London - Edward Rutherfurd [85]
Still Ricola was thinking desperately. All night she had lain in the slave quarters hoping for some reprieve. She had tried to speak to Elfgiva. A few moments with her – that was all she needed – and she could have explained everything. She was sure of it. But ever since Cerdic’s men had come to seize her and Offa the previous morning, it was as though her mistress had disappeared entirely. For Elfgiva and her husband the two slaves had, quite suddenly, ceased to exist. When she had protested, tried to scream her message to the people outside the slave quarters, the Frisian had cruelly whipped her. After that, no one had come to the slave quarters. No one.
Surely somebody would take pity on her. Wistan at least, if not his mother. She guessed that this isolation must be deliberate. Either Elfgiva or her husband had given orders. She and Offa were not to be approached. No contact at all. They wanted the two slaves out of their lives.
And yet if Elfgiva only knew her secret. If she could just let her mistress know that she was pregnant. How could she as a woman fail to sympathize? As dawn at last arrived and she thought she heard people moving about, her hopes grew a little and focused upon a single, vital point. Somehow, between the slave quarters and the Frisian’s boat, she had to get this one message to Elfgiva. No matter how many blows the Frisian rained upon her with his cruel whip, she had to tell her.
An hour passed. The light was stealing under the door. After a while it opened and the Frisian entered. In silence, he fed them barley cakes and water before disappearing. Some time passed, then he reappeared with four of his eight sailors and led them all out into the cold, grey morning.
There were, as she had guessed there would be, a number of people on the bank waiting to see them leave. She saw the stockmen, the foreman, the women with whom she had worked every day. But not one of Cerdic’s family. Not even one of the four sons. If they were watching, they were out of sight.
At the top of the bank she passed close to one of the women. The cook.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered. “Tell the Lady Elfgiva. Quickly!”
“Stop talking,” the Frisian called out curtly.
Ricola looked at the woman beseechingly.
“Don’t you understand?” she cried out softly. “I’m pregnant.”
A second later she felt a searing pain across her shoulders, and then the Frisian’s hand on the back of her neck, pushing her forward. Twisting her head painfully, she managed to look back at the woman. The cook’s broad Saxon face was pale, a little frightened perhaps, but she did not move.
Something distracted the Frisian now. He removed his hand and started to the front of the line. Ricola was passing the foreman now.
“I’m pregnant,” she called to him. “Won’t you just tell the mistress that? I’m pregnant.”
He stared at her as calmly as if she were a piece of livestock. Crack! The whip came hissing down again. Once, twice, catching her on the neck, making her scream with agony.
Now she was beside herself. She had nothing to lose. No dignity left. Never mind the pain.
“I’m pregnant!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Lady Elfgiva! I’m pregnant! Can’t you understand? Pregnant! I’ve got a child!”
The fourth blow cut into the first. Deep. For a second she almost passed out. She felt strong arms dragging her down the bank while she babbled uselessly: “A baby . . . I’m having a baby.” Her whole body was shuddering with the shock and the pain. But still nobody moved.
Some five minutes passed while she sat in the boat, coming back to her senses. The Frisian’s sailors were calmly loading stores. The Frisian himself, directing his men, seemed to have forgotten her. It was as though her outburst had never taken place.
Surely when she had shouted her message it must have echoed all round the trading post. Surely Elfgiva, or at least one of the family,