Their voices grew further and further away, leaving me and Tova alone.
I remember you were rubbing your face as you got to your feet, and I asked if you were all right. You told me you were, but I noticed that you didn’t look at me as you said it, and I put my arms around you and told you I’d see to it that Orm stayed away in future. I wasn’t sure how I’d do that, but I swore it anyway, and an oath is an oath.
Of course nothing was done. I told Skalpi what I’d seen when he came back from his travels, although I left out the part about the threats Orm had made towards me. Why? Because I felt embarrassed, I suppose, and dirty too, for letting him touch me. And because I wasn’t sure there was anything to tell. He hadn’t done anything except to frighten me, but then he had always frightened me. He hadn’t hurt me, and in any case he was right: it was only my word against his.
Anyway, Skalpi listened. He was patient and didn’t interrupt, but he let me say what I would, and all the time there was a solemn expression on his face that I found hard to read. He believed I spoke the truth, I think. He even called for Tova so that he could hear for himself what she had to say and see the marks on her face. I pleaded with him to do something about his son, and said that if he didn’t act to curb his unruliness things would only grow worse. In the end, though, feeling won out over reason. As much as he hoped to please me, and as much as he saw I was affected by what had happened, he craved his son’s love and couldn’t bring himself to punish him. He warned Orm that next time there would be consequences, but they both knew it wasn’t true.
Thankfully ?lfric stopped having much to do with Orm after that. Maybe Skalpi spoke to him and told him what he’d heard, or maybe the reeve realised on his own that things had gone too far. At any rate, from then on he and Orm were rarely seen together. They would no longer sit drinking by hearth-light late into the night. While occasionally they still took to the training yard to practise spear work and sword craft, there was never quite the same warmth between them.
For a while, then, things got better. Tova said that although Orm would still spit in her direction and hurl curses at her from across the yard if there was no one around to hear, he didn’t come near her any more. The slaves weren’t forced to work quite as hard either, for which they were grateful. Not that the work was easy, but at least it was tolerable. I understood that Skalpi had instructed that, rather than being threatened with punishment if they didn’t produce enough butter or cheese, they should be promised rewards for doing well. A cup each of the better ale to drink with their morning and evening meals, and a further cup of beans and another of grain on top of what they were already owed by custom and by right.
Still, those were difficult times. Many were the nights that Skalpi retired early to his chamber, sometimes in the middle of our evening meal, after barely touching his plate or his cup. He would stand from the table and leave without a word, and later I would find him lying on his bed in the darkness, without even a single candle lit. Without taking off his tunic or his shoes. Without sleeping. Without any of the girls I knew he sometimes shared his bed with. Just lying there, by himself, in silence.