Western Walkabout: The Slave- 6
...That Easter, Aoife gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, with wisps of red gold hair. It was a prolonged and difficult birth but Aoife managed with assistance from Rose, and Father Cuthbert, who had previous experience in such matters and made sure the babes were not choked on their birth cords.
The children were christened Brian and Rika. Brian had been Aoife’s father’s name. She named the girl for me, swearing she had a look of me about her...
Richard Harris continues his engrossing tale about a Viking island lord and the slave girl who became his wife.
To read earlier episodes please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/western_walkabout/
The Birth Of Twins
It was a long winter but we got through it all right, thanks to our stockpile of turnips and parsnips, pears from the old tree at the bottom of the field, a large supply of apples, hazel nuts, the stores of grain carefully set aside, and the pickled pork and hams provided by Helga’s son who had been a runt but developed into a large pig under Aoife’s care. We supplemented our stores with salted, smoked and pickled fish, including the salmon, the little dabs, and the shell fish which we got from the sea.
That Easter, Aoife gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, with wisps of red gold hair. It was a prolonged and difficult birth but Aoife managed with assistance from Rose, and Father Cuthbert, who had previous experience in such matters and made sure the babes were not choked on their birth cords.
The children were christened Brian and Rika. Brian had been Aoife’s father’s name. She named the girl for me, swearing she had a look of me about her.
I was delighted with my new family and as a mark of my pleasure, gifted Father Cuthbert with three lambs to assist his support.
Aoife hired a young girl, Mae, to help about the house and in no time the lass was making herself useful.
The community seemed to lift with the presence of the priest. He taught the children to sing and chant and they sounded like angels. He had them learning their letters, scratching them out in the sand on the beach. They could all write their names.
He took to accompanying Aoife when she went spearing the dabs. In his bucket he collected sea shells, to our amusement, useless things that they are. I should have known that guided by God’s hand, all things can be useful. Behind the chapel Cuthbert had set up a little workshop, fitted out with a bench and some old, bent knives, cut down and sharpened by the blacksmith.
“What are you doing with those things?” I asked him one afternoon.
“I need to earn some money to buy some special things for the chapel. I’ll have to go to the mainland for them. I’m going to make some buttons for fastening a lady’s cloak, and some tokens for love, luck and wealth.”
Some of the shells he carved in the shape of a cross. He bored a hole in the top centre and threaded it with a leather thong. This was worn about the neck as a ward against evil.
The thick square buttons were a practical fastener for a cloak on a windy day.
Other shells were shaped and marked with special symbols, a heart for luck in love, and a pile of coins for luck with money. One had a special rune from the old religion, which conferred on the bearer excellent relationships with his fellows. These he put aside for trading when an opportunity arose.
“What do you need for the chapel? Is there something I could do to help?”
“I need a cup, a chalice, to serve the lord’s blood – meaning the sacramental wine – and I need the proper vestments as a priest.”
“I’m sure the local women could make some vestments for you if the task was explained to them. Do you want me to talk to Aoife about it?”
“There is an order of holy sisters who make these things up – their work is incomparable, and that is no slight on any of the women here. But there is something you could do, using your natural gifts with animals.”
“Like what?”
He had noticed while combing the beach that a pair of white falcons nested high on a cliff ledge. It was a difficult climb but if a young bird could be taken from the nest, and trained to come to a lure, it would command a high price in the king’s court at Lothian.
The trick would be to take only one nestling, the largest one, and not take it too early.
“You would need a leather gauntlet to train the bird,” he said. “They kill their prey on the wing with a strike from their heel. Aoife could make the gauntlet, for sure.”
