by Tony Bradman
‘Hold!’ yelled Tovi. ‘I declare Wermund, son of Alfgar, the winner!’
The biggest cheer of all went up now, and Wermund’s face hardened into a mask of triumph. He banged his spear-shaft on his shield, and grinned as he accepted the acclaim of his friends. Then Alfgar stepped forward and silence fell again.
‘You did well, my son,’ Alfgar said. ‘But so did you, Oslaf, even though you lost. You have earned your place with the boys. Elfritha will see to your wound.’
Oslaf was pleased and smiled, although it made his cheek hurt even more, and Tovi slapped his back. ‘You’d have won if you’d kept your shield up…’ he said.
But Oslaf wasn’t listening. Wermund was staring at him through the crowd with a look of pure hatred, and Oslaf had a feeling that the real fight between them had only just begun.
CHAPTER FOUR
Winter of the Wolves
‘You’ll have a scar, but I don’t suppose that will worry you,’ said Elfritha, who was the village healer. They were in the hall, Oslaf sitting on a bench with Elfritha and Gunnhild. The blood had stopped flowing from his wound, and Elfritha had cleaned his cheek with a cloth and warm water from a bowl Gunnhild was holding. ‘I know what you boys are like,’ Elfritha went on. ‘You think a scar gives you the look of a warrior.’
‘I will try not to be so foolish, lady,’ Oslaf replied. ‘My mother always used to say that a scar should be a lesson learned. And I am grateful for your care.’
‘It seems Leofwen grew wise as a mother, and passed on her wisdom to you,’ said Elfritha. ‘How I wish she were here to give me her counsel!’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘I am sorry Wermund did this to you, Oslaf. He has his moods, and recently he has become… difficult. Perhaps I should speak to him for you.’
‘Please don’t,’ Oslaf said quickly. If Elfritha got involved it would simply make him look weak. He knew that he would have to deal with Wermund himself.
‘Well, if you’re sure…’ said Elfritha. Oslaf nodded, and she rose to her feet. ‘Let me know if the wound starts to bleed again – I can always seal it with a spider-web poultice.’ He watched her walk off, and felt grateful to her all over again.
‘It’s true, my brother has changed,’ said Gunnhild once Elfritha was out of earshot. ‘He never used to be the way he is now. It seems that he cannot stand to be thwarted, and he loves to lord it over the other boys… I asked Mother if he might have been taken over by some evil spirit. But she believes he is just impatient to be a man and win glory and honour, and that he needs careful handling for a while.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Oslaf. He touched his cheek, and winced.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Gunnhild with a smile. ‘I wouldn’t want to see you getting hurt again because of him. We’re not all horrible in my family.’
Oslaf smiled back, and felt pleased for a second time that day.
It seemed he might actually have a friend in Alfgar’s hall.
Oslaf grew used to living in the village, the rhythm of the days from dawn till dusk, the evenings in the hall by the hearth-fire, talking and resting. There were times when he thought of his father and mother and a terrible sadness filled him, and he thought his heart might break. Then he would pray to Woden, asking the god to watch over his parents in the Land of the Dead, and gradually the feeling would pass.
He loved the training he did with Tovi, though. The boys worked hard with spear and shield, and sometimes Tovi let them try an axe or even a sword. Tovi didn’t say much in the way of praise, nodding occasionally if he thought a boy had done something particularly well. Oslaf soon became desperate to win one of those nods, and on a day when he got two or three he felt very pleased with himself.
Wermund was clearly the best of them all and liked to challenge the others. Oslaf steered clear of him, remembering what Gunnhild had said, and Tovi made sure they were never paired together. Yet there was still tension between them, and Wermund took every opportunity to mock Oslaf – although only when Tovi couldn’t hear him. Oslaf tried to shrug it off and concentrate on whatever he should be doing.
One cold, damp, blustery day, when the sky was full of thick clouds and a chill wind was blowing from the north, Oslaf saw half a dozen hearth-companions led by a grim-faced Tovi ride back into the village and up to the hall. Tovi jumped off his horse and marched in through the great doors. Oslaf was curious and followed him inside, then watched as Tovi said something that made Alfgar frown deeply.
Alfgar drew Tovi into his private chamber at the rear of the hall and pulled the deer-hide curtains closed behind them. Oslaf felt uneasy, wondering what Tovi had said to make a chieftain with fifty spears at his bidding look so unhappy.
‘It seems that Tovi has brought us bad tidings,’ said Widsith, who was sitting in his usual place at the hearth-fire. Oslaf walked over and sat down beside him.
‘What is going on?’ he asked. Oslaf took it for granted the old man would have been able to hear everything that had just been said, even though Tovi and Alfgar were whispering.
‘Tovi saw a big war-band, outriders of yet another new tribe that has decided to try its luck westwards,’ said Widsith. ‘They will pick the land clean, attack any villages they come across, and leave a trail of fire and blood and death in their wake…’
Widsith talked on, skilfully weaving a tale of the past and the present as only he could. Now Oslaf understood why the village in the marshes had been abandoned. Its people had simply grown tired of fighting off new tribes and gone to live somewhere else.
‘Why then has Alfgar not led his people to another place?’ said Oslaf.
‘Alfgar is stubborn. This is his land and he will not give it up lightly. He is strong too, and he knows how to fight, which is why others come to him and ask to be taken in when their villages are burnt down. But it gets harder every year… each new tribe says there are other, bigger tribes that forced them out of the east.’
‘So where do people go when they leave their homes?’ said Oslaf. He had little idea of the world beyond the coast, the marshlands and now Alfgar’s village. His father had often talked of the land of the Geats, and he had mentioned other strange places in the stories he told. But none of them had ever seemed real to Oslaf.
‘Westwards, always westwards,’ said Widsith. ‘Most cross the great River Rhine into the rich lands that used to be ruled by the Romans – Gaul, Hispania, Italy. That’s where the Franks went, and the Goths and the Vandals. I travelled in those lands before I went blind, and I saw such marvels – ruined villages of houses built from stone, shining halls where it seemed the gods themselves had once lived…’
Oslaf struggled to picture in his mind such wonders. He thought Widsith had probably made them up – after all, that was the kind of thing poets did.
‘But what about our people, the Angles?’ said Oslaf. ‘Where did they go?’
‘Ah, to another land that once belonged to the Romans, a place across the Frisian Sea called Britannia,’ said Widsith. ‘Our northern neighbours the Jutes took part of it, and our southern neighbours the Saxons soon followed them. But we Angles have founded the biggest villages, and they are always growing. Elfritha has kin there, a powerful chieftain called Wuffa who would surely welcome the Alfgaringas.’
‘Do you think Alfgar will ever do it?’ said Oslaf. Widsith shrugged.
‘There may come a time when he will have no choice,’ he said, the red and yellow flames of the hearth-fire dancing in his milky-white eyes. ‘Let us pray to Woden and Thunor and Friga that Alfgar will know the moment and not let it pass.’
It was warm in the hall, yet Oslaf suddenly felt cold, and shivered.
The next day Alfgar decided they should get on with the winter slaughtering, the time when the village’s older and weaker animals were killed and the meat salted away for the hardest, coldest days ahead. He also ordered the stockade gate to be kept shut and barred day and night, and posted guards to keep watch. Oslaf and the other boys took their turn
alongside the men, usually with a hearth-companion in charge.
The slaughterhouse was just inside the stockade, but the smell of blood seemed to hang over the whole village. At twilight one night, with the sun setting in a ball of fire to the west, Oslaf looked down from the fighting platform and saw a lean grey wolf staring up at him, its cold blue eyes like chips of ice. The wolf sniffed, clearly attracted by the blood-smell, and growled softly, showing its sharp teeth.
‘Forgive us, Brother Wolf, but we have nothing to spare for you,’ said Tovi, who was standing next to Oslaf. ‘These are hard times for us all, man and beast.’
The wolf held their gaze for a moment longer, then loped away and slipped into the shadows. But the next night a whole pack paced and growled outside the stockade, and from then on they were constant visitors. People muttered, saying it showed how bad things must be – wolves never came so close to the village. Some even wondered if the beasts were truly wolves. Perhaps they were shape-shifting magicians sent to spy on the village and report back to the tribes heading towards them…
Widsith took that idea and made it into a poem he called ‘Winter of the Wolves’.
Oslaf sat by him in the hall through the long, dark evenings, watching and listening as Widsith tested words and music until he was pleased with them. He even asked the old man if he could try his hand at the harp, and found it was hard to make it sing. But Widsith said he was good, and would get better with enough practice.
Then at dusk one evening, three days before the Yuletide Feast, the wolves didn’t come as usual. Oslaf was on the fighting platform with Tovi and several others, men and boys. Tovi held up a flaming torch and peered at the lengthening shadows.
‘Oslaf, go and tell Alfgar that we need everyone to be armed and ready,’ Tovi said quietly. ‘Something has scared off our grey brothers and sisters. I have a feeling in my blood that a different kind of wolf might be planning to visit us tonight.’
He was right. A little while later a war-band of armed men on horses came riding down the track. They yelled a wild war cry, a strange whooping from the back of the throat. Some threw torches once they were close enough, and others fired arrows. Oslaf ducked to let the feathered shafts fly over him. Alfgar stood with the rest of them, calling out orders, encouraging everybody. His helmet and chain mail gleamed in the light of the torches, and his sword shone like a flash of lightning in the dark. Oslaf thought he looked just like a hero from one of Widsith’s warrior tales.
They threw their spears at anything that moved in the darkness, and managed to beat off the attack. Afterwards Oslaf couldn’t stop shaking, amazed he had survived, unsure whether he had been any real help. When the sun rose they saw three men lying dead in front of the gates, spears sticking out of their chests. Oslaf suddenly felt sick, and decided he didn’t want to know if any of the spears was the one he had thrown.
Alfgar spent most of that evening in his private chamber with Elfritha. Tovi and Beornath joined them, and everyone wondered what they were talking about.
Oddly enough, Oslaf the newcomer felt sure that he knew.
Everyone had been telling Oslaf for ages that the Yuletide Feast would be all eating and drinking and laughter, a dream of summer joy in the middle of the winter gloom. Yet it was a sombre gathering in Alfgar’s hall that took place two days after the attack.
The chieftain stood tall and proud by the hearth-fire. The light of the flames glinted off the gold-rimmed bull’s horn full of foaming mead in his hand.
‘I welcome you to the last Yuletide Feast this hall will ever see,’ he said. Oslaf heard a sharp intake of breath from the people around him, while others began to murmur, asking each other what Alfgar was talking about. ‘There is nothing here for us any more,’ Alfgar went on, raising his voice, and everyone fell silent again. ‘We leave in the spring for a new land – for a new life in Britannia!’ he roared.
He raised the bull’s horn to toast their future, and the people roared back.
‘To Britannia!’ they cried out. ‘To the next Yuletide in Britannia!’
Oslaf joined in, but his heart was full of fear.
What would this mean for him?
CHAPTER FIVE
Dark Red and Glistening
After Yuletide the village buzzed with excitement for a few days. The weather was cold but sunny, and people seemed happy at the prospect of leaving for a new life. Then the wind shifted, bringing snow from the north, and the mood changed. Oslaf heard people whispering to each other, their voices and faces now full of worry. A few even said they didn’t need to leave, that things would get better soon.
‘It is only to be expected,’ said Widsith with a shrug one evening. He was sitting by the hearth-fire, Oslaf beside him as usual. Outside the wind howled like a giant beast, but it was warm and quiet in the hall. ‘Sometimes even the bravest fear leaving the old and familiar for the new, although they know in their hearts it is the right thing to do. And then some of those who want to leave fear they will not be going.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Oslaf. ‘Surely Alfgar will take everyone?’
Widsith snorted and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not, boy,’ he said. ‘There won’t be enough room for everyone in the boats Alfgar will buy or build, and life will be hard in the new land. So Alfgar will take only those he can rely on – his family, his hearth-companions and their families, the best servants – oh, and me, of course.’
Suddenly Oslaf felt worried. He could see the sense in Widsith’s words, but that didn’t make them any easier to deal with. Why would a great chieftain such as Alfgar give a kinless boy like him a valuable place in one of his boats? There were many others in the village who were far more worthy. But then a thought occurred to him – perhaps he would have more of a chance if he made himself really useful…
From that moment on, Oslaf dedicated himself to being the best worker in the village. He got up before dawn every day and sought out Beornath so he could ask the steward what needed doing. He offered to do more guard duty, ran errands for Elfritha, did anything for anybody. Each night he fell exhausted into his sleeping place and knew no more till morning. But he was determined to keep it up.
One afternoon he was down at the pigpens, pouring feed for them into a trough, when Wermund and his followers walked by. Wermund saw him and stopped.
‘I know what you’re doing, Oslaf,’ he said, smirking. ‘You think that if my father hears what a good boy you are, then he’ll be sure to take you to Britannia. Well, let me tell you something – you’re wasting your time. It’s me who is going to decide which boys come with us. And somehow I don’t think you’ll be one of them…’
Wermund walked off towards the hall with his followers. Oslaf watched them go, disappointment and anger boiling inside him, and wondered what to do. Then it came to him – why didn’t he just ask Alfgar if Wermund spoke truly? Whatever the answer, at least he would know for certain – and he would be able to stop worrying.
Yet picking the right moment to speak to Alfgar was tricky. He was a difficult man to approach at the best of times, but he was busier than ever now, his mind clearly full of all that had to be done to get his tribe to Britannia. Oslaf thought of asking Gunnhild to speak to her father for him. The friendship between Oslaf and Gunnhild had grown, and Oslaf knew the chieftain rarely said no to his only daughter… But that was the coward’s way, Oslaf realised. He had to do this himself.
He tracked Alfgar round the village for three days, but failed to pluck up the courage to speak on at least a dozen occasions. Then one morning he knew it was probably now or never. The chieftain was down by the main cattle pen, talking with Beornath and Tovi. There was no wind, but it was cold and their breath hung over them in a white cloud. A light dusting of snow lay on the ground and the puddles were frozen, so that they reflected the stone-grey sky. The men were wearing fur cloaks – Alfgar’s was made from the pelt of a brown bear. Oslaf wore a thick woollen cloak Elfritha had given him.
‘Lord Alfgar,
’ said Oslaf from behind them. ‘May I ask you something?’
‘I wish you would,’ said Alfgar, turning to face him. ‘I was beginning to wonder if I had somehow grown another shadow. Tell me what is on your mind, Oslaf.’
‘I… I wish to know if I am coming to Britannia with you,’ he blurted out.
‘Why, of course you are.’ Alfgar looked at him with a puzzled frown. ‘You are one of us now, a true Alfgaringa. What made you think it would be otherwise?’
For the space of a few heartbeats Oslaf thought about telling him the truth, that it was Wermund who had put the idea in his head. But then he saw the truth of it – Wermund had simply been playing with him, tormenting him as a cat does a baby bird that has fallen from the nest. It was better not to show Alfgar he had been fooled.
‘Nothing, Lord, just my own doubt,’ he said at last. ‘You have my thanks, and I promise I will do my best to serve you and the tribe as well as I can.’
‘I know you will, Oslaf.’ Alfgar smiled, and so did Beornath and Tovi.
They turned away from him, picking up their conversation where they had left it. Oslaf walked off, pleased there was certainty about his future. But that night, he dreamed of his mother. She was standing on the hillside where he had dug her grave, her arms outstretched, tears on her cheeks. He woke up sweating, his heart pounding, and remembered that he had promised to make a sacrifice to Woden for her.
In the morning he spoke to Elfritha, telling her about his promise. ‘But Lady, I have no gold to buy an animal from Alfgar,’ he said. ‘Do you think he would let me have one I could pay for later? I will work even harder for him, I swear.’
‘You work hard enough already, Oslaf,’ she said. ‘I will ask my husband if he will help you to keep your promise. And I think the tribe will need to make a sacrifice too. It would be a great mistake to leave behind us any spirits who are unhappy…’
A few days later the people of Alfgar’s village walked in procession to a large glade in the woods. Alfgar led the way, and Beornath brought up the rear with a line of animals – a horse, a cow, a goat, a pig and a sheep. Oslaf walked with Widsith, the old man’s big hand on his shoulder. In the middle of the glade lay a great slab of grey rock, its surface flat and covered with ancient, dark stains. Alfgar stood beside it, and the people looked on as he raised his arms to the blue sky above. He wore a whole wolf-skin, the muzzle covering most of his face and muffling his voice.