silent presence haunted his days, as she brushed past him like a ghost, or perched, mute, at the end of the table. She hadn’t spoken a word since she’d been brought back from this godforsaken land.
‘What I could never understand, though,’ Eirik continued, ‘was why Gyda decided to travel to England with Magnus in the first place? On a raiding mission, of all things.’
Because I told her to do it, thought Ragnar. By Thor, I encouraged her! I could see how much in love with Magnus she was and could see how against that love our parents were. I told her to go, that I would explain everything to our parents: Gyda and Magnus would marry in England and return to Denmark as husband and wife. All would be well. But then, suddenly, it wasn’t.
Raised voices nearby yanked Ragnar’s attention from his memories. He was thankful. He had no wish to dwell on his sister’s plight any longer than was necessary. His eyes traced the shadows, hunting out the sound of an argument. Beneath the overhanging thatch of a building, a woman tugged at a man’s tunic sleeve, a large bulky man, his flabby red-flushed face slack from alcohol. She was pointing desperately, gesticulating with her fist out to the mudflats, her voice a shrill cackle, pitched with urgency. Not many people were around now; the crowd by the longships had drifted away, eager to show their Danish visitors the delights of the town, funnelling eagerly up the narrow streets that led from the shore. Only Eirik and Ragnar and a few of their men remained on the shingle.
Lifting one meaty fist, the man clouted the woman around the ear, shoving her backwards. ‘You have no right to speak to me like this. Get away! I told you, I’ll fetch her when the tide comes in.’
Hunching over, her hand cupping her throbbing ear, the woman replied sullenly, ‘The tide is coming in, you senseless oaf! The maid’s up to her knees in it already. You need to do something, otherwise she’ll drown.’
Staggering back against the uneven cob wall of the building, the man lifted his tankard and took a huge gulp. The ale trickled down his chin. ‘Let the girl drown, then! What do I care?’
‘She rescued little May, did the children not tell you? That’s why she’s in the mud. She stepped off the planks to save her.’
Anger flaring in his gullet, Ragnar covered the shingle in three long-legged strides. To see a man hit a woman like that filled his mouth with sour distaste. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked the woman, touching her elbow with concern. Clutching her ear, she stared up at Ragnar in astonishment, then nodded slowly.
As Eirik came up beside him, the drunk man raised his head, regarding the tall Danes with a churlish, guarded look. ‘’Tis our business.’ He cleared his throat noisily. ‘Go into town with the rest of your men.’
Sensing an ally, the woman lifted her eyes to Ragnar, plucking nervously at his tunic sleeve. ‘The maid is stuck in the mud!’ Her cheeks were pinched, crusted with salt. ‘And the tide is coming in so fast, she will surely drown!’ Guided by her pointing finger, Ragnar scanned the bluish-brown marshes, the clumps of stiff grass, his gaze snagged by the deep grooves cut into the thick brown ooze. The setting sun flashed against something, a brooch, or a ring, he knew not what, and his eyes honed in on that spot. And then he saw. The silhouette of a figure calling plaintively through the twilight. The foaming edge of tide swilled around her knees, floating out the hem of her dress. The woman was correct: time was not on her side.
‘Fetch a long rope from one of the ships,’ he ordered one of their men who had followed Eirik and him across the beach.
‘You’re not going out for her, are you?’ Eirik frowned. ‘Let these people rescue their own, I say. We should not involve ourselves in the business of the town.’
‘Then what in Odin’s name are we doing here?’ Ragnar lifted brindled eyebrows, burnished arcs of copper below his flaxen hair. ‘We’re supposed to be helping them throw off the Norman yoke, yet we can’t rescue a Saxon maid from the mud? She is going to die out there, unless we do something. Do you want that on your conscience?’
‘Nay, of course not.’ Eirik grimaced, his expression rueful, as if ashamed of the way his thoughts had run. Despite his superior rank to Ragnar, they were friends first and foremost, having grown up together on neighbouring estates in Ribe.
‘Besides, you’re not going out there.’ A muscle quirked beneath Ragnar’s high cheekbone and he smiled. ‘The King of Denmark’s son, wading through the mudflats? Your father would never let me hear the end of it.’
‘Then go with Thor’s blessing,’ Eirik replied, as their man returned with the unwieldy coil of rope slung around his neck and torso. ‘Let’s hope she’s alive by the time you reach her.’
* * *
Gisela’s throat was dry, scraped raw by her continued shouting. Exhaustion made her head swim, her thoughts dancing about with chaotic abandon. Crossing her arms over her chest, hugging herself, she wished for the hundredth time that she had worn her cloak that day and not just her thin gowns and chemise. She was cold, shivering uncontrollably now, the icy mud gripping her legs and thighs like an iron fist. Treacherous sea water swirled around her, embracing the tops of her legs, curling lovingly around her freezing limbs. As the tide lapped higher and higher, a panicked fear took hold, silencing her screams. For what was the point of calling out? No one was coming for her now. The shore was visible in the limpid twilight, snagged by lingering sunlight, but it was empty, deserted. Everyone had gone.
Unable to settle on one spot for any length of time, her vision scurried across the silvery mud. Twinkles of light shimmered out from the huddle of cottages that formed the town. A weakness suffused her muscles, draining the last of her strength; her stomach was empty save for the small bowl of gruel she had eaten with her father and sister that morning. Her brain jumped and twitched with hunger and fatigue; the temptation to lower herself into the swirling brown water, to sink her hips into it, threatened to overwhelm her.
How would her father cope without her? Her sister? Poor Marie, she had been through so much already. Her beauty had been the bane of her life, her angelic looks catching men’s interested gazes wherever they went. Tears welled in Gisela’s chest, spilling hotly down her cheeks, blurring her sight. She would no longer be there to protect her. Pressing trembling palms to her face, she wept at the sheer hopelessness of her situation, the sea water creeping to her waist, soaking the coarse fabric of her gown. She had never been prone to self-pity, but at this moment in time, as the tears dripped down through her fingers, she truly believed that she was going to die.
The slim outline of the maid’s wavering figure became gradually more distinct as Ragnar strode along the narrow wooden planks, the rope tied around his waist for safety playing out behind him, back to his men on the shore. Shiny tussocks of grass perched on top of the carved mudflats; seabirds wheeled around his head, flapping and croaking at his presence as he passed by. Halfway across the mudflats, the incoming tide lapped his calf-length boots, frothing around his ankles. He cursed. The leather would take an age to dry out.
Jerking his head up, he suddenly realised the maid’s screaming had ceased. Had she even seen him? For if she saw him, it would give her hope. But the girl stood with her hands over her face, the brown churning current of the river at her back. A coarse linen scarf wrapped tightly around her neck and head, secured with a fearsome-looking silver brooch, the silver that had flashed in the dying sun, attracting his attention before.
‘Hey!’ he called out in Saxon. ‘Hey! You there, I’m coming for you!’ He was expecting her hands to fall away from her face, for her to look up and see him. But she remained as she was, face covered with her hands, as if she hadn’t heard him. Which, of course, she might not have, given the noise that the seabirds were making. The maid’s garments were shabby, ripped in places, loose threads dancing in the shimmering light. Layer upon layer of earth-coloured cloth enveloped her, garments that every low-born Saxon seemed to wear.
Ragnar sighed. Any one of their men could have come out for her. But he knew what had driven him out here: the same thing that made him ride headlong into battle, always at the front of the pack, swinging his axe with violent dexterity around his head; the cursed restlessness of his soul, the