so it wasn’t until later, when Tova and I became friends, that I learned Skalpi had discovered her in bed with another man, a former love from years earlier who’d disguised himself as a travelling monk so that he could meet her and gain access to her chamber without arousing suspicion.
Skalpi had killed him on the spot and cast her out, never to return, with nothing more than the clothes she was wearing. It was said she had gone into a nunnery somewhere, although no one knew for sure and most preferred to keep their thoughts to themselves, in case word ever got back to Skalpi and he cast them out too.
Why he chose to marry again, I don’t know. Not because he needed another heir. Companionship, maybe, although he had plenty of that from the slave girls who often warmed his bed. The only other reason I can think of is pride. He’d been wronged, and felt ashamed. Taking another wife was the only way he could think of to rid himself of that shame, I suppose, and to escape the humiliation he had endured. By pretending in a way that it had never happened. By refusing to ever speak of his first wife, either in private or in company. By walking from the table without a word and taking his food in his chamber whenever his sons spoke of her during the evening meal, whether they did it in passing or deliberately, to provoke him.
He cared for them deeply, which is why he didn’t send them away with their mother after her betrayal. Ties of blood are the hardest to sever. But they didn’t thank him for it, and probably that was why he was so desperate to win their affection, though they rarely showed any sign of returning it. They were a strange pair. They kept to themselves most of the time, and didn’t speak much except with each other. The younger one, Ketil, I didn’t mind, but Orm I never liked from the moment I first met him. The way he looked at me, the mixture of loathing and desire that I saw in his eyes, made my skin turn to ice. He had a sullen manner and a sharp tongue when he cared to use it, and I took pains to avoid him. It wasn’t that I was scared of him, not exactly; what could he do to me? But all the same I never liked being in the same place as him if I could help it.
I didn’t have many friends in those early days, but it was bearable, I suppose. Skalpi kept hoping that I would come to love him in time. Whenever he came back from the markets at Eoferwic or Skardaborg he would bring me a fine cloak or a new dress trimmed with silk that came all the way from Miklagard, or silver rings and necklaces of amber and jet, all in an effort to win me over. He never pressed me and was always patient. Outwardly he seemed a man in control of his feelings, lacking in passion, but inside the scars must have run deep; he remained heart-stricken, and was doing his best to heal that hurt. After a while, whenever he had to go away he’d leave me in charge not just of the household, but also of collecting rents and even of hearing pleas in the manor court, the same things that at home my mother often took care of on Eadmer’s behalf. Orm didn’t like that because he felt those responsibilities should be his, and at sixteen he was certainly old enough. Skalpi didn’t trust him, though, whereas he trusted me, because I was lettered and had a kind way with people. Not like Orm, who could hardly open his mouth without causing offence. So that gave him yet another reason to hate me. As if he didn’t have enough already.