Hush: An Irish Princess' Tale (27 page)

He finally leaves.

I force back tears. Then I look around. The
þrælar
are preparing the midday meal. I help serve. I rush about, avoiding Hoskuld, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

After the meal, Asgör calls out, “Attention, everyone.” Another announcement? I hug myself. “The raven has not returned!” Everyone cheers.

I hug myself harder. We will be landing in Iceland today, that’s what Asgör’s words mean. He let free a raven yesterday morning and it returned to the ship before midday. He let free another this morning, but today’s raven hasn’t returned. That means it found land. Asgör explained everything to me. I can hardly believe it. This voyage has come to seem interminable. Iceland was a mirage. But we will be there today, on the ground, with the people of the settlement. All that, perhaps before the stars come out.

Immediately almost every free man on all three ships busies himself with grooming. Head hair, facial hair, nails, teeth, everything. They put away their travel clothes, grimy after having been lived in all this time, and take out their
other outfit. They don knee-length, full-skirted tunics gathered at the waist by ornately buckled belts, with a drawstring at the neck. The sleeves are long, blousy at the top and fitted from elbow to cuff. The necks are braided or embroidered. The trousers are tucked into boots. And everything is in colors. The richer the man, the brighter the colors.

Hoskuld doesn’t ask for my help in his selfministrations. Maybe he actually has the good grace to realize that since he’s cleaning himself up for his wife, he shouldn’t be asking his concubine to tweeze his nose hairs. If he angers her too much, she could divorce him. Viking women have that right. Snorri talks sometimes about his first wife, and his second, and his third. Everyone divorces him, that’s what he said to me.

I smiled then. Snorri’s simple manner disarms me. He’s a sweet man, really. I don’t condone divorce, of course. But I can’t say with all certainty that I wouldn’t do it if Hoskuld were my husband and he brought home a concubine.

My face must have softened just now as I was thinking of Snorri, for Hoskuld approaches me, if somewhat gingerly. “Come look in my personal chest, Beauty. Choose a dress. Any dress.” I look him straight in the face and stare coldly. He gives an exasperated sigh and leaves again.

But I am right to make this choice. All the women on this voyage are going about their normal duties. They are
þrælar,
so they don’t have other clothes to put on. I refuse to be the exception. I choose the dress I’ve worn all journey long, even though this fine blue linen smells more of my sickness than of the sea now.

It’s better that I enter this new life disheveled, anyway. I expect to be hated by everyone in Hoskuld’s household. If I come in looking all fresh and fancy, as though I’m a real challenge to his wife, they’ll hate me even more.

People talk about what’s ahead now. Some are returning home, but a few free men and many of the
þrælar
have never been there before. So the ones who know the place describe it. Volcanoes. Glaciers. Hardly any wildlife. Not many trees, and those that grow there are stunted.

But wonderful waterfalls that cascade down cliffs. And fjords just as beautiful as back in the north country. And small horses that run wild. And plenty of birds in summer.

Are there honey buzzards? Brid will need company.

Are there storks? Huge, marvelous musterings like in Eire in spring and summer?

I listen closely, hoping someone will list all the birds that come to Iceland. But no one does.

As the sun goes down, Torild brings me a basin of fresh water and a pinch of salt. “Clean your face and teeth at least. All that vomit has left its traces.”

I tilt my head at her. Why should she care? I’m a useful assistant no matter what I look like.

She draws a flatbread out of her bodice and gives it to me. I’d thought they were all gone. I smile; she’s pulled this trick before. But then I look into her eyes and I realize she knows I’m sick. Of course. That lazy eye is deceptive. Torild watches everyone. She knows everything that’s going on. If there were a cure for me, she’d have offered it by now. Am I dying? Nausea comes every day worse than the last. I am failing quickly.

“Take this bread,” says Torild. “And tomorrow, when we land, you can have all the flatbread you want. The nausea won’t last forever. Just a couple more months. What will you name him?”

I stare at her, bewildered.

She laughs. “Okay. Don’t talk. But you’ll talk to him, I wager” She puts the flatbread on my lap and leaves.

What will I name him?

And I suddenly know. I haven’t had my monthly blood since before Hoskuld bought me. Almost two months now. I thought that was because of the illness. But I’m not dying. I’m alive.

And I’m not alone. We are together. I put my hands on my flat belly.
Immalle.

Hoskuld’s child lives within me. A tingling sensation runs through my body. That stranger I so abhorred at first, a part of him has found purchase in me. I should want to turn myself inside out. But I don’t. I don’t hate Hoskuld anymore. I know him too well now. I move my hands in a circle.

Lord, there are so many beautiful names, so many names that would suit a beautiful baby.

And Torild is right. I’ll talk to this child. I’ll chatter away. I’ll sing loud and long in the language that is my birthright. And I’ll tell stories. That’s what I have to do. That’s exactly what I have to do. That’s this child’s legacy. I may never see Eire again. How could I? It is weeks away by sea. But I can hold on to Eire in stories, and I can give my baby Irish heritage in tales of Finn and Cúchulainn and the warrior queen Medb and all the others. I can find them in my memory. Already I can hear Nuada telling tales. I can hear Maeve telling tales. I can do this. I’ll start right now. Tonight. In the hush of stars, I’ll tell Irish tales.

I’ll be like Brid. She came all the way across this ocean to take care of her eggs. She didn’t care that she’d never see her homeland again. Her nest was her home.

Just as my nest will be. Wherever my child is, that’s
where my home is, for this child will give me back my mother tongue, my Eire. How funny; I will live up to my old name of Aist. I’ll be as good a parent as any stork.

Breathlessly, I search in the folds of this dress for the secret pockets. It’s been so long since I last checked, but, thank the Lord, it’s still there: My fingers close around the gold teething ring. Now I have someone to give it to.

From deep within comes the memory of Hoskuld’s words as he looked at the ornamented sword back in the north country:
Respect for families is second only to respect for the gods.
Hoskuld has changed, I know he has, despite his brainless words earlier. With this child, he will walk those last few steps toward understanding—for this is his family too.

My son will be a free man. And someday he can travel back to Eire and find out what became of Father, Mother, Nuada. He can go to the land of the
Dubhgall
and learn what became of Brigid. He can soothe my soul at last.

I rub salt on my teeth and rinse my mouth and face. I run my fingers through my hair. I pick at dirty spots on my dress, and smooth the wrinkles flat. I stand up and face the wind blowing off the good land.

In the Icelandic Saga of the People of Laxardal there is mention of a woman named Melkorka. The chieftain Hoskuld buys her from a Russian slave merchant when he is back in Scandinavia on a trip to get timber to build a new home in Iceland. Melkorka doesn’t talk, and Hoskuld knows nothing of her background.

When he arrives with her in Iceland, his wife forbids him to continue using her as a concubine. So she becomes a regular slave. When her child is two years old, Hoskuld overhears Melkorka speaking Gaelic to the boy. That’s when Hoskuld discovers she isn’t mute at all. And she finally tells him she was an Irish princess who got taken by a slave trader. That’s all we ever learn of her past.

In this story I have created a history for Melkorka that is founded on general facts about life in Ireland, Russia, and Scandinavia in the early 900s, trying to find what she must have feared and hoped through her journeys.

Donna Jo Napoli is the acclaimed and award-winning author of many novels—both fantasies and contemporary stories. She won the Golden Kite Award for
Stones in Water
in 1997. Her novel
Zel
was named an American Bookseller Pick of the Lists, a
Publishers Weekly
Best Book, a
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
Blue Ribbon, and a
School Library Journal
Best Book. A number of her novels have been selected as ALA Best Books. She is the head of the linguistics department at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband and their children.