Sidroc the Dane

by Octavia Randolph

  Her second child was again a girl. The babe was perfect in body, crying lustily on its way into Midgard. Ingirith looked down on the little stranger lying on her breast and wept. Even the Goddess thwarted her.

  “I do not know what you want,” Hrald told her not long after this. Indeed, she could not seem to find contentment in anything.

  She again turned her face away. I want the life at Ribe I lost when you returned, she was thinking. Life with the tool-smith, a snug house in the town, a basket over my wrist and silver brooches at my shoulders.

  As time had passed this had become far more than a mere possibility to Ingirith; the love of the handsome smith, the small house, the smart brooches, all were assured, all within her grasp if Hrald had not appeared. It was as if he had snatched them from her. She did not forget this, and she could not forgive him.

  One Summer when they travelled back to Oke’s farm to see her folk they stopped as well at that of Signe and Ful. Signe had given birth to a child at the same time Sidroc had been born, a boy they had named Toki. When Ingirith saw him running about – yellow-haired and blue-eyed, laughing – she blanched, making her pale skin the whiter. This is what her son should look like.

  It was the second time they had made the journey to Ingirith’s parents, which meant the older couple had before seen and accepted Sidroc as Hrald’s son. Now the boy was of speaking age, watching all, interested in everything. Hrald knew Sidroc was not the beautiful child Toki was, but was proud of him nonetheless. Oke made show of carrying the boy on his shoulders, an act which made Ingirith bite her lip and turn away.

  During their stay her father asked them if they would like to make the trip up to Ribe; he recalled how much his eldest daughter liked going there. Her refusal was so swift and definite to be noted by all. She feared seeing the handsome tool-smith again; feared seeing a young woman, less pretty than she, with a babe tied on her back walk smiling to the forge bringing her husband his mid-day meal. In the end Hrald travelled up with his father-in-law and young Sidroc. Hrald wanted to see Ribe, and he did not want to leave the boy in the keeping of his wife as he did so. And Ingirith had her hands full, Ulfhildr scampering about, the younger girl still in arms.

  The wheel of the year kept turning. The farm did as well as could be expected of a small holding. The land was low lying, and in Spring, rising tides and heavy rains would swell the river, flooding the margins of the fields. Hrald and Oddi deepened the drainage trenches, and the sodden soil warmed and dried in the lengthening days. Winters brought more wet, and snow, but Hrald rarely feared hunger from black-rot on his rye, or animals failing to thrive. Crops and beasts did well enough. It was house and kitchen yard that troubled him.

  Ingirith was hard on all the children, even her own. Her irritation was greatest with Sidroc, and betrayed itself in every way. She would force the comb through his tangled hair, pulling on it and making him flinch. She was little gentler with her daughters. Hrald saw this, and felt his helplessness in the face of it; they were all small, and he and Oddi and the thrall out in the fields most of each day. If his mother Ashild were still alive they would have found a friend in her, and not just had him to defend them. He did not believe her parents had treated her thus; he had seen enough of them by now to judge. Perhaps she did not recall her own girlhood.

  One day when Sidroc had been harshly punished by her for some minor offence, Hrald went to the boy, who he found behind the grain-house. Sidroc was kneeling on the ground, his arms around the hunting hound. The boy’s face was buried in the dog’s neck.

  “Mother does not like me,” the boy told his father when he looked up.

  The hound Hlaupari had raised his head at Sidroc’s words, and was looking up at Hrald as well. Sidroc had trained the hound to come to his whistle, and the dog was often at his side.

  Hrald looked down at his son. Ingirith had given birth a third time a few months earlier, to another girl. She did not try to hide her ire at this, and had turned on Hrald the night of the birth and bitterly accused him of depriving her of a son of her own.

  Now he looked at Sidroc and felt moved to tell him the truth, young as he was.

  “Sidroc,” he began. He squatted down to be nearer to the boy’s level. “She is not your mother.”

  He paused a moment, saw his son’s eyes fixed upon him.

  “The woman who was your mother – she cared for you,” Hrald found himself saying. “She was a freedwoman. She was here at the farm when I came back from Gotland.

  “She was a good woman, hardworking. And most of all she was kind. She could not stay long after your birth, but…”

  Hrald’s hand had gone to rest upon the hound’s head as he told his son this. He did not forget that the beast had been saved from death by Oddi, the uncle of Sidroc’s mother. Even in his own mind he did not quite think of Oddi as his son’s kin, though he knew he was. He rubbed and pulled at Hlaupari’s furry ear now.

  Sidroc knew six Summers at this point, and did not ask his father any question about what he had just been told. There was much he did not understand, but he knew what he had just heard to be important, to both his father, and to he himself. And he knew it was something not to be spoken about, save to his father alone; his father’s tone conveyed that.

  After this Ingirith’s scolding and frequent cuffing were easier for Sidroc to take. If his father were near he would stop her, but sometimes he was far afield and Sidroc would have to bear it.

  What his father had told him made a difference to the boy. Without his father having said so, he knew that he did not deserve the treatment he met at Ingirith’s hands. He felt that there was something more outside of his life, something good that had happened before which had changed things and made him who and what he was. And he felt too there might be something to come in his future which might do the same.

  Sidroc did not forget that Gotland was a part of what his father had said. His father had told him of this distant island, and that he had spent happy and adventuresome days walking its coasts and forests, and spent a night sleeping at the feet of frozen trolls. When his father spoke of this place his face and voice were different, recalling his time there. In Sidroc’s mind his true mother was a part of that difference, too.

  The farm did well. All upon it worked hard, and King Horik’s men, when they arrived each harvest-tide, demanded only the normal taxes each year. The stream down which Hrald took his small boat flooded in heavy rains, ruining parts of the rippling fields of rye, oats, and barley, but there was never hunger. Hrald fished as he could, guiding the boat down to the North Sea, and there dropping his nets for herring, haddock, cod, and salmon. When the leaves were falling from the trees he took to the woodlands, bow in his hand, quiver at his hip, to stalk the red deer that leapt there, and the big and strutting wood grouse. Now that Sidroc was old enough he sometimes went with his father, both to fish, and to hunt.

  One day in mid-Summer Hrald was surprised to see a group of men appear at his gate, several of them bearing spears. Calling out to him was Ful, his sister Signe’s husband. Their farm had not done as well, and he had joined up with a few other farmers and gone raiding at the start of Summer. Now he was back, and stopping on his way home.

  “To Angle-land,” Ful said in satisfaction, lifting the cup of ale a serving woman had brought them.

  “Angle-land,” repeated Hrald. This was where the large white crystals of salt were from, that which had taken him to Gotland to trade.

  They sat with three other men, Ful’s confederates in his venture, all younger than he. Off to one side, shackled together at the wrist with iron chains, sat five men and boys of Angle-land, their yield in their raiding. To Hrald’s knowledge Ful had never gone slaving before, but had surely met with success now.

  Ful saw Hrald eyeing the men. “Do you need a thrall?” he asked. “I can part with the young one, and for a good price.”

  The youth Ful spoke of had no more than thirteen or fourteen Summers, H
rald thought. The way he sat close to an older man made him think they were father and son. Now Ful offered him the son.

  As they sat thus, looking on the slaves, Sidroc came up to his father.

  “He has grown,” Ful observed. “The son of a thrall-woman, no? Too bad I have only men to offer you now.” He laughed at his own words.

  “Sidroc is free-born; his mother was a freedwoman,” Hrald corrected, not masking the edge in his voice. Ful knew this, and for years.

  Sidroc had hung back slightly, but now stepped forward. He narrowed his eyes at Ful in a way that told his father that he too did not like the man. Ful had his cup of ale to his face and did not see.

  Hrald looked back at the new thralls. They had been allowed to haul water from the well, and had drunk deeply of it, washing their faces afterwards. Their clothes were tattered, and of course they bore no knives at this point; anything of value they had owned had been taken by Ful and his fellow venturers. They may have had small crofts of their own back home, or been part of some war-chief’s holdings. The slaves were by now careful not to look directly at their captors; a bold gaze invited a punishing blow. Coming from Angle-land they had been at sea and on the road for more than two weeks, mayhap more, and had learnt this. And some may have been slaves at home.

  Hrald could use another hand, especially with the animals, and the boy looked handy. Despite the hardship of travel they were a good-looking lot, all fair-haired, all well-formed. The boy’s father was broad of shoulder, showing that son might grow strong as well. Hrald now saw the older man’s arm was wrapped with a scrap of fabric at the forearm above the wrist; he must have been injured when captured. The boy Ful was offering him was about the same age as Yrling, his brother.

  Hrald shook his head. He would not separate father and son. And he knew he could not afford both.

  “How is my brother,” Hrald asked instead.

  “Yrling,” said Ful. “Too clever by half, but strong as an ox. He is doing his share of work in my absence, I wager. It is Toki who needs birching every week. I missed in naming him; he should be Loki.”

  Loki, the trickster God, who was always getting himself and the other residents of heavenly Asgard in trouble. Hrald knew Ful had a quick hand for punishment, and was glad Yrling was getting little or none of it.

  Ingirith had come out. She had of a sudden nine more mouths to feed for the night, and she resented every one of them.

  Ingirith did not like Ful, who she had caught on more than one occasion in the past leering at her. She could guess that now Ful was trying to sell at least one thrall to Hrald. She took in the yellow-haired slaves, saw one was a boy. She watched Hrald consider him. She had produced no son in her marriage, no boy to work alongside his father, or to inherit the farm with her when he died. There was only Sidroc, and her three useless girls. Hrald had named Sidroc his heir, and until she gave him a son so it would remain. Mayhap then he would see reason and send the dark and clumsy thing to its ugly mother.

  A few days later, before the Sun had crowned the line of birch trees rimming the farm, Hrald took his son and his fishing gear and headed to the boat. He was teaching the boy to handle boat and net, and their times spent thus were a pleasure to them both. It was early enough that a scrim of mist shrouded the grasses they trod to where the small craft lay waiting, and their shoes were made wet by the dew. The odour of the fresh water, a bright and green scent, rose to their noses as they pushed her down the mud of the bank and through the reeds.

  The boat was large enough for two sets of oars, but Sidroc could not yet span the distance between them with any strength, so he took a single oar and used it to help guide the prow as his father oared them down stream and to the North Sea. It was a broad channel they came to, for a barrier island sat between them and true open water, but the fishing was oftentimes good none the less, as schools of smaller fish were chased by whales to shelter in the lee.

  Once out into the channel the current could be swift, and this morning there was a head wind to contend with as well. This gave a fair amount of chop to the water, which Sidroc liked as it brought to mind what riding a bucking horse must be like. His father was now busy over the deep basket, drawing forth the carefully-gathered fishing net which they would drop. Sidroc took up the other end, the body of the net draped at his feet. As they began to lower it a knotted loop caught on his oar-lock, and the boy leaned over to free it. The boat then lurched in such a way that he was pitched, still holding to the net-edge, over the side.

  Hrald’s back had been slightly turned away from his son as they began to feed out the net. He felt the swell of the sea against the boat hull, and saw the shifting body of his son as he was cast overboard. He saw too one of Sidroc’s feet entangle in the net as he fell. Then he was struck by the splash, cold and salty, as his son hit.

  Hrald lurched forward, rocking the little craft hard to port as he gathered up handfuls of the fishnet. He knew he was yelling, but could hear only Sidroc’s sputtering cries. The boy was caught in the net, thrashing as he reached one free arm out of the water. The smooth steatite ovals that served as net weights were heavy, and pulling him down.

  The broad net had never seemed larger than it had that moment. Hrald yanked in lengths of it, as his son’s desperate actions pulled more of the webbing in after him. With one great heave Hrald drew Sidroc close enough to reach the small extended hand and grasp it. With the boat’s gunwale perilously close to the water Hrald was able to haul his son back in.

  Sidroc was gasping, but the force with which he clung to his father told Hrald he had not swallowed enough water to begin to drown. He choked some up, Hrald keeping an arm about his waist in support. He was still entwined in the net, and only when Sidroc’s breathing began to steady did Hrald start to free it. The boy was shivering, his teeth chattering in his head. Hrald pulled off his tunic and wrapped Sidroc in it, and swept the dark hair from his son’s wet face. He held him close against his chest.

  The net, of which Hrald always took great care, lay in a confused mass around them. He did not know if it were rent, and did not care if it were. He would look at it later. Now they must get back to shore. He waited until Sidroc let go of him, then began to ball up the fishnet. There was something dark caught inside.

  “Here are your shoes,” he said, and smiled at Sidroc. “But next time remember that we need no bait to net herring.”

  The boy was able to grin at that, and nodded.

  “And you still have your knife,” his father noted, seeing it at his son’s waist. Last Summer Hrald had given Sidroc his first small blade, and had been teaching the boy to handle it. Sometimes they whittled figures of horses or birds for the girls, as play-things, and Sidroc had already carved a comb for himself. His father looked at the soaked belt and sheath that bore it. “We will oil the leather tonight, to get the salt out of it,” he told him. Any trifling reassurance of routine after such a scare was welcome.

  Hrald oared for their inlet. They were back at the farm much earlier than expected, and with no fish to show for it. None of this mattered. They walked to the kitchen yard, where one of the serving-women ladled up hot broth for Sidroc. Hrald sat across from him, just looking at his son.

  “I will teach you to swim,” his father told him, when he had drained the bowl.

  It was true that part of the fright for both of them was Sidroc’s being caught in the net, but he did not want this to mark the boy with fear of water ever after.

  “Now?” Sidroc asked. He had chores to do, now they were back.

  “Já, now. We will go to the lake. Oddi and the others do not expect us until later anyway.”

  The lake was a small one, but far enough away to make the walk there rare. Going was a treat, and Sidroc had never been there alone with his father. And Hrald felt nothing more important. So they set out.

  As the morning lengthened they felt the height of Summer’s heat, a warmth gratefully received by both as they walked along the trac
kways they followed. Lindens grew there, the fragrance of their pale flowers heavy and sweet. It hung in the air as the view opened up before them. The lake was ringed by slender birches, and bushy stands of young beeches. The water was almost still, the dark-leaved beeches casting green ripples over it. It could not have been more unlike the churn and blow of the sea channel. The banks were firm, with a few places gone to sedge. They stripped off their clothing and waded in.

  Hrald had learnt how to swim in this very lake, and now taught Sidroc as Hroft had taught him. Even when the water was up to Hrald’s waist it was still warm, and with that softness to it that lake-water always bears. The bottom yielded underfoot, as if almost sand.

  “Watch me,” Hrald said, and cast himself, belly-down, full-length into the water. The long arms reached out, grabbing handfuls of water as the long legs thrashed up and down. But he stayed up on the lake’s surface, moving steadily before his son’s eyes.

  Before Hrald could stand and come back to Sidroc, the boy had cast himself in. His eyes opened wide as he sunk, arms flailing. Hrald swooped in with one kick and caught the boy up around his middle, and threw him into shallow waters. His father was laughing, which Sidroc always liked to hear, and always wished he heard more of.

  “You must move your legs, too, and at the same time,” his father advised. He had Sidroc lay full length in the water, and pull water with both arms, and kick his legs as he held him up.

  “You do well,” Hrald told him, as Sidroc began to move along the bright surface. The boy was thin, and so tall that he looked older than his seven years. His father showed him again how to stretch out his arms, cup the water, and pull it back towards him. “Always be reaching.”

  Always be reaching, Sidroc repeated to himself, as they waded back to shore. He had kept reaching his hand up earlier that day, and his father had caught it and saved him. Always be reaching.