Farne Islands

Kairos Medieval 6: K and Y 1 Married Life, part 1 of 3

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Kirstie

After 883 A. D. Trondelag, Norway

Kairos 104 Lady Kristina of Strindlos

When Kirstie and Yrsa left Father McAndrews and the monks behind and got to the shore of Lindisfarne, they found Captain Harrold’s longship was the last one there. Kirstie took one long look back at the abbey, the chapel, and the village she spared from the Viking rampage. Five shiploads of men eventually came to her side to defend the Holy Island against those who wanted to loot and pillage the island. It was enough to turn the looters away. The island was spared.

Kirstie was especially glad that three of the Viking crews that came to her side included all the men from her home village of Strindlos. Most of those men were her friends and neighbors. True, Captain Harrold Harroldson was the last and he came to her side reluctantly. He seemed convinced the abbey had chests full of gold and silver, and he would not be talked out of it, but his men, the men of Strindlos, outvoted him with their feet. Harrold came, but as he passed her by, he could not resist pointing his finger and mumbling threats about getting even.

When Kirstie and Yrsa clambered aboard Captain Harrold’s ship, Kare yelled at them. “How dare you prevent us from ruining the place. Now King Cnut of York won’t pay us, like he promised. We could have gotten all the silver from the church and been paid besides. We could be rich.”

Kirstie yelled right back. “Me and Yrsa standing alone against four hundred men. You should be glad I’m alive.”

Kare’s friend Thoren spoke in a much calmer voice. “Harrold wanted to leave you here. He wanted to abandon you to your fate among the Northumbrians.”

Kare still yelled. “I said I was not leaving without you. He said I could stay and die with you for all he cared.”

Thoren interrupted again. “Skipari Toke reminded him that Chief Kerga and Mother Vrya would be very unhappy if he left you here.”

Kare nodded, softened his voice a little, and pointed at Thoren. “Not to mention all the strange ones that live around your farm. That will have to change when we get married.”

“That will not change.” Kirstie shouted while she stored her things beneath her seat. She did not say she and Kare would not be married. Kirstie felt there was something inevitable about Kare and her, even if she hated the idea. Kare had been hounding her and threatening to marry her since she was a child. Sadly, she could not imagine a happy life with Kare. Right at the moment, she did not even want to look at the man.

Toke, the skipari made them all take their seats. Kirstie was glad for that, even if Kare sat right behind her. She grabbed her oar, and soon enough they rowed out into deeper water.

Kirstie looked toward the back of the ship, as all rowers did. She watched Captain Harrold at the steering board where he faced the front and could direct the rowers with simple commands. They turned around to head out to sea and Kirstie got a good last look at the island they were leaving behind. She saw ships, primarily fishing ships filled with men sailing by Saint Cuthbert’s Island to reach the main island on the other side of Heugh Hill. Before they got completely out of sight, she saw men on the hill staring back at them. She wondered if Wilam was among them before she scolded herself for believing Wilam felt anything at all for her.

She rescued Wilam with all the crews in Normandy and saw that they got paid. But she just met him. She hardly talked to him. He was just one member of one of the crews. He sailed with Captain Olaf. Brant Svenson was his skipari. But she imagined he was mostly just happy to be freed from his cage. She had no reason to suppose he had any interest in her one way or another.

True, she met him a second time in the Northumbrian village of Ellingham. She warned him about the Norsemen ready to attack Ellingham so he could evacuate the village, but really, he was just grateful. They talked a bit before she had to go, but not about anything important. As soon as Brant Svenson came with two horses, he rode off quick enough. He was just being grateful, she told herself again. It was not anything personal. She decided she should not let her personal feelings run away with her.

Kare said something over her shoulder from behind, but she chose not to hear him.

They rowed the two hours to one of the smaller of the Farne Islands that looked out on the North Sea, well out of sight from the mainland. Harrold brought the ship to the rocky shoreline where they put down the anchor and came ashore.

Kirstie noticed for the first time that they had a few goats tied at the back of the boat, along with a big keg of either wine or beer. Probably beer or mead, she decided. Harrold must have sent a few men to scout ahead on the holy island and maybe they picked up a sampling of what they found.

Kirstie ignored the goats. She had to hurry to Harrold to make her peace offering. He kindly stopped to listen to what she had to say. “I have a present for you, as long as there is peace between us,” she said. “The priest on Lindisfarne gave me this.” She pulled out the small golden cross. “He said it belonged to his mother. It is gold and probably the only gold on the whole island. I am offering it to you as very small compensation for preventing you from pillaging the abbey and the town.” She clutched it and thought through a prayer in her mind before she opened her hand and held it out to the man. “Let there be peace between us.”

Harrold took the little golden cross and looked at it closely before he put it in a pocket of his own. He nodded and said something she did not expect. “Do you know why Toke is my skipari?” Kirstie shook he head. “I can trust him. The men respect him, and he is honest because he is a Godr, a priest of Aesgard. He served in the temple in Varnes. That is where I found him back when you were a baby, and he has sailed with me since that day, which is why you might not know he is a priest.” Harrold turned his head to see one of the goats unloaded from the ship. “I am willing to make peace, but only after the ceremony.”

“What ceremony?” Kirstie asked, and suddenly two plus two added up to about seventeen in her head. “No,” she raised her voice. “I did not agree to this, and I am not agreeing to this.”

“Your agreement does not matter,” Harrold said. “You father is not alive to decide. As a captain in the town and on behalf of the whole community of Strindlos, I am making the decision. You will be married and settle down and stop interfering with the men of the Trondelag.”

“Captain Jarl and Captain Rune, and Chief Kerga will not agree with you. Mother Vrya will speak against you.”

“They are not here,” he said and brushed passed her with a final thought. “You might want to put on your blue dress.”

Kirstie let out a scream before she began to cry and Yrsa came to hold her. She thought about Wilam first thing, but she did not know what to think about Wilam. She honestly had no reason to suppose he had feelings for her. She thought about Kare. She thought about him since she was thirteen. She always figured she would end up married to him, but this was not what she had in mind. Of course, in her culture marriages were arranged, though usually by the father. Sometimes men and women did not even know each other before they married. It was up to the couple to make it work. With Kare, Kirstie figured it would be up to her to make it work.

Medieval 5: K and Y 18 Unexpected Meetings, part 1 of 4

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Kirstie

When the men got back to their ships, they asked the men left to guard the ships if they had any trouble from the locals. The men said they were not disturbed.

“We had men up on the hills there and there. A couple of fishing boats came in our direction, but not passed the mark where we could be seen. Nothing on land as far as we know.

Ulf took that as an invitation to plunder Howick. He sailed by the village a couple of times, which is how he knew about the cove, but the people there seemed vigilant in their sea watch. It never occurred to him before to park his ship up the coast and attack the village from the land side.

“We can be in and at their throats before they know we are there,” Njal the giant said, and smiled about it.

Captain Erikson said he was not going. He said the plan worked well. They got in and out, enriched themselves, and did not have to fight. “My crew is intact, and I would like to keep it that way. Besides, the others will be expecting us in the Farne Islands. We need to get moving while we can.”

Captain Odger decided to join Ulf on the venture, which left it up to Harrold. Toke kept the crew in line, but never offered an opinion on the captain’s decisions. Kirstie sometimes called the man Smee. Kirstie said she was not going and Yrsa supported her. Thoren volunteered to watch the girls. Kare got angry. He wanted to go, but in the end, Harrold decided to head for the Farne Islands with Captain Erikson. Most of his crew from Strindlos looked relieved, and Harrold did not grumble about it too much.

They spent the early morning dividing the loot they gained so each ship carried roughly the same amount. When they later arrived home and divided that into individual shares, no one would get rich. They wished Ulf and Odger luck and rowed out to sea. Once they set the sail, the men could relax, and most of them slept. They had been up about twenty-six or more hours by then.

“Lady,” Yrsa said. Kirstie hoped she did not want to start a long conversation.

Kirstie got as comfortable as she could on the deck before she asked, “What?”

“You know you spoke with Wilam and the people in the village in English, not the Norse we speak at home.”

“I did?” Kirstie thought for a minute and realized what Yrsa said was true. “I did. I guess Elgar helped with that.”

“I was thinking maybe Lady Alice from Avalon might have given you the language.”

Kirstie thought some more. “No? Maybe.” She shrugged.

“Avalon must be lovely,” Yrsa said. “I would love to go there one day.”

“Someday,” Kirstie responded. “But right now, I would like to get some sleep.”

Yrsa groused. “But I’m a light elf. I had a hard time marching through the dark time, but now that it is light time, I can’t sleep.”

“Good,” Kirstie said. “You can take my watch.” She turned on her side and promptly fell asleep.

Once in the Farne islands, they quickly found Rune, Jarl, and the two captains that sailed with them to the Coquet River. Frode mostly told the story with only a few interruptions.

“We got to the river mouth and had to wait a day for everyone to catch up, but we found a swampy area not too shallow for our ships, where we could cover and hide them from watchful eyes. We left five from each crew behind to guard the ships and took a hundred and seventy men to strike the village. We moved in the night, north to the Ain River. It was tricky moving between the city of Rothbury and Burling on the coast without being seen. But once we reached the Ain and had rested, we attacked the village and took them completely unprepared. They surrendered, and we gathered all their things. About a hundred men under Jarl then went down the Ain to the next village and attacked them as well.

“We got so much stuff, we could hardly carry it all,” Jarl said.

“We took weapons and knives, plus some things for the farm and home,” Frode continued.

“And mostly whatever silver coins they had, and any gold,” Rune added.

“Then came the tricky part,” Frode said and paused in case he got interrupted again. He continued. “We left the area near sundown and hurried through the night. A troop came out of Rothbury, maybe two hundred, and maybe a hundred men came from Burling. The stragglers reported seeing the men behind them, but they were all going the wrong way, toward the Ain River where they assumed we had our ships.”

Jarl interrupted again. “I imagine by the time they figured it out, we were back at our ships and sailed into the North Sea. We made a wide swing around to stay well away from the shore so we would not be spotted if they sent out their own ships to sail the coast, looking for us. In any case, we did not see them and arrived here a day before you. We spent that day dividing our loot, so each ship got an equivalent amount of the take.”

“So, tell me,” Kirstie spoke up loudly to get their attention. She was concerned about her own captains, Jarl and Rune. “How did you feel about attacking innocent civilians and stealing everything they had?”

“That wasn’t the way of it,” Frode began, like he had it all rationalized and justified in his mind.

“The people surrendered,” Jarl said. “And we rounded them up and held them in the village open market while we searched their houses and buildings. Only a few of the men who resisted got killed.”

One of the captains Kirstie did not know spoke. “I am sure their king will help replenish them for their losses. Meanwhile, we did our job, and with minimal killing, as you said.”

Kirstie looked again. He must have been at the meeting in the big house. “And you think if we got raided, King Harald Fairhair would compensate us?” People looked away. No one thought that. “I don’t recall any help when the Vanlil attacked us.”

Rune spoke again, but quietly. “No women got abused, as far as I know.” He felt he had to say that for Kirstie’s sake.

“I never thought of it that way” Harrold said. “I just saw them as people, like enemies, people who had things we wanted and needed, and they were greedy and not willing to share.”

“Trade works,” Captain Erikson interjected. “Fair trade can get us what we need without all the killing.”

 “But we don’t have much the people here want or can’t get for themselves,” One of the captains protested.

“Besides,” Frode said. “We are getting paid to do a job.”

“Like mercenaries,” Leif said. “That is an honorable occupation.”

Kirstie kept her mouth shut. The debate about whether or not it was honorable to kill for money would have to be saved for another time.

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MONDAY

Kirstie finds a hermit on the island and Yasmina and company arrive in Alexandria where they find a surprise. Next time. Happy Reading.

 

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