It was about that time, as winter approached, that we first began to hear rumours of the rebellion, of a great host gathering somewhere beyond the old wall to drive the Normans from the kingdom and back across the Narrow Sea. And we heard as well that the ?theling, Eadgar, who had been deprived of the throne by Wilelm and kept as a hostage at his court, had managed to escape his captors and had fled. To join the rising, some said; others said to lead it. But there were so many rumours coming from all quarters in the weeks before and after Yule that it was hard to be sure which held any sort of truth at all and which were just wishful thinking.
Orm, for his part, wanted to join the ?theling, to take up arms and fight. Skalpi, though, forbade it, insisting that the rebellion was nothing more than foolish hearsay, and in any case no army ever chose to march in winter, when the ground was hard and the weather foul and food scarce, when seasoned fighting men could drop dead of a chill while the enemy were safely ensconced behind the walls of their strongholds, keeping warm by their hearths, as all sensible folk did in the cold months. Orm sulked and lashed out, and managed to put out the eye of one of the neighbouring ceorls he often sparred with, and the longer it went on the worse he became, and Tova was worried, too, weren’t you? You didn’t know what he might do next and if he might threaten you again, or worse.
You came to me, I remember, seeking my help because you didn’t know who else to go to, and I promised he wouldn’t touch you and that I would make sure of it, although at first I wasn’t sure how, but I’d given you my word, and so I went to Skalpi that afternoon – about a week before midwinter I think it was – and asked if he might grant you your freedom. I didn’t give him the real reason why, but said that we had more than enough slaves to work in the kitchen and in the dairy and in the fields, whereas I needed a maidservant, someone to help in the house and hall who could keep me company in the afternoons while I was at my stitching and my weaving. All of those things were true, of course, and I knew that as long as you were with me and a part of the household, Orm would never dare come near you.
Of course he agreed, as I knew he would. More than anything he wanted to please me, and so he made the arrangements. Thorvald was heartened when he heard what Skalpi intended, because granting someone their freedom was the mark of a generous soul, and God would duly record such a worthy deed in his book and remember it when the end of days came. There was a ceremony of sorts, although it was only myself and Skalpi and his sons and ?lfric who witnessed it, together with maybe half a dozen men from nearby manors, with the priest there to preside.
We went out on foot to the crossroads where our lands abutted our neighbours’, even though it was raining and the tracks were clogged with mud. There my husband and I in turn clasped Tova’s hands while Thorvald spoke a prayer in Latin and Skalpi said the necessary words, and then when we returned to the hall he brought us forward one by one, to make our marks on the charter that Thorvald had prepared confirming Tova’s freedom. I was first to be called, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Orm scowling. I tried to ignore him, to put him from my mind, but I couldn’t help but smile at the victory I’d won over him, small though it might be.
Thorvald pointed to the place where I was to place my cross, forgetting that I knew how to read and so could see my name already spelt out below Skalpi’s. Or close enough, anyway: the priest’s spindly letters were bunched up so tightly together that I wasn’t sure that they were all present, but they were recognisable, and I supposed that’s all they needed to be. After that I swore myself to keep and defend Tova, and you swore that you would serve me faithfully always. We both shed some tears, didn’t we? I even saw the old priest weeping a little too, and I hugged him and Skalpi and thanked them both.
*
‘Forgive me,’ says Guthred, ‘but what does all this have to do with why you were running?’
‘I’m coming to that. I’m only telling you this because I don’t want you to think badly of me for what happened.’
‘Why?’ asks Beorn. ‘What did you do?’
Tova meets her lady’s gaze, and she sees the trepidation in her eyes. But it’s too late for Merewyn to have any second thoughts, especially now that she has come so far in her story. What choice does she have now but to tell them how it ends?
*