Page 64 of The Caged Viking

Signe acknowledged the introduction with a nod, but a frown of confusion at the reason for her being called.

“I’ll let Lady Kirstin explain,” Frida said.

Kirstin did not like being called “Lady” but she let that go for now. “Signe, this jarl house is a filthy mess, and what it needs is a housekeeper or someone to supervise all the jobs that need to be done. Do you think you could handle that?”

Signe looked to Frida. “What about the dairy…the milking, the cheese and butter making?”

“Esme is young, but she helps you betimes,” Frida commented. “Methinks she could take over those duties, don’t you?”

Signe nodded, then straightened with pride, realizing she was being offered a sort of promotion. “Yea, I can do it.”

“Why don’t you two go into the great hall to discuss this? I have a side of venison to prepare for the evening meal and the gods only know what else for all these unexpected arrivals. I will have to see what we have in the storerooms.”

Vikings usually served two meals every day…one early in the morning, before the work began, and one in the evening, after the day’s labor

“Oh, that’s another thing,” Kirstin said, standing. “Hauk asked for a list of all the goods you have on hand so that he’ll know how much game and fish they’ll need to get, and what will be needed from one last trip to the market at Hedeby.

“Good, good! Halfdan kin handle that. He needs to do somethin’ to warrant his steward title.”

“And explain why so much is missing,” Signe added in an undertone.

Kirstin sensed a little hostility there.

Signe took a long draw on her ale and stood to follow Kirstin. Once inside the hall, Kirstin said, “I think the first thing that needs done here is raking up all these dirty rushes. If there are no clean rushes at this time of year to put down, let’s leave the floor bare.” She pushed some of the rushes aside to reveal a stone floor. It wouldn’t be comfortable in the winter but better than the filth, in her opinion.

“Ubbi,” Signe called to a young male who was passing with a pile of dirty mugs and plates, headed toward the scullery. “I want you and Toste to get some rakes and come back here to rake up all the rushes. Then push them out the doors,” she pointed to the closed double doors on the other side of the hall, “and burn them.”

“Yea, I will, Signe.”

Kirstin noticed how quickly the boy acceded to Signe’s command. That was good. “And take these dogs and cats out to the barn until they are house trained,” Kirstin added.

Signe and Ubbi both looked at her as if she was crazy, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t going to clean up after animals once the place was rid of their pee and poop.

“Next, I would like all the tables scrubbed down,” Kirstin said to Signe, “though I’m not sure even hot water will penetrate this built-up grease.”

“Ah,” Signe said and took a knife from a scabbard on her belt. Using the flat side of the blade, she dug it deep into the table, then scraped, taking it right down to the bare wood.

“That will work,” Kirstin said with a smile.

“I’ll have some of the youthlings work on this. They will consider it a game.”

Oh, great. Kids playing with knives, Kirstin thought, but decided to show deference to Signe’s ideas.

Hauk’s home was built in the longhouse style of the Vikings, although much bigger than most, being that of the jarl. At one end of the hall was a raised dais on which the “nobles” dined. At the other end, there were several private sleeping chambers, one of which was currently being inhabited by Zoya, she assumed. Three raised hearths ran down the center of the hall, which would be used for heat during the winter months, and occasionally some cooking. It would take a monumental amount of wood to last all that time, but that was Hauk’s and the steward’s concern, not hers. Fortunately, there were a number of holes in the high roof above those hearths which would help relieve some of the smoke. A number of bladder windows (stretched and scraped pig stomachs, rather than glass) let in a translucent light even on dark days.

After that, they checked out two of the three bedchambers, not the one occupied by Zoya. Everyone else slept on the broad benches, as much as a yard wide, that lined the great hall, or they slept in the few bed closets that were so small they held only a bed. Some of the married couples and families had small longhouses within the “community.” Plans were made to gather all the dirty linens and replace them with clean. Signe assigned a maid, Dora, who was already the laundress, to be in charge of the bedchambers, as well, which was apparently a step up in the hierarchy of the estate, if Dora’s toothless smile was any indication.

“We should take all the bed furs out, as well, to be brushed of fleas and lice,” Signe mused. “Kaelen, the healer, is complaining about an excess of skin bites, especially on the little ones.”

Fleas and lice? Kirstin shivered with revulsion…and a real or imagined itch all over her body. She had to keep reminding herself that this was a different time than the one she’d become accustomed to.

“Soon it will be too cold to work outside,” Signe continued. “Winter comes early in the Norselands, but the weather is perfectly warm for air drying today.”

Really? Kirstin thought it was chilly, probably about fifty degrees. But then, she guessed that would be balmy for people who lived with below-zero temps, snowbound, for many months. She had been spoiled, living in California.

Luckily, one of the bedchambers, the smallest, was cleaned by the time Bjorn staggered in. Apparently, he’d been following his father about while he assessed the situation at Haukshire, and his continuing need for recovery from his injuries caught up with him. After they helped him into the bed, Kirstin made sure that he wasn’t suffering fever again, and then decided sleep would be the best remedy since they had no medicine she knew of. That was another thing she would have to check…Signe had mentioned a healer. Would the healer have some medical supplies that could help Bjorn, even primitive ones?

Soon after that, Hauk stomped in to the hall where she was talking to Signe while she oversaw the raking of rushes and scraping of the tables. A boy was pushing a wooden wheelbarrow of ashes out to a bin beyond the back courtyard where they would eventually be used to make soap. It was the little boy, Gorm. Hauk did a double-take on seeing Gorm, the little guy pushing a heavy wheelbarrow, his bruises, his still running half-bloody nose. Was he seeing himself at that age?