Everything had better be readied before I enter that bathhouse, she told herself. She turned to the long house and stepped over the door stoop, the door open wide, the weather turned temperate in this last month of winter. The room swarmed with activity, everyone working at some chore, girls hanging strung garlands from the supporting pillars, Tima sweeping the planks, the fire smoldering and a skinned goat turning on the spit, filling the air with a rich aroma. Gurid called her to the table, where a set of small golden plaques laid in a line.
“Yeru, look see. Willa’s guldgubber have come.” Yeru hurried to her side. Six small gold foil pendants spread on the table top, each depicting embracing figures. The acts portrayed, while stylized, seemed obvious to the married woman and her widowed cousin.
“Freyr and Gerd I see.”
“Yes, we thought that was best, to invite fertility and a happy union. Her giant bounty made a happy god.”
“His godly stamina made a happy giantess!” They giggled together, and Gurid collected the tokens.
“I will take them to the marriage bed and pin them to the bed frame.” They had turned one of the pit houses into the private bridal room, complete with a frame bed, ready to receive the linens that Tormod brought as part of his bride price. “Tima, come help me.”
“Save one to pin to her nightgown!” Yeru called after them. The room bustled, farmer’s wives standing on short wooden ladders and three-legged stools to hang the garlands. Mae sat at the end of the long table, weaving the fir sprigs with flowers into the long strands and chattering with the ladies about the upcoming wedding. Kara sat in the middle of the commotion, carefully dipping a rag in a sandy paste Yeru had given her and carefully polishing the tarnish from the family’s heirloom wedding crown, brightening the carved silver headband that would hold the flowers and dried herbs that would adorn Willa’s headdress. Concentrating on her work, her tongue tip licked her upper lip back and forth in an unconscious gesture.
“Don’t forget that silver hilt,” Yeru pointed to the silver handle that would hold a spruce branch for the ceremony. Kara nodded absentmindedly, focused on shining the silver headband and cleaning the gray tarnish from the carved feathers and stars. Children ran under foot including Hildie, flushed and laughing, her kransen askew on her forehead, tumbled to the side over her ear and its trailing ribbons tangled in her hair. Outside the clatter of wooden swords told her that Cub, Sorven, Finn and the other boys worked hard at their morning practice. Sven and Mog leaned over the table with handfuls of wooden tally sticks, forming piles for shipments and discussing collection, ignoring the chaos around them.
Messages had been sent weeks past by riders and carrier birds, inviting family, friends and honored guests from Jorvik and as far as Guthrum and West Mercia. Saxon families and Gurid’s people had been invited. The traders to the south and along the Humber had been called to join the festivities, and the word had been sent to the Jorvik halls, carried by Err and Bjorn. This room would be filled with the bridal party and the most honored guests, while beyond the stockade wall the field was to be filled with plank tables and a more modest fare—Agne had told her to expect as many as three hundred to attend the wedding feast. She had the men dig fire pits outside the stockade as a temporary kitchen for roasts, while their oven churned out loaves as fast as they could be baked, stockpiling them in for the big event.
She surveyed the room and nodded to herself—yes, the progress met her approval. In the back corner, sitting by herself as she had for the last three weeks, Ruinda nursed a bowl of warmed herbs soaked in watered down ale. Yeru pursed her lips. After she first arrived, Ruinda had held her seeing ritual twice more, each time keeping all she learned to herself. In Agne’s private rooms with the door pulled shut, she had intimated that indeed a vardoger haunted the household and in particular Finn, but she needed time to gather details before she could offer a cure. Yeru wondered how long it was going to take, all these investigations. Wasn’t a simple matter of trapping the ghost and banishing it?
Outside the noise of the boys’ morning exercise faded and talk in the room quieted. Yeru could hear chanting calls from outside. Gaute, a ragged old hat pulled down to his ears and his tunic dirtied with straw and barn muck, stuck his head in the doorway.
“It’s a troop of men porting a grand snekke!” Mog and Sven scooped up their counters and dashed to the door.
“A boat?” Yeru bustled across the room, elbowing her way through the women crowding to get to the courtyard.
Outside the sound of chanting became more apparent, accompanied by the stamps of feet marching in unison. People pushed to the open stockade gate and out into the lane. Soon she could make out the words of an old sea shanty.
“…The royal crown did Freyr bear
To Odin’s brow, and sure to wear;
Asgard’s wisdom, Asgard’s blessed,
Carry bounty to our chest,
Hi-ho, hi-hi,
Carry bounty to our chest….”
A large group of men carried a longboat on their shoulders, the tall ship rocking with the rhythm of their march. From the fresh color of the wood lapping and the oaken yellow of the bow, Yeru recognized a newly crafted ship, the labor of a skillful wright. The mast struck and secured to the bow and stern with heavy jute ropes, shields ornamented the gunwales, cinched into place with leather straps and the loose bucklers banged and rattled in the rocking rhythm of the portage. Two tall men led the parade, one with wide shoulders and a bushy beard, and the other slender with a shaven face and dark locks loose over his shoulders.
Agne, drying his hands on a towel, strode forward into the lane, closely followed by Mog and Sven with their hands on sword hilts. They warily watched the men approach. Suddenly, with a laugh of recognition, Agne ran forward and embraced the big bearded man, lifting him and swinging him in a circle. They held the embrace a long time.
“It’s Karl,” Mog announced, turning to the crowd behind him. “It’s Karl Alfenson and Jormander and the rest of our men, returned from Viking!” A spontaneous shout lifted from the crowd. Yeru pushed forward—sure enough, she recognized Jormander the skald, hugging Agne and pounding his back in greeting. Other warriors she identified as well, Thorvald, his hair now streaked grey, Lars and Snorri, and Hagbard red-faced from carrying the hull, but some faces she had never seen before, and clearly some Jorvik stevedores pressed into service from the wharfs assisted with the portage —they dressed differently from the Vikings and their faces reflected little enthusiasm for the reunion, even mild annoyance, the heavy ship hoisted on their shoulders and this impromptu gathering a delay in finishing their job.
The boys pushed through the gathering next to her, Sorven on one side, Cub and Finn on the other, Finn with his hair tucked under a black, woolen cap. Dripping with sweat from a hard morning of weapons practice, Sorven still panting a bit, they stood next to her watching their parents greet the warriors.
“It’s your Uncle Karl,” she told them. Cub stepped tentatively forward toward the men.
Weaving through the gathering crowd, Gurid called out “Karl!” grabbed him and gave him a hug and a kiss on each cheek, while Agne fondly mussed his hair. Jormander waved at friends in the crowd.
“Well met, little brother! Let’s pull this bark inside the boat house and then we can talk,” Agne put his arm around Karl and led them through the gate into the compound.
Jormander counted down the march, “One, two, three, four, right, left, right, left,” and the portage crew marched forward, the crowd parting like a wake around the ship. Reaching the gate, they crouched and hefted the long boat through the opening, angling it to turn in the courtyard and head to the boat house, where the boys ran ahead to open the doors to the long building. The strong scent of laboring, unwashed men lingered as they passed.
“Come,” Agne indicated that Mog and Sven should step forward to help him, “Let’s move these casks and barrels.”
“I see you were expecting us!” Karl laughed. “Turning the bo
athouse into a larder, eh? It looks like you may have just enough ale,” and his closest men chuckled through grit teeth.
“No, brother, this…” Agne waved at the barrels rolling out of the store hold, “this is all for your niece’s wedding.”
“My niece’s wedding? Little Willa?”
“Little Willa is engaged, soon to be a wife.”
“What? How in Odin’s name did this come to be?”
“You’ve been gone a long time, brother Karl,” Gurid held his arm. “It’s been more than three years.”
“Do you recognize this one?” Agne motioned Cub forward. The men grunted as they held the ship while the barrels rolled past them into the yard.
“Ah,” Karl squinted, “This can’t be our little bear cub, is it? Cub, is that you?”
“Yes, Uncle, it’s me.”
Karl shook his hand, Gurid on his other arm and Jormander standing beside her. “Young Agne, you have grown to be a real man,” and he clapped him on the shoulder. “Let me get this boat under cover and we can go in your hall and learn all that has passed.” The last of the wedding stores blocking the entrance removed, the men changed their holds on the ship and lowered it to carry into the long building. With grunts, groans and few farts of exertion, the sailors manhandled the ship, eased it onto chocks and anchored it with ropes to cleats set in the walls. Jormander patted the underside.
“A few weeks of drying will kill the wee beasties hiding in the hull,” Jormander pointed at the scales and fringe that hung from the keel, “and we can scrape those barnacles and sea moss from it, too.”
“She’s a fine ship,” Agne whistled. “I’ve not seen the likes before.”
“The ‘Verdandi Smiles’ was built in thanks for trustworthy service. The newest design, forty steps long, more draft but still flat enough to be beached when needed. She sails like a dream. See there, the wyrm head carved upon the bow? That’s to be Jorn’s Poranix, the dragon of Skane he killed in fair combat, or so the story goes.”
“Jorn?”
“Wyrm Slayer, one of my shield men, Gurid.”
“Quite a battle, if you can believe the tale,” Jormander snickered.
“Hey, poet, I can hear you!” Jorn waved a finger at him from down at the side of the ship.
Karl nodded to Jormander, “Let us pay these wharf hands for their portage and they can be on their way, then we can introduce you to my crew.” He turned to the men that had begun to circle him. Jormander instructed them to line up and Karl pulled a heavy purse from a sack at his belt, handing one coin to each of the hired laborers in turn. Over his shoulder he told Agne, “We sailed up to Jorvik first where we could exchange goods for local coin, then hired on these boys to help with portage.”
Karl passed out the last of the promised wages and the portage crew wandered back out the gate, headed back to Fishergate. Agne and Karl, arms around their shoulders, headed to the long hall, Gurid, Jormander and Cub right behind them, followed by the crew and Agne’s people, save Lars and Ingulf who paused to close the boat house and set the pegs in place to hold fast the gate. Hagbard fell into step with Bjorn, and Yeru overheard him tell his old friend of crates of bog iron he had saved, loaded as ballast, ready for the smithy. “Enough for fifty swords,” he confided.
In the long house, Agne called for a keg of ale to be opened and the men spread out around the table. Agne’s people pushed into the hall, spreading out along the walls and benches and vying for a good view. Yeru wormed her way up to the table behind Gurid and Cub, Sorven and Finn still clinging to her apron.
“Something smells good,” Sorli eyed the roast over the fire.
“Yeru,” Gurid looked over her shoulder at her cousin, “Let’s set our table for our family and guests.” Yeru rolled her eyes and prompted the boys to stand behind their mother, then turned and waved at Tima, making some hand signs for food and drink. Tima grabbed Ursep and two farmer’s wives and headed to the larder.
Agne quieted the room with his arm held above his head, “The gods have smiled on us once more, my far traveled brother is back from adventuring with our friends and family, and just in time for Willa’s nuptials. Karl,” he placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder, “My dear brother, let me re-acquaint you with family that you may remember, and some you may not.” Light laughter tittered about the hall. He pointed to his apartment at the end of the room, where Willa stood with her hair unbound, falling past her waist, holding the baby Neeta in her arms. Kara stood beside her, holding the half-polished crown in her hands. “Do you recognize your nieces, Willa and Kara there? Willa is holding our newest daughter, little Neeta.”
“Newest daughter?” Karl held a drinking horn in his hand, Mae pouring ale into it from a leather pitcher. He paused her and raised it over his head, “Congratulations, Brother!” and the sailors at the table lifted their hands and shouted in unison.
“Honor!”
“Congratulations!
“Well done!”
Hildie, her kransen set properly but her hair still a mound of blonde tangles, climbed from her bench to the table top and stood before her uncle. “I’m Hilda!” Everyone laughed at her brazen introduction.
“I remember you, little Hilda,” Karl leaned across the table to her, “I remember you were a bald little hatchling, you cried and cried and cried, only happy when on your mama’s teat!” The little girl put her hands on her hips and frowned at her uncle. “But I still remembered you well, little one, for I brought…” he dug in his sack, “I brought you this treat,” and he pulled a small stick topped with candied fruit and presented it to his niece. She snatched it from his hand, graced him with a smile and climbed back down to her seat on the bench.
“There, behind their Mother stand Sorven and Thorfinn, my second and third sons after Cub.” Both boys dipped their heads in deference to their uncle.
“Sorven, why you have sprouted up like a spruce. I believe you will be taller than your Father. And young Thorfinn, do you even remember me? You would have been five or six summers when we sailed…”
“Six summers,” Gurid supplied.
“Both fine young men,” Karl smiled at the boys and their Mother, “Taking after their older brother, no doubt,” and he turned to nod at Cub sitting next to his Father. He pushed away from the table to stand.
“Introductions, all around,” Karl took a swig from his bowl. “I see Mog and Sven there, well met old friends. You all know Jormander our most renowned skald, and from our clan here is Snorri Olafson, and Thorvald, who kept us in fish while we were at sea. Many thanks we owe him for our meals in difficult circumstance.”
“And many curses when we grew sick of cod!” One of the men shouted, his mates adding hoots and laughter.
“Aye, life at sea can be…” Karl paused.
“Dull?” cried one.
“Boring?” called another sailor.
“I didn’t hear you turn down my fish when you were hungry!” Thorvald defended. This brought another round of guffaws.
“And Lars, son of Birgit, and here is Hagbard, I see he is already plotting with Bjorn there, no doubt planning to steal my ballast….”
“You know it, Captain,” Hagbard held his bowl for Mae to serve him. “I have had my eye on those weights since we took them aboard!”
“It’ll make better swords than ballast,” Bjorn called out, all nodding in agreement with him.
“And that,” Karl looked at his brother, “is exactly why we packed it!” Karl nodded at Agne and Cub. “These others joined us in Agder, along the far Northern shores, while we were in shield service to Jarl Harald, the one they call Tangle-hair, son of Halfdan the Black. We had many grand adventures, fought many a difficult battle, and won glory in Harald’s name, ah, some marvelous tales to tell, but…” Karl looked around the room and let his eyes land on Willa and the baby, “we can save those as ‘lying stories’ for Willa’s wedding day!” This brought a new cheer to the room and Willa ducked her eyes, a blush rising on her cheeks. Karl sm
iled and let the raucous laughter fade.
“This is Jorn, Wyrm slayer, renown in the east for killing the dragon Poranix that had ravaged villages in Skane.” Jorn nodded and lifted his bowl. “And this is Kol Skegg, our shipwright and pilot, a son of Agder himself, and next to him is Havar Darkhead, both fine warriors of staunch reputation—watch out for him, he will eat the entire wedding feast as a snack!”
Havar chuckled, and raised the leather mug he had been passed, “You know it, Captain, and speaking of which, that roast is smelling mighty good…”
“Watch him, cousin,” Karl looked directly at Yeru, “There is no trusting that one around food!” The crew laughed along.
“This is Rurik, a Saarlased, hailing from far east, the Chuds Sea.” Karl pointed at the tattooed man. “Agne, there is no better man in a fight than Rurik and…no accent more difficult to fathom!”
“You can say that again, Captain.”
Rurik laughed, raised his glass and toasted the room in his native language, the incomprehensible banter bringing more hoots and shouts from the crew.
“And those three there, that’s Hamdir, Son of Ingmar, Sorli, son of Gwerd, and Sven, our horseman.” Karl pointed to the last two sailors, standing behind Hamdir. “And that is Ingulf, son of Osgulf, a fierce fighter, and most important of us all,” Karl smiled and glanced side to side at his men, “for who we all love and respect, our most noble cook, Marn, son of Marn!” The crew all called out his name, “Marn! Marn!” and the little bald man dipped his head in embarrassment. “Don’t let his shy way fool you, he is a demon in battle and brews the most delicious soups.”
“Marn can make an old sow’s ear taste good!” The top of his head reddened with the praise.
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