Sidroc the Dane

by Octavia Randolph

  It was a Mid-Summer’s day of unusual fineness, dry and clear-skied, and the feast had been one to remark on, as Gunnborga’s folk were both rich and given to generous hospitality. With such a large proportion of young folk there, the guests, after all had downed the whole roast pig and a deep kettle of milky cod stew, parted, leaving the numerous young circling the fire they had earlier danced about, and their elders back at the kitchen yard, picking at a few stray bones as they talked and drank amongst themselves. Ale had flowed freely for all, young and old, and as was custom, a crock or two of mead was brought out as well. This was, as ever, imperfectly defended, so that the young were sure to make off with a jar or two dipped out of it, carried back to their own fire to be passed around; but this was indeed how the young learnt to moderate their thirst for strong drink, bad heads or no in the morning.

  The feast was well over, and the Sun dropping in the sky when a waggon rolled down the dusty track and into the farm yard. Those about the fire had in fact heard the laughter and singing from the waggon before the doubled team of oxen could be seen, for the broad wooden waggon bed was packed with youths and maids. No fewer than four more walked alongside, flanking the patient oxen and pulling at long stems of blue or white wildflowers springing from the grasses by the track. A group went out to meet them, Gunnborga’s step-father foremost, and several of the younger men quitted the fire to join in the greeting.

  The rowdy group had at its core two brothers from a farm lying further to the East; their own parents’ proceedings had not been deemed festive enough and they had set out earlier in the afternoon, pausing at various farms, collecting the young with the goal of stopping at the better gatherings. Several of the revelers were known to Gunnborga’s step-father, and to their cheers he welcomed them with little more than a laughing wave before retreating to his own kitchen yard. He sent a small cask of ale their way, gratefully received by those already circling the fire, but the flower-bedecked newcomers had as well a crock of their own. This they lowered with care into the midst of those by the fire. Its appearance was greeted with hoots of glee, as all thought it mead. It was set on a hastily pulled-up bench and the wooden lid lifted.

  It was instead rare Frankish wine, far more precious and potent than honeyed mead. It had landed at the trading post of Viborg in the North of Jutland, was traded for, and now carried here by the revelers. None of Gunnborga’s guests had tasted it, but once one of the two brothers who had brought it began dipping it out, all fell silent as they swirled the dark red stuff in their mouths.

  Toki had been sitting on one of the few benches at the fireside, his harp in his lap, strumming and singing. Like his cousin, this was Toki’s seventeenth Summer. His playing was now such that it made just accompaniment for his voice, and both earnt the admiration of those flanking him. He had not forgotten the harpist from whom he had won it, and how all eyes had been fastened on him when he played. Now those eyes were on Toki, and to have so many maids look smilingly at him when he strummed and plucked made the hours he had struggled with the harp well worthwhile. He had set the thing down to accept his cup with all the rest, but now, having swallowed the ruby liquid down in almost a single draught he was moved to place the harp on his thigh and begin again.

  Some light still hung in the sky, softening a day filled with dancing and feasting. Behind the crackling logs of the fire lay a field of tall grasses, dotted with wildflowers. All knew that soon one or more couples would rise and make their way there.

  The giving of self on the still-warm Earth was more than a celebration of the life-giving power of the Sun which today they honoured; it returned the couple’s own life-force into the soil. All life sprang from plants; no beast nor man could live without greenery and the animals so nourished. Young married couples might slip away and drop together amidst the screening stalks of nodding grasses, celebrating their love, giving of each other in hope of bringing forth a child from this special coupling. And those men and women who had no intention of wedlock nor babe might, under the spell of the heat, the endless sunlight finally dimming, and the stimulus of strong drink also clasp hands and lie together in the fragrant grass.

  Yrling was seated with a group of other young men; they had been throwing dice in the dimming glow of dusk. Now, for want of light, and under the influence of the Frankish wine, most of them settled in to hear Toki. Yrling’s eye went to the cluster of young women who had arrived on the waggon. Some of them were clearly coupled with the youths they arrived with, but three or four others were not shy in returning his smile. He did this with care, for the elder daughter of the tenant family was there about the fire as well. They had spoken together as the younger folk had gathered for the fire, and before that also at the feasting tables, but he made no show of it. He had no intentions on the girl’s future; she had thrice favoured him by lying with him in a shady glade beyond the farm, and he meant it to go no further than that. Nor could it, in her family’s eyes. With no land to inherit, it was well known he would have to make his own way. He knew what way that was, a ship of his own, a drekar, setting out across the North Sea to Angle-land and treasure. The secret he shared with the girl of their brief trysts would remain just that.

  He did not even know if the girl, Frideburg by name, was still about the circle; there had been coming and going about the group, knots of young men and women forming, breaking off, moving back to where the settled married folk sat, or off to one side where the youngest, like Gunnborga, huddled. His gaze returned to the females from the waggon. When he smiled a second time and gestured to a young woman in a pale blue gown, she rose.

  Toki’s song aided him; it was mournful and love-struck, and Yrling had almost to stifle a laugh looking at his young nephew’s face, upraised in a passion of longing as he plucked the final notes.

  Yrling was already before his blue-gowned target, who had been sitting with two other young women, whispering and laughing into each other’s ears. She who rose before him did so with a little lurch, which she tried to hide, but then laughed the more at. She had set her empty cup on the ground and then upset it with her foot, and she laughed ruefully at this as well. As Yrling took her hand he saw Toki had risen. Another of the strange women, seated not far from where he had been playing, had come to Toki, and now stood before him. She like so many had been looking raptly on as he sang. Toki wasted no time in answering her summons, and set down his harp.

  Sidroc, sitting cross-legged on the ground amidst other idle youths, saw first his uncle and now his cousin take the hand of a willing young woman, and lead her away from the fire ring and into the darkening field. Sidroc had drunk ale at the feast, mead here at the fire, and then, like all who wanted it, downed a cup of the dark and potent wine. His head felt fuzzy, but cleared to an almost awful acuity as he watched Yrling and Toki claim women and move away with them.

  Another couple rose, and followed. Those left behind sent the celebrants away to a low chorus of whistles and chiming laughter. Some turned smilingly about, looking at who might be next, or in invitation to one they had earlier admired. But eyes soon returned to the retreating couples, walking slowly through the tall grasses, hands clasped or arms about waists until they both knelt and were lost to view. Those left about the fire fell either silent, or lifted their voices to petition for more wine. Gunnborga got up from where she sat with three other demure maidens and with flushed cheeks walked back with them towards the kitchen yard and the families there.

  Laughter drifted from the field in which the couples had vanished, brief laughter that must be ending in kisses, and more than kisses.

  Sidroc took a breath and looked about him. The spotty-faced youths near him were several years younger, and grinning like fools. He looked over at the two women who remained after Yrling had chosen the one in blue. There was no doubt they were half-drunk. He could rise, walk to them, watch their faces as he approached, try the one that seemed likely.

  He could not. To be refused before so many others,
even if the onlookers be deep in their cups and unlikely to recall it later, was a risk he did not feel up to taking. And it was not, he knew, the witnessing of it that would be the worst part, but the refusal itself. He imagined the women looking up at his split cheek. Their eyes would go to it and it alone. He pictured them recoiling, even mayhap laughing at him in their drunken giddiness.

  He shook his head to himself. He knew this would be Toki’s first time, and would like to claim that for himself as well. He could not risk it. He began to rise, unwilling to sit there any longer, thinking that he might head back to the farm. He would hear Toki’s boasting on the morrow.

  As he rose he noted a woman, walking alone and at a distance in the field. He turned his back on her and the fire.

  A female shriek of anger turned him back. Like all others his eyes were trained on the grassy field, growing ever dimmer in the low light. He saw the woman bend toward the ground. He heard then a male howl, and more shrieks.

  Everyone at the fire was standing now, and some starting out across the grass. They stopped when the woman made straight for them. It was clear she was in no peril, but why she had screamed they could not guess. Then Sidroc saw a male figure rise, back to them. It was Yrling, and the woman he was with was hastily, and with loosened hair, taking the long way back to the fire, holding the skirts of her blue gown in her hands.

  Yrling walked forward uncertainly, even staggering. His hand was clapped over his nose. He was staunching a flow of blood with a bunched up square of dark linen, perhaps the blue-gowned woman’s head wrap.

  A group of men, summoned by the unhappy racket, had now quitted the kitchen yard and came striding towards the younger revelers. Their host, Gunnborga’s step-father, was one, as was Ful’s tenant-farmer. The woman who had earlier been walking alone in the field came straight to the latter.

  “Frideburg! What happened,” her father demanded, looking from her to the straggling figure of Yrling.

  “I hit him with his weapon belt,” she said, with no small touch of triumph. “Found him out in the field like a randy goat.”

  Her father’s eyes boggled at her. All knew couples might take to the fields on this night, and interference was awkward, even an embarrassment. There was no particular shame in such festival coupling, but the thought was unwelcome for a father, who, like himself, took pride in the thought of sending his daughter still a maiden to her husband.

  Yrling had now caught up to those awaiting him. “She broke my nose,” he said. His voice had a higher pitch than was usual, and more than a little complaint sounded in his tone.

  “Why had you cause to do this?” her father asked her. It had taken him a moment to recognise the victim of his daughter’s rage. Yrling was kin through marriage to Ful, at whose behest he had a good farm to till.

  Frideburg, now that the shock of discovery and the twinned thrill of revenge had died, was forced to slow her thoughts and measure her words. What she answered now would make a great deal of difference in her life, and in Yrling’s.

  Eyes shifted, going to Yrling, to Frideburg, and then to the men she stood with. These were but farmers, and none carried a sword, but all wore knives, and the girl’s father had his hand upon the hilt of his own.

  Yrling was standing alone, and had now lowered the bloody cloth from his face. Sidroc found himself moving forward, taking a stand at his uncle’s right shoulder. Yrling glanced at him and gave a slight nod. Sidroc cast a quick look over his shoulder; Toki was nowhere to be seen. They both knew he was still in the field.

  The wronged woman, a girl of not yet eighteen years, spoke with care.

  “We have exchanged a few words,” is what Frideburg said.

  Her coolness took her father aback.

  “Words? Nothing more? What kind of words – vows, or pledges?” He must know how far he need press this.

  “Have you been wife to him?” he now demanded.

  She drew herself up, stunned that her father would ask this before so many. If she told the truth, Yrling might be forced to wed her. If he refused, there would be bloodshed this very moment.

  She looked to Yrling, blood still dribbling from his nose. He was not a good match for her, she had feared, but it was his eyes that had attracted her, those hot eyes, smouldering under heavy brows. They were suggestive of power. And he had ambition. He had an air of authority about him, despite owning no land. Now with his bloodied face he looked defeated, almost foolish.

  “Nej,” she declared. She would not force a hand-fast with this man. Two nights after he had last lain with her, she had caught him with another woman. And he had no land. She could do better. “I will not take him. There is no need for me to do so.”

  These final words seemed to seal the girl’s innocence in the eyes of her father. He gave a small sound, almost a snort of relief. His eyes passed to Yrling, waiting to see if he would pursue any claim against her assault, as was his right to do for unprovoked attack. But Yrling stood silent. Satisfied, Frideburg’s father, not wishing to plumb further depths, gestured her to him. They turned to the house.

  Sidroc heard, and almost felt, the heaving breath leave Yrling’s chest. He was now taller than his uncle, and he turned to him. His uncle’s nose looked as if it had been knocked off-centre. He watched Yrling lift the bloodied cloth to it again, saw him wince as he dabbed at the side of it.

  “The warrior’s bargain,” Sidroc told him. One must be willing to forfeit for one’s actions. He saw the shadow of a grin break upon Yrling’s face, and grinned back.

  “So?” asked Sidroc, when he and Toki were alone next day.

  Toki did not feign ignorance. He could not, for a slight flush crept over his face, warmth he could feel.

  “It would have been better without that shrieking Frideburg,” he admitted. “The one I was with got scared, and almost jumped up.”

  It had in fact been a hurried scramble, once the ruckus had sounded. It had begun well enough, despite his groping uncertainty; but she had laughed. He felt a twinge of near-deflating shame at that, but the urge of his body drove him despite his sense of ineptness. When the shrieks were heard, she did in fact try to flee, and he found himself pinning her down until he had finished. He was glad when she hurried off.

  “What was her name?” Sidroc wanted to know.

  Toki shrugged. “I never asked.” And he never wanted to see her again, after what happened to Yrling.

  Sidroc kept looking at him.

  “It was – good,” Toki finally said.

  This was bald enough that Sidroc assumed the opposite. Toki’s eyes were shifting to the right, as if he tried to think of more to say.

  “She was nothing special,” Toki went on, as if he had means for comparison.

  Sidroc could not stifle a short laugh.

  “At least I had a woman,” Toki defended.

  Sidroc recalled the brazen way in which she had risen, come to Toki, and presented herself to him.

  “Or she had you,” Sidroc returned.

  The following week Ful sent the cousins out to move the sheep flock from the furthest feeding ground. The far pasture was hemmed all around by a ditch deep enough to form a kind of dike. Across this ditch, forest bordered on one side. The dike helped drain the grassland, and kept the sheep from wandering. To enter, Sidroc and Toki had to push a heavy wooden platform across, to span it. Both walked with their herding crooks, and Toki had also a short numbering stick hanging from his belt, marked off with a line cut for every sheep there. Twenty animals warranted a score, a much deeper cut in the wood. There should be two score and eight sheep to move.

  There was abundant grass within this far pasture, and even a small copse of trees for shade. Sheep had ever done well there, but when they began to number the animals against the marks on the counting stick, they came up four sheep short.

  A walk about the edge of the moated pasture found no beast trapped there, but on the side butting the forest they spotted a plank
of wood lying on the other side of the dike. The plank was half-concealed, but trampled grasses were near it.

  They looked at each other. Then Sidroc backed up, and took a running jump at the chasm, landing on the other side. He picked up the plank and shoved it over, and Toki joined him.

  Bent grasses and parted, shrubby growth presented a track, and wisps of cream and charcoal-coloured wool clinging to low-lying branches told them sheep had lately passed.

  They moved forward, quietly as they could, and in single file, Sidroc first. The sheep had been driven off, and whoever had done so was likely to be ready to fight.

  They went on some way. The track began to follow a stand of small birches, through which the light of a glade could be seen. Sidroc heard the sheep before he saw them.

  He stepped out into the glade. A rough pen, from newly hewn branches, had been thrown up, behind which were ten or twelve sheep, snorting and moving about. A fire-ring, equally rough, had been formed by small stones, and held but a few days’ ashes. Two packs of well-creased leather sat near the cold ring, ready to be shouldered. It was a camp, hastily built, and having served its purpose, was now being hastily abandoned, for a man who had been bending amongst the sheep now stood up, his hand on a rope he had slipped over the neck of a ewe. He looked in startle at Sidroc, then jerked his head behind him towards an opening in the trees, betraying the fact that he was not alone.

  Sidroc, though, was alone. Toki had lagged behind.

  From where he stood Sidroc was close enough to see the head of a ewe that looked out at him. She bore the single ear-mark, a notch at the tip of the left ear, which Ful used on his flock. Another ear-mark was on the beast, as well, and Sidroc could see the second, lower notch was freshly cut.