If I Had a Heart: The Saga of Ivar and Ita
Chapter 9
Ita did not recognize this girl, but whoever she was, she needed to be thanked later.
"She's been with you, has she?" Diarmait asked, and Ita saw his whole demeanor change. He seemed now as though he were trying to appear charming, and it took everything in Ita not to laugh. "Then how come I haven't seen her? Hm?"
"Because," the woman said, "you haven't been visiting me." She touched his arm fleetingly, then let her hand fall right back to her side. "Remember? That's not acceptable."
"Oh, yes," he smiled. "I nearly forgot."
Watching this scene, Ita was not entirely sure what she was seeing, but whatever it was was quite amusing. She snickered to herself, prompting the young woman to turn her attention to her.
"I was wondering where you'd got to," she said.
"Sorry," Ita said. "I was looking at getting a new dress."
"Yes, that one won't do for much longer," the other woman said, stepping closer and eyeing Ita's tight, fraying winter gown. "We'll definitely be needing to get you some more." She looked at Diarmait, and Ita saw that this nameless woman was charming her uncle as much as he was her. She couldn't believe it. "I'll be needing one, too, I should think. Can you come by tomorrow morning with something?"
"'Course," he said. "Maybe then you can explain to me why you never told me you've been keeping my sister's daughter from me, hm?"
She laughed, cocking her head to the right. "How was I to know she was yours?"
"Why do I put up with you, woman?" he teased.
"Because you love me," she said. "And because my uncle pays you a lot of money."
"Hm," he intoned, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Perhaps only the second?"
"I doubt it."
"As you should."
"Now, remind me," she said, looking again to Ita. "Where were we going this afternoon when I lost track of you, dear?"
"Eh…the church, I believe," she responded quickly. That was where she had planned to go anyhow, though she had planned on going alone.
"Right. Well, I will see you tomorrow, Diarmait," the woman said.
"Yes, of course," he said, and he went back behind his table.
The woman took Ita by the arm and began leading her away from the market, and it wasn't until the top of the church building was in sight, and beyond a tall stone building, that courage and curiosity won and Ita dared to look closer at her. The woman was probably only a year or so older than Ita, with light brown hair, perfect creamy white skin, and wide gray eyes.
"Thank you," Ita said.
"For what?"
"You answered for me before I made a fool of myself."
"Oh, never mind that. That was nothing," the woman smiled.
"Why did you do it?"
"Because I want to help you," she said.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Brigid," she said. "My uncle, Cadhla, is the lord who looks over this town. He pays your uncle to provide all our fabrics."
"Diarmait is doing well for himself," Ita noted.
"Of course he is. He is very good at his job," Brigid said matter-of-factly. "And that is why I think my uncle would love to meet you."
"You think your uncle would love to meet me?" Ita said skeptically.
"You are the only known family of one of his favorite people," Brigid said. "And as you are alone in our city with only the clothes on your back and a very small bag, I presume you have no place to stay."
"Oh, I do," Ita said quickly. "You don't have to bother yourself with taking me in, really. But I thank you for your kindness."
"Oh, do you? Where are you staying then?"
It was a simple enough inquiry, but it seemed confrontational to Ita, who had not yet formulated a good enough lie.
"Em, I am staying with –"
"With me for the time being," Brigid cut her off, smiling brightly, making the impossibility of refusal very obvious.
"Thank you," Ita said, trying to appear grateful by returning her smile, albeit weakly. She glanced nervously over her shoulder, back toward the city gates.
"What is your name, by the way? If you're going to be staying with me, I should know your name."
"Ita," she answered.
"And you said you wanted to go to the church, Ita?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"To pray and confess," Ita said. "I haven't been able to in months."
"There is a chapel nearer to my uncle's home if you would like to use that," Brigid offered. "Father Cormac is a good friend of mine. I'm sure he would not have a problem with it."
"Maybe next time, if I am still with you the next time I decide to go," Ita said. "For now, a public church is good enough for me."
"Alright, if you insist," Brigid said. "Here we are."
Sure enough, just as she said that, Ita looked up to see the large open doorway before them. They walked inside, and Ita made her way to a bench and knelt down. Strangely enough, there, in that house of God, Ita felt further from her God than she had in months. She could not bring herself to actually pray, but she made a point of going through the motions as she sat there, thinking about what she needed to do and taking in as much of this sight as she could to tell Ivar later. Once she had finished, she smiled politely to Brigid, who stood patiently at the back of the room, and she made her way over to the confession booth and shut herself inside.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," she said in a soft, shaky voice. Glancing sideways, she caught a glimpse of the old priest sitting on the other side of the barrier. "It has been almost a year since my last confession." There was a brief moment of silence, and she let out a quiet laugh. "I don't know if I remember how to do this."
"Tell me your sins," the priest replied patiently.
"Right," Ita said.
It would have been a relief to admit everything. And this man would be required to remain silent, to not tell a soul a word of what she would say to him. She could tell him about her treachery and about the pagan lifestyle into which she was slowly but surely assimilating. About the sins she would undoubtedly be forced to commit, and about the ones she would gladly commit without a second thought. About the blood that was yet to be shed and which would be found on her hands, and about everything else. But that is not what she did.
"I," she said slowly, hesitantly, "I am guilty of lying, and of willingly withholding information."
"How many times?" he asked.
"I am afraid I have lost count, Father," she admitted with a nervous laugh.
And I am doing it right now, she thought, glancing once more at him through the barrier between them. Strangely, she felt no guilt.
As he listened, she listed transgression after transgression, crime after crime, and none of them true. Or, at least, none of them presented at full value. Mention of a little white lie here, a word about a stolen glance there. That was all she afforded him. And then, once she had completed her little half-confession, she stepped out and rejoined Brigid, who smiled again at her and took her kindly by the arm as she led Ita even further into the city, beyond the church to the large stone building where the lord lived.
Ita peered over her shoulder more than once, and each time, she could have sworn she saw someone following them. She was certain it was a man, but beyond that, any other part of his appearance was difficult to discern because he had his cloak hood pulled down, hiding his face – very odd for springtime, Ita thought. He was tall and he seemed to move in the shadows, ducking in and out of the crowd, creeping along walls and through alleys, and lurking near doorways and windows. Many things about him seemed dark and ominous and altogether unnerving. Ita tried to shrug it off, deciding it was just a coincidence and that she was only imagining things because she was so nervous. No one was following her. She was just being silly.
"My uncle is going to be so pleased to see you," Brigid said excitedly, drawing her attention back.
Through the long, winding corridors of the large stone house which belonged to Brigid's family, Ita followed her new friend. She tried to memorize the way they had come, to think of the easiest way of escape if such an incident made that necessary. But it was all so confusing, and every corridor seemed to lead to at least two more. Finally, they made it to a large dining room, where at a long wooden table about a dozen people were sat. There were all kinds of foods and smells, all unfamiliar to Ita, and many different sights, too. The people at the table were all wearing clothing of rich blues and greens and purples, made from fine fabrics that could only have come from her uncle's trading business. Blue and silver cloths of similar quality hung at the windows, extending from the ceiling to the floor.
"Brigid, so good of you to join us," said the man at the head of the table, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Visiting the market again, were you?"
The man sitting beside him shifted in his seat and picked up his glass, looking at Brigid over the rim as he drained it.
"Yes, I was, in fact, and you'll never guess who I met there," Brigid smiled, and she sat down in the seat between the two men; she gestured for Ita to sit across from her.
"Who is this young lady, Brigid?" the first man asked, jabbing his knife in Ita's direction. "You did not tell me you were bringing an urchin home with you."
"Uncle, she is not an urchin; her name is Ita," Brigid said in a low voice. "She is the daughter of Diarmait's late sister, and she will be staying with us for a few days."
"Ah!" he exclaimed with a smile. "Well if she is a relative of Diarmait's, I have no complaints. He has been loyal to us for many years, and he has provided my family with some of the finest cloths I have ever seen."
Again, the second man shifted in his seat and he glanced over at Brigid, who, rather than returning his gaze, looked to Ita.
"He works wonders, Ita," she said. "But of course, you must already know."
"I was not aware of the extent of his work, actually," Ita said.
"Oh, you would be surprised," the man beside Brigid said, seemingly on edge.
"Aengus!" the lord cried.
"Cadhla?" he said with a tone of mock innocence.
"Must you be this way?" Brigid asked warily.
"Aengus, please, we have a guest," the lord, Cadhla, said in a hushed tone.
"Fine," Aengus said, and he put on a false smile as he stabbed his fork into a piece of meat and shoved it into his mouth.
"I am sorry again, about my husband," Brigid said, exhaling heavily as she led Ita down yet another corridor. "He's not usually this way."
Brigid had taken it upon herself to give Ita a tour of the whole place: all three floors of the main house, the cellar, the stables, and even a bit beyond the grounds. It was a lot of walking, but Ita was used to that by now. Through the deep blue drapes in the windows, Ita could see the sky growing darker by the second. She wondered about Hvitserk and what he must be thinking. He had likely gone back to the encampment without her by now in a panic, not knowing just what to tell his brothers. She was supposed to be back by now, telling Ivar everything she had learned and preparing for tomorrow. He was probably furious, and maybe a little worried. For all he knew, Ita thought, she could be dead and his plan ruined.
"It's fine," Ita said. "If it makes him uncomfortable, I can definitely find somewhere else to go for the night."
"Nonsense! Coming, Ita?" Brigid asked, turning around to look at her down the long, wide corridor.
"Eh, yes, sorry," Ita said. She had gotten distracted looking out the window; she caught back up with Brigid.
"You will sleep with me tonight, and tomorrow we will have a room prepared for you," Brigid told Ita as she walked ahead of her down the long corridor. "If you don't mind, that is."
"No, that's perfectly fine," Ita said agreeably. She swallowed hard, looking back again to the window, and she could have sworn she saw a shadow pass by it. But that was impossible. On the second floor, they were too high up for any person or animal to be visible through that window, except maybe a bird. She was imagining things again.
"Great," Brigid smiled, and she swung a door open and went in.
Brigid's room was much the same as the rest of the palace: draped in blue and green, with dozens of tall white candles on metal holders; her bed was small, but the sheets were pure white and on the table beside the bed there was a pitcher of what Ita assumed to be water, along with a book of medium size. Ita crossed the room to look at it. It was open, and on the page visible to her, she saw a beautiful picture of people and flowers of bright colors, and many dark markings in lines going across the page.
"You can read?" Ita said, her voice almost a whisper; she looked behind her at Brigid, who had sat down at a table to brush her hair.
"Can't you?"
"No," Ita shook her head. "I-" she laughed to herself and ran her fingertips over the page gently, scared she might somehow smudge the markings, "I've never even seen a book like this before."
"Really?" Brigid asked, a bit surprised. "Well maybe – if you're here long, I mean – maybe I can teach you to read."
"Thank you," Ita said, and she almost wished that could be, but she knew she couldn't set her heart on that. This girl and her uncle would probably be dead by the end of the week and Ita would be back with the Northmen.
That is, if she ever made it back to the encampment.
Through the open door, she saw Aengus pass by in the corridor, and she looked to Brigid once more.
"I don't mean to intrude, but…you do not sleep with your husband?" Ita asked.
Brigid laughed. "If the occasion calls for it I will, but no. I don't generally sleep with my husband. Why do you ask?"
"Em," she said hesitantly, "my parents shared a bed, and so did my older brother and his wife. And –" she caught herself before she said Ubbe and Margrethe, and instead said, "a friend of mine and her husband do. I thought all married people did."
"Poorer people do, I suppose, because it's just more convenient that way," Brigid said thoughtfully. "I had never really thought of it before." She laughed. "You live your whole life one way, and you never even stop to consider how other people live. That's very interesting that you would point that out, Ita. Thank you for that."
Ita nodded and pulled the curtain back from the window beside the bed, and she peered out at the nearly-dark city. The sun was all but gone behind the hills now and there was an even deeper sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Allowing Brigid to take her to the lord's house was a mistake. Agreeing to stay the night was an even bigger one. She couldn't even imagine how much this had thrown Ivar's plan off course and how much trouble she would be in if she ever made it back.
In the shadows below their window, Ita could have sworn she could see the cloaked man who had followed her earlier that day. She gasped and let the curtain fall back into place, and she took a few steps back.
"What on earth is the matter?" Brigid asked, setting her hairbrush down and looking at Ita concernedly, and she got up to look out the window for herself.
"There is a man in a cloak downstairs," she said. "He's been following us since I met you."
"Probably one of the guards, love. It's fine," Brigid said with a sweet smile. "There is no one there now. Don't worry."
"Oh," Ita said, feeling rather silly as she sat on the edge of the bed, "of course."
"Well, now," Brigid said, "I think it's time you get some rest. I will be getting some, anyhow, even if you don't want to yet. If you happen to feel you can't breathe and need some fresh air at any point in the night, don't go outside. It isn't safe. There is a balcony, though, over there." She pointed to the draperies on the adjacent wall. "My uncle swears it isn't safe to breathe the night air, but I find it rather refreshing myself. You can just step out onto it for a minute if you need to. Much safer than going out and wandering the grounds, if you ask me."
"Thank you," Ita said. "I'll remember that."
Brigid went around and blew all the candles out, giving Ita enough time to get settled in and comfortable on her side of the bed before Brigid joined her, leaving one candle still lit on the small table by the door.
Ita awoke from a restless half-asleep state a few hours later to a thudding sound, like something heavy hitting stone. She sat up and listened, but there was no further noise. She looked over to Brigid, thinking that perhaps she had made the noise somehow, but she was asleep and snoring softly, her face buried in her pillow.
"Brigid," she whispered, shaking the other girl's shoulder, "Brigid, did you hear that?"
"Hngh," Brigid groaned, still mostly asleep, rolling onto her side and putting her back to Ita.
Reluctantly, Ita got out of bed and tiptoed over to the window beside the bed, but she saw nothing.
"Hm," she intoned, shrugging, ready to pin it on her imagination or a dream and go back to bed.
But as soon as she pulled the covers back to get back in, she thought she saw the curtains to the balcony window move.
"The wind, no doubt," she told herself, and she crept carefully over to the window, wanting to kick herself for not insisting on taking her sword.
She placed one shaking hand on the edge of the curtain and gripped it tightly, having to pause to take a deep breath before she could open it, and quickly, before she could change her mind, she threw it open and stepped out onto the balcony. She went to the edge to look over the railing, to see if perhaps an owl or some other night bird and flown into the wall, or if there was something downstairs. Still, there was nothing. She sighed, relieved to see as much, but before she could turn around, she felt something seize her.
An arm wrapped around her waist and she sucked in a bellyful of air, preparing to scream. A hand clapped over her mouth. She struggled to get away, but it was no use. Whoever had her was strong.
"Shh," her attacker breathed, right against her ear.
On her face, her neck, she could feel the coarse fabric of a heavy hooded cloak. She stomped on this man's foot and jabbed her elbow back, not caring what she hit. This caused him to take a step back and she took this opportunity to turn around and knee him in the crotch. He let her go then, doubling over in pain. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pushed him back against the railing.
"Damn it, Ita," she heard him say hoarsely.
This was the Northmen's language. Not her own. And the voice was so familiar, even full of pain.
"Hvitserk?" she said.
She threw back the hood to his cloak, and sure enough, it was him.
"Shh!" he hissed again, regaining his feet.
"What are you doing here?" she whispered.
"Keeping an eye on you. Ivar's orders," he said, and he cleared his throat. "And, of course, I was worried, too."
"Thank you," she said. "I am sorry I attacked you."
"That is alright," he said.
"Are your brothers angry?"
"Ivar is – he always is, but now I think he is furious," he sighed. "Bjorn is not happy; he is very worried, too. But Ubbe, Ubbe thought it was funny, I think. He said he expected you to turn on us, and to him, it certainly looks as though you have."
"I have not!"
"Shh!"
"Sorry," she said more quietly. "I haven't. I swear. I didn't mean to end up here."
"It's alright," he said. "We are changing the plan a little. I tried to convince Ivar that maybe this is for the best. I told him that we can use your place in this king's house to an advantage and we can use it to get more information. But he thinks it would be best for you to come home tonight."
"The man who lives in this house is not a king," Ita said.
"He certainly lives like a king," Hvitserk said, looking around.
"He is apparently a lord," Ita said.
"A lord?"
"Eh…I think you would call him an earl?" she said. "He is slightly under the king. This is his land, and he rules this city, but he answers to a king when it comes down to it."
"Very interesting," Hvitserk said, impressed. "You're already learning a lot. Good."
"I am trying," Ita said. "But I've been a little bit –"
"Can I come in?" he asked, starting to pull the curtain back, but she stepped between him and the window, giving him a stern look.
"Please don't," she hissed, anxious.
"Why? Are you scared of getting caught with a strange man in your room on your first night here?" he said jokingly. "You don't have anything to worry about, Ita, really."
"No," she said. "Brigid is in there."
He shook his head, confused. "Brigid?"
"The woman I was with earlier; she is the lord's niece."
"Oh?" His eyes lit up mischievously. "Wait till I tell Ivar. He'll just love this."
"It's not like that! She's just letting me stay here until they have a room ready for me," Ita said.
"Don't you ever have any fun?" Hvitserk asked with a quiet laugh, but when he saw the look of mixed anxiety and confusion in her eyes, he frowned. "Never mind."
"Why are you here?" she asked as she adjusted the curtain one more time.
"I'm here to take you back," he said. "You've been here long enough for today."
"I can't just leave now," she said. "Tomorrow, when I come back, won't it seem odd that I disappeared in the night?"
"They probably won't notice," he shrugged.
"Of course they will," she said.
"How can you be so sure they will even care?"
Because they know my uncle.
But then, she couldn't tell Hvitserk about him. That would be too big of a risk, and it would make things much too complicated.
"I just…I can't come home tonight," she said. "There are things still to learn and I can't just disappear. Not yet."
"When?"
"A day or two more. Please, Hvitserk."
"Alright," he sighed. "But…please be careful. I'll be back tomorrow."
"Alright," she agreed. "Goodnight."
"Night."
He pulled his hood back over his head, and he threw a leg over the side of the balcony. She laughed once.
"What?" he asked, stopping to look at her.
"Your clothes," she said. "They're not your own. Where did you get them?"
"Does it matter?" he said with a half-smirk.
She shook her head. "No."
"Goodnight, Ita," he chuckled, and he carefully climbed back over the other side of the balcony and lowered himself to the ground.
She watched for a while until he had disappeared in the distance around some building or other and went on over the city wall.
