When they stopped, Sam sat down instantly and removed her boots. Their clothes had dried with the wind and their movement, but her wet socks in wet boots had rubbed her skin into ballooning white blisters on either heel and on one big toe. One of the men nearby saw what she did and snorted. Daniel was still standing, staring blankly into the heathered slope. Sam reached up and tugged him down beside her. He let out a tired sigh as he flopped onto the ground.
‘Ouch’ he said, staring at the exposed feet. ‘You’re not going to… ach, do that. Look I know we haven’t eaten but please’. Sam ignored him and rung out her socks as tightly as she could before trying to force them back onto her numb feet. After a moment, Daniel lent back onto the bank by the roadside and shut his eyes. Sam let him. She looked around at their escort who were drinking and eating a little way away. Her mind instantly thought of escape, but she as soon knew it to be hopeless. They could run, but in this landscape, they could not hide.
They had been walking for five hours, she had cursed the drizzle which had come with the dawn, but now she was thirsty and tired with fighting the wind that had risen up. She rubbed at her face. These were physical problems, but her heart was raw with other troubles. Tramping along the road from the broch there was plenty of time for the mind to play with fears, fears for Colonel O’Neill and Teal’c, fears for Daniel, fears for herself. There was an utter helplessness to their situation which begged her to meekly go along with their captors demands, to avoid the difficulties of confrontation, but the ignorance in which they trudged irked her as much as her feet. In the morning light, as they had been moved from the broch, she had demanded answers, but had been met by silence and a little laughter. The only words from the men to them were orders to move, to keep moving, to stop, to move. Daniel had been interested in some of the runestones they had passed on their way, but she had only been interested in the ever growing distance between themselves and the camp as they trudged down the lochside opposite the forest. She squeezed her eyes shut, ‘What the hell was going on? What did they want? What was going on back at the camp? Where was Jack and what the hell was she going to do?’ She opened her eyes again to the reaching green-brown of the slope and the grey of the sky. There was no answer to her thoughts, or if there was, it was nothing.
Daniel could have been sound asleep, his glasses slightly skewed, his hair flopping onto his face. He could have been, but he wasn’t. Instead, he was blocking out all interfering sounds to home in on the conversation, to one particular conversation, passing between the Norsemen. This would explain the slight frown on his forehead as he tried to catch again the voice which had spoken of Odin. Håkon was complaining of warts to Trygver, this he could follow, when he did not want to know, but the soft voice talking of the gods would not reach him.
‘…and they came back just when the old witch visited us and I would not drink with her.’
‘but she’s of sejd, you should never have slighted a women of sejd, take your warts lightly man…’
‘… and the weather won’t hold, there’s a cloud out that will reach in a downdraught presently…’
‘…for there’s nay warts on your face now are there?’
‘not yet…’
‘and it will fair come on to rain, aye and blow, I reckon…’
‘…the witch wasny after you, it’s your wife you should watch for.’
‘well, she hasn’t a wart on her face either’
‘I shouldn’t look to her face…’
‘… the Røthjarl won’t find them if they’re gone to earth…’ Daniel’s eyebrows twitched ever so slightly, that was it, the voice. ‘Røthjarl?’ he thought.
‘… he’ll set off back before dark…’
‘Jarl, as in the Jarldom of Orkney. Earl.’ thought Daniel.
‘…he’ll settle for these two well enough…’ Daniel didn’t catch the reply that was given to this, although he thought he caught the word Dinhalle. He brought his lessons in Old Norse to the fore of his mind. ‘Røthejarl. Red Earl.’
‘…well, moonwater cures boils so maybe you should try that…’ Daniel went back to tuning his ears.
Sam had turned to look over the grey water, quite a way from them now. There were geese down there. Every now and then the wind threw up their distant honking. She suddenly charged herself with the thought that she’d have preferred to come face to face with the showy architecture of the Goa’uld, when coming through the gate than this expanse. It had beguiled her when they had first arrived, but now it threatened with its bleak uncertainty. The further they went the more the unknown quantity seemed to surround her. Her eye was caught by movement. There was a small group of horsemen coming up the road towards them. They were moving quite quickly, she could tell, and yet, at this distance the progress seemed rather pathetic as they put their steads to each slope. There were three, one slightly ahead, its rider in a dark red cloak. She turned to look at the group of Vikings. One, seated furthest away, the man they called Tostig, wore a cape of similar colour. As she looked at him she saw his eyes widen slightly. He stood up,
‘Hey now, look who comes.’ The other men all turned or stood to see the riders for themselves.
‘Swainarse’s mare won’t take kindly to that.’ Said one.
‘Pig’s bottom,’ said Daniel quietly. He was sitting up, also looking to the approaching riders. ‘They called him Pig’s ass.’
It was clear, as the foremost rider drew nearer, why this was the case. Tostig strode forward to greet him, another man going forward to hold the bridle as the portly man heaved down onto the road. He first mopped his face with his sleeve, then, spoke in a surprisingly high voice,
‘The Røthejarlsen sends to know what news.’ His small eyes were fixed on the two captives as he said this. He started to move towards them, but the other man put a hand out to his shoulder and spoke to him in a low voice. They removed themselves slightly, conversing, one animatedly the other with restrained force. The other two riders who had drawn up decided to dismount. Their feet had, however, barely touched the ground, before they were ordered away.
‘Go on to the Røthejarl at the loch’s end, I must stay I’m afraid, but you hasten.’ With darkened faces, the two riders mounted and went on, while Swainarse clapped his hands together, looking once more with intensity in the direction of the two captives.
‘Let’s crack on then shall we?’
‘Perhaps,’ Tostig replied, ‘you should go on ahead of us.’
Swainarse put his head to one side, hands still clasped, ‘I’m not sure I should leave.’
‘Well, then perhaps Håkon could take your mare and go ahead with the news?’
‘Ah, well,’ came the hasty reply, as Swainarse went to take back the bridle, ‘Yarrow wouldn’t take to him. Not at all. Only cares for me of all the Odinsmen.’
Daniel distinctly heard, Håkon mutter, ‘the only thing that cares for you is a horse and your witch of a mother,’ as Swainarse made an ungainly ascent into the saddle.
Daniel had plenty of time to contemplate the derivation of Norse names as they followed Yarrow along the road as it turned with the bend in the loch and made for a small settlement nestling below a craggy outcrop at the loch’s coastal reach.
-
Teal’c had risen from mediation but stayed seated in his calm. Two men came and shared food with him. Told him his friend was upstream. Fed their curiosity, as they fed themselves. When they reluctantly left, to answer an irritated call for help from inside a cave, Teal’c rose and investigated the gorge. He recognised the seclusion it offered and wondering down the course of the burn met with a guard standing at one end. The guard raised a bow, Teal’c a hand, to indicate he meant no offence, and quickly turned and left. He followed the burn upstream and there saw O’Neill seated on a large boulder conversing with a woman. Nearby crouched a small figure, hung in khaki, clearly eavesdropping. For a moment he watched this strange scene, then withdrew.
He encountered two youths skinning a deer, and seeing the trouble they were having, bent to the task. They silently accepted his aid. At first the silence was hostility, uncertainty, but presently it lost that tenor, and became absorption.
O’Neill and Lief talked on for some time. He asked and answered many questions, she asked many, but answered few. Jack was pressing her once more for a reason why he could not go after Carter and Daniel, for an explanation for their capture and the threat she implied lay all around in the forest, when they were interrupted by a dark skinned, slight boy. ‘Where was Magpie’, he wanted to know, ‘where was the knife she had promised him?’ Lief looked alarmed jumped from the rock.
‘She was here, she was at the pool.’
‘Is she gone? Did you send her out?’ The boy asked and Lief, moving hastily towards him stopped dead.
‘No. I did not. Call Nethran and search the gorge, now.’ The boy was turning away. ‘I would never have sent her out.’
Colonel O’Neill followed her down to the caves where, suddenly all was action. He went and sat with Teal’c who was sharpening a knife on a whetstone.
‘O’Neill, I do not know what is amiss.’ He said, looking up from his work.
‘Ah, its just some kid gone awol. The one who stole the jacket.’ He threw a pebble into the burn and watched a group of young men coming out of a cave. ‘How many people are there here?’ he thought.
‘I saw her earlier.’
‘Yeah? You know these are weird people. I think they’re helping us, but I’m not entirely sure.’
‘They do not appear hostile.’
‘Well, no they’re not, but they’re not exactly helping either. I was talking to Lief… that’s their leader or something. She’s not hugely keen on us leaving, but you know, I don’t want to hang around playing in puddles when these Odinsmen, or whoever they are, have got Carter and Daniel.’ As he said this he threw a handful of gravel into the stream.
‘We should not antagonise these people, O’Neill. They could be allies.’
‘Oh for crying out loud, you sound like Daniel. I don’t care about their sensibilities, I care about getting the hell out of here, all four of us, in one piece…’ He was standing now. ‘… as soon as possible.’
‘Magpie has gone’ Lief’s tone was flat, but it might have been an accusation.
O’Neill turned to face her, ‘Do these people make no sound?’ he thought.
‘Gone where..?’ He started, but Teal’c cut him off.
‘Is she the girl in the uniform jacket?’
‘Yes.’
‘I saw her listening to O’Neill and yourself when you were talking near the waterfall. I believe you would call it eavesdropping.’ This last was directed at O’Neill, who raised his eyebrows, shrugging slightly.
‘Yeah?’ but Lief did not shrug, her face looked briefly distressed.
‘Then I think I know where she is.’ She said, in a low, cold voice, walking away from the strange men toward her own, who stood around their faces anxious, expectant and alert.
-
‘I think this is a souterrain.’
‘A what?’ Sam asked into the darkness.
‘A souterrain; an Iron Age underground storage chamber as built in Scotland in the first millennium BC… and probably used long into the first millennium AD… including, it would seem…ouch, I think the roof’s lower over here…by the Vikings.’
‘Great. Any way out?’
‘Apart from the way we came in? No, I don’t think so.’ Daniel’s attempt to circumnavigate the walls brought him back round to Sam. ‘Should we try the trap door?’ Sam looked upwards to where chinks of light could be seen creeping through the door over the vertical shaft down into the chamber.
‘If we’re going to try it, we should probably wait ’til its dark.’
‘Well, at least it’s not raining in here.’
‘Actually, I think water’s coming in. Not much good for a storage chamber.’
‘I don’t think they’ve been storing anything here for while. Ow.’
‘Sorry, Daniel.’ Sam stepped backwards again and then giving up found a wall to sit against. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark she saw the figure of Daniel, still poking about. After a minute she shifted. Her tee-shirt might have been wet following the sudden downpour as they had descended to the settlement, but the wall was definitely damp. ‘Perhaps, we’re meant to die a slow death by drowning in here.’
‘Then we won’t die of thirst, first.’ Replied Daniel, taking something over to the light to examine.
‘What is it?’ Sam could see his floppy haired head in the grey light beneath the shaft.
‘Er, a bucket.’
Sam snorted. ‘We could use it to bail out.’
‘We could, but I figured it would make a better seat. Here.’ He stumbled towards her proffering the upturned bucket, but Sam declined.
‘I wouldn’t Daniel, it’s probably not clean. You know?’
‘Oh, right, yeah.’ He said, hastily putting it to one side and wiping his hand on his trousers. A silence began to develop. Daniel’s searches brought up some potsherds and then a metal object, which excited him considerably. He stood, muttering to himself under the hatch, frustrated by the lack of light. Eventually he gave up and proffered this to Sam as well. She smiled at him in the darkness, and he saw the brief flash of white teeth.
‘Thanks, Daniel, better than a bucket.’ She took the object in her hands and felt it. ‘It’s a brooch.’
‘Yeah, but missing its pin. A fibulae, actually. Not late Viking, but then it could have been here for years…. Or brought here on someone else, I suppose.’ He could tell that, like him, she was exploring the metalwork form with her fingers. It was what he liked to do with artefacts. Perhaps he should conduct more of his study in the dark.
‘We’re going to be alright, Sam. Jack and Teal’c will come for us.’
‘I know.’ Daniel smiled this time. She sounded a little too firm and he knew why. She had a scientific mind, she’d have been working it out; the chance of Jack and Teal’c having not been caught and then, the chance of them not being seen if they had followed the group tramping to the settlement, and then again, if Jack and Teal’c hadn’t followed the group, the chance of them finding the settlement and the souterrain, when they had a vast landscape to search. ‘Are you shivering?’
‘It’s cold in here.’
‘We should run a caucus race.’
‘My feet couldn’t bear it.’
‘How are they?’ Daniel asked as he started to jump up and down in the darkness.
‘I don’t want to look.’ Her stomach grumbled loudly. She was so thirsty, only pride had stopped her turning her face to the sky when the heaven’s had opened on them earlier. As it was the dripping water by the hatchway kept catching her attention. ‘What did you think of the settlement?’
Daniel paused to answer her, ‘A strange mixture, just like everything else here. Some ruined Iron Age stuff, some still in repair, those were the stone structures, and several Viking longhouses and of course the great hall up above. Very impressive and definitely Nordic. Late decoration too, Ringerike maybe Urnes.’
‘What about the runestone?’
‘I wasn’t close enough to read it. It looked interesting though.’ He looked across to where he knew she was sitting ‘Not much to go on, is it?’
‘No,’ thought Sam, ‘not really’. Nothing to give her the explanation that her indignant demands had failed to provoke from Tostig and his distant men. She got the definite sense that he wanted nothing to do with them. Swainarse, on the other hand… she shuddered suddenly, goose pimples rising on her arms.
‘I feel quite awake now,’ said Daniel, ‘why don’t you get some sleep? Sam?’
‘Okay, but wake me after an hour, alright?’
Daniel gave her two.
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