Hilda shivered and pulled her shawl tight against bitter wind. Saint Augustan’s stood on the top of the headland and at this time of the year the prevailing wind tore in from the North Sea to send its salt laden blasts swirling around the Priory and lower slopes where burial grounds of the common folks lay.
A goodly few to send the old man on his way, she thought as she looked around, there wasn’t a face she didn’t know in the gathering around the open grave. Two were her brothers Aldfrid and Eadric, the rest were the other fisher folk from the shields; a collection of ramshackle fishermen’s shacks set on the low land at the back of the foreshore of the river mouth.
The men lowered the rough pine box into the grave and Hilda suppressed an impatient sigh as the monk rambled on in the foreign tongue that monks used in their prayers. Latin they say it is called, but as far Hilda was concerned it was foreign and she wished these men of God would say their prayers in a language that good Saxon fisher folk could understand.
Finally the prayer came to an end, the mourners made the sign of the cross and as the others set of home, Hilda followed the monk up to the Priory to hand in the basket of dried fish, the first instalment of the twelve they had agreed as payment to ensure her father got a decent burial.
The fisher folks – already in thrall to the Priory that owned the shields, boats and the fishing rights – might not have much, but they looked after their own. The twelve baskets would come from the tenth of the catch the Priory allowed them to keep, and would dig deep into their stores. Luckily the worst of the winter storms that had kept boats drawn up were over and with the promise of better weather the boats would set out to sea once more.
As the door to the Priory kitchen slammed shut, Hilda made her way down hill, pausing only to say her last goodbye at the graveside, before continuing on to the shields.
There were only the three of them now, their mother died birthing Eadric. Hilda was fifteen, past old enough to be wed and have children of own; her father was always telling her. Well he would be telling her no more, and there was no one in their close-knit community that she fancied. Besides, until the lads found lasses of there own, which would be a few years hence, she fully intended to hold the family together herself.
Aldfrid at twelve was a strapping dark haired lad, with the muscular build of his father. Ten-year-old Eadric on the other hand, was small with a ready smile that belied a stubborn determination to overcome any problem he came across. Both lads had gone to sea with their father from an early age and between them they were more than capable of handling the fishing. This was just as well, since if they couldn’t have, the monks would have taken the shield and the boat from them. But with her seeing to the cooking, smoking and curing the fish, and tending to the small vegetable garden, they would survive: and they did; for a full year they survived.
Then in the spring the Vikings raiders came and after slaying the monks and stripping the priory of its gold, returned to hunt down the fisher folk.
A group led by a great beast of a man called Agnar captured Hilda and her brothers and while they were knocked about and treated roughly, they were – unlike some of the others captured by different groups – not further harmed. This puzzled Hilda, was it a sign of this Agnar’s nature, or was he simply protecting the value of his goods, for that was what they were now, goods; chattels; slaves to be sold in the market, like so many cattle.
Herded on board the longship and made to sit in the bottom between heaps of stores plundered from the Priory, Hilda had time to check on her brothers. ‘Are, you all right?’ she asked.
‘Aye,’ said Aldfrid, sullenly.
He was angry with her for holding him back when the Vikings surrounded them. But what else could she have done; despite his size he was still only thirteen years old and no match for the fur clad, axe wielding monsters.
‘What about you, Eadric?’
‘I’ve a sore head, from butting that fat one in the belly,’ he said, nodding his head towards one of the rowers.
‘Aye, and I don’t want you trying anything like that again, you were lucky; some of them have killed for less.’
It was the truth, she had seen Eanna’s eight-year-old boy, Ostric, cut down, simply for getting in the way. Eadric had been lucky, the man he’d attacked, had merely swatted him aside as he would a fly.
It was damp and cramped in the bottom of the longship and despite being allowed to stretch their legs, they were stiff and suffering from salt sores, by the time they sailed up the Vikesfjord and landed at the trading port of Kaupang.
On shore Hilda, Aldfrid and Eadric were left under the guard of Olaf, a dark bearded giant with a fearsome grin. They were set to unloading the longship, while the rest of the captives were taken into the town. If Hilda wondered why they had been separated from others, she was even more puzzled when the men returned minus their captives and Agnar began paying off the men. Each man received several portions of hack gold from the Priory booty, a bag of coins and their share of the stores, before leaving to return to their various farms.
Soon there was only the five of them, Agnar and Olaf, herself and the boys.
‘What happens to us now?’ Hilda dared to ask Agnar. She now knew what had happened to the others, the bags of coins were proof that they had been sold.
Agnar stared back at her in silence and just when she thought he wasn’t going to answer, shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘You will work in the house. The boys will work on the farm.’
She tried to ask him more, but he ignored her and picking up a sack strode off. Olaf gave them a sack each and picking up the last one motioned for them to follow Agnar. They didn’t have to travel far; the farmhouse was half a mile beyond the town and stood at the back of a meadow, facing the Fjord. There was a small herd of cattle in the meadow and chickens pecking about in front the barn that stood alongside the house.
An old woman scattering chicken feed, put down her basket and flung arms around Agnar, ‘ You’re home then,’ she said.
‘Aye, Mother,’ he replied. ‘Back again and this time I’ve brought someone to help in the house.’
Agars mother – Hilda was to learn later that her name was Bera – looked her up and down and seemingly satisfied, said, ‘Come, help me get out the food.’
Used to living in the cramped confines of the shield, Hilda was surprised at how large the farmhouse was inside. True it only had one room but that room was ten times the size of a fisherman’s shack and was filled with the smell of fresh bread and stew.
‘Stop gawping girl and tell me your name,’ demanded Bera.
‘Hilda, Mistress.’
‘Well, Hilda, for a start we’ll have less of the mistress, call me by my name, Bera.’
‘Y-Yes, Mis…Bera,’ Hilda stuttered and stumbled but managed to get out the name.
‘That’s better, now put that jug of ale and that jug of water on the table and then dish out the stew.’
Hilda placed the jugs on the table, picked up one of the wooden bowl and began to fill it from the great pot hanging above the fire, ‘How many shall I fill?’ she asked.
Bera, having placed thee large flat breads on the table and gone the back of the room for drinking horns, did a quick tally on her fingers, ‘Eight.’
Hilda was surprised, but carried on filling the bowls; somehow she had gotten it into her head that the household consisted of Agar, his mother Bera, and his friend Olaf. Obviously she was mistaken there was at least another five.
She got an even bigger surprise once the food was served for Bera ordered her to sit next to her at the table and the other diners turned out to be her own brothers plus two farmhands. Hilda was puzzled, she didn’t know much about the relationship between farmers, their farmhands and their slaves in Kaupang, but she was pretty sure they wouldn’t sit down together at a farm back home.
The following days were strange; having been born free she fully expected to hate being a slave. She should have rebelled at the lack of freedom, the fact that she belonged to and was the property of someone other than herself. Yet as she compared her past life with her present situation, she began to feel that she was more of a slave back then than she was now. All of her life she’d lived with her family in a shack built on land owned by the Priory. Even the driftwood that it was built from belonged to the monks, as did the boat, the nets and even the fish they caught. They owned nothing and were paid nothing. It was true that they were allowed to keep one tenth of the catch, but her father and brothers had risked their lives to harvest the sea and yet were forced to live hand to mouth in poverty.
On the farmstead she rose early and worked from dawn to dusk as did the boys, but so did everyone including Agnar. There never seemed enough hours in the day, but the work was a lot easier than gutting and cleaning fish all day and Bera didn’t expect her to do any more than she did herself. She lived in the big house, with a curtained corner as her bedroom, while her brothers lived in a smaller cabin with the farmhands. Despite living in the same house, she had little to do with Agnar who spent his days working alongside the boys on the farm. She could see them now as she fed the hens, they were in the paddock building a new fence and they were worked as a team. There it was again the strangeness, this great bear of a man didn’t order them, he directed and taught them and the boys responded.
When she first arrived she had lain awake at night expecting Agnar to claim the rights of a master and was relieved when he didn’t. Maybe he was one of those she’d heard had a liking for boys, but even as she thought it she knew it wasn’t true. He may not have spoken to her much, but when he did she had seen the way that he looked at her and felt his eyes following her when he thought she wasn’t looking. Bera too had a way of looking at her as they worked, it was as if she was weighing her up and assessing her worth. It was a puzzling state of affairs but one she could live with, her new life was better by far than the one she’d had before.
She was comfortable in her new existence and things might have stayed that way, if the raiders hadn’t come. It was only a lone ship but it held forty armed men and it sneaked up the fiord with muffled rowlocks in the dark. The first Hilda knew of it was when was awaked by the voice of Agnar as he ordered the farmhands and even her brothers off in different directions to fetch his crew from their farms. Hilda hurriedly threw on her clothes, stepped from behind her curtain and was in time to see a fully armed Agnar and Olaf grab their shields as they exited the door. She followed and stood alongside Bera as she watched the two men raced towards the town where the first of the flames were beginning to appear.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
‘Raiders,’ Bera replied with out taking her eyes from the town.
‘Raiders?’
‘Aye, Norsemen,’ Bera spat the words.
Hilda could see the ship beached on the shore next to the town was the twin of Agnar’s own and struggled to understand. ‘But Agnar and yourself you are…’
‘No girl, we are Danes not Norse
To Hilda they were all Vikings; she hadn’t known that they were different races or that they raided each other. The clash of weapons, the shouts of men and the screams of woman seemed to have intensified and she became a little afraid.
‘Can Agnar and Olaf drive them off?’
‘Not on their own they can’t, but they will form a shield wall with the men of the town and try to hold them until the rest of the men come from the farms.’
The fighting had been going on for more than an hour before they started to see the first of the men arrive. They came in ones, twos and threes from every direction and soon they heard a cheer from the town as the raiders fled back to their ship and what was left of them rowed back along the fiord. They were beaten and should have left, but instead they turned into the shore and began herding the cattle on board the ship, no doubt thinking to salvage something from the disastrous raid. Then three of them broke away from the rest and raced for the farmhouse. Bera grabbed Hilda dragged her inside and together they barricaded the door. Moments later the door shuddered in its frame as an axe was taken to the wood. The Norsemen worked quickly and the wood began to splinter as blow after blow struck the door.
The two women armed themselves, Hilda with one of Agnar’s fishing harpoons and Bera with a long dagger and then they ran to the back of the room. They had barely reached the back wall when the door gave way and the first of the Norsemen broke through. He was a fair haired giant with a walrus moustache and he grinned in triumph as he spotted the women and their puny weapons. He walked towards them swinging his axe from side to side intending to frighten, not to kill and that was the mistake he made. Because Hilda waited until he drew near and as soon as the axe swept by she darted forward and ran the harpoon into his throat. The axe flew from his hand and embedded itself in the wall as the man grabbed for his throat and fell backwards where his feet hammered on floor as he died.
The jeering half smiles on the faces of the other two changed to expressions of anger at the death of their shipmate and they came not to rape but to kill. One went for Bera, who showed an agility that belied her age as she dodged his blows and all the fight went out of him when she managed to stab him in the groin. The wound probably wouldn’t have killed him, but even big hairy Norsemen collapse in pain when their manhood is attacked.
As the other came for Hilda she was frantically heaving on the handle of the dead mans axe trying to pull it free of the wall. It was stuck fast. But since she was trapped in the corner with nowhere to run and no other weapon to hand, she continued to heave. One last heave and suddenly the axe came free, she tumbled backwards, the axe flew from her hands and by the luck of the Gods struck the Norseman below the knee. The man grunted, looked at her in amazement then fell over groaning as the blood spouted from the stump of his leg.
Hilda made her way to where Bera sat with her back against the wall, and slumped down beside her. Now that it was over she began to shake and then the tears came and she dashed them away from her eyes determined not to give in to her emotions. Which was just as well since what was left of the door crashed open and through her tears she saw more men enter the room. Giving a moan of frustration she lunged for the axe that lay on the floor and gave a cry as a boot stamped down pinning the shaft to the floor before she could grasp it. Then strong hands reached down and Agnar lifted her gently up and enfolded her in his arms. Tears came then in a flood and she went to his bed that night for the first time.
Two weeks later she became Agnars wife, he adopted her brothers and in the fullness of time she had a son of her own and he was called Sven. Agnar with two ships commanded two hundred sworn men and was a powerful lord and she as his lady, lived in a fine hall. A far cry from the life she would have lived as a poor fisher girl in a driftwood hut, at the mouth of the river Tine.
