Rescued By The Viking. Meriel Fuller

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СКАЧАТЬ up the shore. Jewelled hilts, from short swords stuck in leather belts, shone out in the dying light as the men shouted, called out instructions to each other. And then the townsfolk ran down to help them, laughing and patting them on the back like old friends, happy that these tall, handsome Danish men had come to help them throw off the punishing yoke of the Norman infidels.

      The narrow wooden planks wobbled beneath Gisela’s feet, tipping one way, then the other, brownish water bubbling up from the mud and washing over the flimsy boards, staining her leather boots. Stepping cautiously, she made her way out to the gaggle of children dipping their buckets. Sea birds wheeled about her head, spreading huge white wings, cackling and screeching; fear snaked through her diaphragm. A child squeezed alongside her with a full, slopping bucket, then another, almost pushing her off the plank in their haste to reach the boiling house on the shore.

      These salt pans were more basic than the ones nearer the town: shallow pools dug out above the low-water mark, edges shored up with lumps of stone to stop the unstable mud sides caving in. She knelt down on the stone lip, swinging her bucket into the dense salty water, setting it beside her while she repeated the action with the other bucket.

      The light was dimming fast now, the sun dipping below the horizon in a riot of pink and orange hues. The Danish longships pulling up to the shore turned to dark silhouettes, the masts a cluster of black poles against the shimmering sky. Although it was only September, the evening air was chill, heralding autumn; Gisela shivered in her thin gown. Her sleeves were wet, splashed with sea water, and she pushed the coarsely woven wool up to her elbows to stop them becoming even more soaked.

      For their journey north, her father had insisted that both she and her sister Marie change their fine noble garments to more lowly outfits for travelling, so they would not attract attention. The servants in their castle on the south coast, their new English home given to her father for his loyalty to William the Conqueror, had been happy to supply both girls with serviceable gowns. An underdress of fawn undyed wool, an overdress of darker brown, crudely patched at the hem. The only things Gisela retained from her previous life were her fine woollen stockings, her leather boots and her mother’s silver brooch that held her scarf in place.

      ‘Come on, mistress!’ a little girl called to her from the end of the plank. ‘The tide is coming in! We must go back now!’ Looking around, Gisela realised that all the children had gone and were walking back to the shore. She glanced at the river; the brown water slopped and churned, the foaming tide beginning to fill the deep crevasses that scored the mudflats. The blood in her toes prickled; she had been kneeling for too long. Scrambling to her feet, pausing a moment to gain her balance on the rickety wooden plank, she reached down to heave up the buckets. Her arms ached, as if they had been stretched to twice their length already.

      Not far ahead, some of children had stopped, their gaunt, undernourished frames clustering around each other. She heard a wail, then another, and increased her pace towards them, carrying the heavy pails. A child, the small girl who had called out to her, had fallen into the mud, and was now up to her knees in the thick, gelatinous ooze.

      ‘How did she get there?’ Gisela asked sternly, looking down at the wan, grime-streaked faces.

      The children appeared puzzled for a moment, as if they hadn’t quite understood her. She was used to this, for as much as she tried to disguise her foreign accent, sometimes the Saxon vowels evaded her. She repeated her question, more slowly this time, and a boy eventually spoke. ‘It was him, mistress.’ He poked another boy in the arm. ‘He pushed her in, she was teasing him, you see...’

      ‘I understand...’ Gisela said sharply, seeing the girl’s face whiten with fear as she struggled in the mud, slapping down futilely with her palms. Placing her buckets carefully on the board, Gisela took two long strides out from the plank on to the mudflat, intending to pull the child out.

      ‘Oh, mistress, no...!’ the boy shouted out in warning, as her feet encountered the mud. She sank, promptly, her feet disappearing, swiftly followed by her calves and knees, her body lurching forward in shock. ‘Oh, God...no!’ Gisela cried out in horror as she realised her mistake. The hem of her gown rose up around her and the thick cold mud hugged her knees, her thighs.

      ‘Oh, mistress, you shouldn’t have done that!’ another child said. ‘That mud is dangerous, it’ll suck you down. That’s why we use the planks. To stop us disappearing...’

      Gisela let out a long, shaky breath. In her effort to reach the girl, she had forgotten. Sweat gathered beneath her linen scarf, along her neckline. She longed to rip it off and feel the cool air against her skin. Do not panic, she told herself sternly, fear bubbling treacherously in her belly. Do not. Beside her the little girl wept openly, her pinched face marred by tears and grime.

      ‘I will get you out of here,’ Gisela said confidently. Putting her hands beneath the child’s bony arms, she pulled and lifted, ignoring the fact that she sunk lower in the process, until she heard a satisfying sucking noise. The mud released its grip on the child’s legs; Gisela fell sideways, the child in her arms. Relief coursed through her.

      ‘Crawl flat on your belly over to the plank,’ she told the girl.

      The child frowned at her, her sweet face doubtful. ‘But what about you, mistress?’

      ‘Tell someone to come for me, when you reach the shore,’ Gisela told her. ‘Find someone to help me!’ she called to the rest of the children, watching the girl slither across the mud to join them. They nodded in unison, pointing at her, then nodded again, the bedraggled group chattering in subdued voices as they made their way back along the planks.

      As the wind whipped away their high-pitched voices, a gust of vulnerability, insidious and threatening, enveloped her. In this windswept barren landscape, she was completely alone, up to her thighs in mud, unable to move. Her buckets of brine sat on the wooden plank, mocking her. How long would it take for the children to send someone out? Would they even come? The salt-pan master had no care for her, he knew there was something peculiar about her, despite her rattling out the same story that her and her father and sister had all told on this journey. They were Anglo-Saxons heading north to live with relatives as the Normans had dispossessed them of all they had owned in the south. Maybe her mangled use of the English language had finally given her away.

      She tried to bend forward, lying down flat on the mud, scrabbling with her hands to try to reach a clump of reeds, to try to pull herself out. The mud seeped through her gown, cold and wet against her stomach and breasts. She tugged on the grass, slowly, gradually, hoping for the smallest movement around her feet and legs, a sign that the mud was giving up its hold on her. Nothing.

      To her right, the river slopped and gurgled, an ominous sound; the water spilled over the lower walls of the salt pans, starting to fill the shallow ponds. The tide was coming in quickly now. With a sickening dread, Gisela eyed the water gushing towards her. Sinking in the mud was not her only worry. Now, drowning seemed like a more likely option. Screwing her eyes up, she sought and found the figures on the shore, pale ghosts in the twilight. The children had surely reached the adults by now and were telling them to come and fetch her. Aye, that was it. As she straightened up, the thought comforted her and she kept her eyes pinned on the bleached lines of the planks, heading back to shore, squinting in the half-light for any sign of help, watching for someone, anyone, to come out to rescue her.

      But then, to her utter dismay, the cluster of people by the boiling houses walked away. Not one face turned towards her! Nay, they were heading towards the Danes, newly arrived on the shore. Arms raised in welcome towards the visitors, the shouts and calls of greeting echoed out across the mudflats. Distracted by the Danes’ arrival, they had forgotten, or had not even been told about her, stuck yards out from shore in the mud. No one was coming. Panic swirled in her chest, a great flood of terror СКАЧАТЬ