by Anna Ciddor
‘What do you mean?’
‘He ate the raw seeds I put down for the birds.’
‘That doesn’t make him dangerous,’ said Thora. ‘He’s probably starving. Look how skinny he is. I bet Grimmr doesn’t feed him.’
‘Well, that’s no reason to spit at me when I try to be friendly, or swear in a strange language.’
The thrall seemed to sense they were talking about him. He picked up a clod of dung and hurled it over the wall.
‘See?’
Thora shook her head. ‘Of course he’s cross, poor thing. How would you feel if someone captured you and turned you into a slave? And look at his bare legs. He must be freezing!’ She fingered the pin on her cloak.
‘Don’t you try giving him your cloak,’ warned Oddo. ‘He’ll just throw something at you.’
4
Encounter in the wood
It was a few days later when Thora noticed the funny smell. She was passing the ring of brambles where she’d made her secret garden two summers before. She stopped and sniffed the air. She thought she knew the scent of every plant in the wood, but she didn’t recognise this sweet, sickly odour. She eyed the brambles in puzzlement, then caught her breath. There was a hole near the ground – her old secret tunnel gaping open. Someone had cut back the new growth covering the entrance. Some strange person had found the way into the space behind the brambles.
For an instant, Thora thought of her clean apron dress and kirtle, then she dropped to her knees and pushed herself into the hole. She’d grown a lot since last time. The thorny branches overhead caught her hair, and scraped along her back. She pressed herself close against the earth, wriggled forward, and burst into the clearing.
The boy from Grimmr’s field was crouched inside, staring at her. She saw the glint of a dagger in his hand and something huge and hairy sprawled across his lap. At his feet was a pit filled with brown, foaming liquid, and out of it rose sweet, sickly fumes.
Thora froze, holding her breath. Then she realised the hairy thing in the boy’s arms was just a hide from an ox, and he was using his dagger to scrape off the hairs.
He was the first to break the silence.
‘No-m léic m’óenur!’ he snarled.
Thora looked at his shaking hands. She saw the bruises and scars on his bare legs, the hollows in his cheeks and the scared look in his eyes.
‘I’m your friend,’ she whispered, wondering what putrid thing was festering in that brown ooze, making the dreadful stink. ‘I’m Thora.’ She tapped her chest, and tried to smile as she pointed at him. ‘Who are you?’
There was a moment’s silence.
‘Dúngal,’ he answered at last. ‘Dúngal mac Flainn.’
Slowly, Thora lifted her hands and unpinned her cloak. She slid it from her shoulders.
‘Here, you must be cold.’
Leaning over the pit, she held it towards him.
The boy was silent, watching her warily. Then his hand flashed out and grabbed the cloak. Caught unawares, Thora held on an instant too long. She was yanked off balance, and with a scream, she toppled into the pit.
Brown ooze leapt over her face. Her wet kirtle wrapped around her legs, dragging her down, and for one horrible moment she sank below the surface. Then she stood up, gasping and choking, waist-deep in the dreadful brew. Soft, pulpy objects wobbled under her feet, and something slimy hung over her cheek. As she flicked her head, it fell off, plopping back in the water.
‘Auuugh!’ she shuddered, but Dúngal was already gripping her arms and hauling her out. She struggled up the slippery wall of the pit, and collapsed onto dry ground. Grinning, Dúngal picked up the cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders.
‘Uch, now . . . you cold!’ he said.
When he smiled, he looked completely different. His little berry nose turned upwards and his eyes twinkled. Thora tried to smile back. Then Dúngal scooped a slimy object from the pit and squeezed out the water. A lump of oak bark lay in his hand. Oak bark?
Dúngal held up the ox hide.
‘I . . . make . . .’ He pointed at his belt. ‘Leather.’
Thora glanced back at the pit, still puzzled.
‘Yes.’ Dúngal mimed dropping the ox hide into the smelly water. ‘Leave many nights in water and . . . bark. Make good leather.’
‘But . . . what are you going to do with the leather?’
For a moment, the fierce look was back on Dúngal’s face.
Then he bent forward and raised an eyebrow. ‘You my . . . friend?’ he asked. ‘True?’
Thora nodded solemnly.
Dúngal studied her, not speaking. Thora began to shiver with cold. She clenched her teeth hard, to stop them chattering and kept her eyes fixed on his face.
At last he spoke. His voice was hoarse.
‘I make curach,’ he said.
‘Cu . . . what?’
‘Curach.’ He waggled his arms, as if using oars.
‘A boat?’
Dúngal nodded eagerly. ‘Yes! Curach – boat!’
‘But how do you make a boat out of leather?’
Dúngal grinned. ‘I know how. At home, all boats leather.’
Thora stared at him. ‘What are you going to do with a boat?’
Dúngal wasn’t grinning now. He leaned so close, his breath tickled her face.
‘Go home,’ he whispered.
Thora eyed him anxiously.
‘You’re going to run away? Escape?’
Dúngal nodded.
‘But where do you have to get to? Where’s your home?’
His voice cracked as he spoke the one word, ‘Ériu,’ and Thora saw his eyes glisten with tears.
‘Ériu? Where’s that?’
‘You call . . . Ireland.’
‘Ireland? But that’s a long way. That’s where the Viking raiders go . . .’ Her voice trailed away as Dúngal’s eyes blazed with anger.
‘Vikings!’ He spat viciously.
Thora bit her lip, but she had to go on.
‘Dúngal, the Viking raiders have great big longships and teams of men to sail them. You can’t get to . . . to Ériu in a little boat made from leather. You’ll capsize. You’ll drown! You’ll never make it!’
Dúngal glared. ‘Drowning better than being thrall!’
5
A fine curach
The horse whinnied softly, and Dúngal opened one eye. Over the low barn door he could see the first hint of dawn. He lay another minute, snuggled in the straw. Then he groaned, and clambered to his feet.
Outside, the cold air stung his eyes, and his numb feet stumbled on the freezing cobbles of the yard. He pushed aside the door hangings and slipped into the house. As usual, Grimmr lay on his back, snoring. Dúngal remembered the first time he’d seen this fat pig. Grimmr had been glaring round the slave market with his bulging eyes, searching for the smallest and cheapest thrall. Dúngal lifted his hand and rubbed under his chin. He would never free himself of the memory of the iron fetter round his neck, the way it had jerked up and hit him on the chin whenever the taller slaves beside him had moved.
The warmth of the room was making his nose run. He sniffed as he crouched by the firepit in the middle of the room and blew on the embers. He picked up more kindling to feed the fire, and cursed as a thorn stabbed his finger. He broke off the spike, then a slow smile stole over his face. Creeping across the room, he dropped the thorn into Grimmr’s shoe. Just at that moment, the man snorted and stretched. Dúngal scuttled back to the hearth.
‘Wood nearly gone. Cut more?’ Dúngal nodded at the woodpile and waited tensely for Grimmr’s answer. Fetching firewood would give him an excuse to go to the woods with the axe. He could cut the branches he needed for his boat.
‘Why are we always running out of wood?’ Grimmr grumbled. ‘You must be wasting it, you lazy slug.’ Dúngal held his breath. ‘But, yes, go and cut some more – after you’ve made my breakfast.’
He swung his legs out of bed and Dúngal watched eagerly as he pulle
d on his shoes and stood up.
‘Auuggh!’
Hopping wildly, Grimmr kicked off the offending shoe and hobbled to the table.
Dúngal struggled to keep a solemn face as he served his master steaming porridge. But his glee vanished the moment he tasted his own breakfast. The lump of stale bread was made from spiky husks of barley, and it was so dry it stuck in his throat. As he leaned over the fire to cook fresh cakes for Grimmr, the delicious smell of frying butter made his belly snarl with longing. He slammed the hot griddle on the table, and turned for the door. The water bucket stood in front of him. Furtively, he gave it a shove, sending it toppling towards the fire. Water spilt over the flames, and smoke poured upwards.
‘You clumsy fool!’ Grimmr stumbled away from the table, coughing and flapping his arms.
Grinning, Dúngal tugged the axe from its hook.
‘I fetch more wood,’ he said.
Grimmr’s shoe was lying on the floor where he’d kicked it. Hidden by the cloud of smoke, Dúngal thrust it out of sight behind a wooden chest.
‘Try to find that, you big bully,’ he muttered. Then he scurried out of the room.
For the next few months, whenever he could, Dúngal found an excuse to go to the wood. He hunted, or picked wild berries, or chopped wood, then slipped into his secret place to work on his boat.
Sometimes the girl Thora would visit him while he worked. He would hear a scuffling in the tunnel, and look up, his hand reaching for the axe. Then her smiling face would pop up from the hole, rosy cheeks grimy with soil, her hair tousled.
She brought him strange food to eat: tiny birds’ eggs boiled in their shells, leaves she picked in the wood, even smelly seaweed.
‘At home, that’s what I spread on the fields, for fertiliser,’ he thought, but he managed to swallow it.
Thora cut the rawhide strips that would hold his curach together, while he whittled and shaped ash branches for the frame. At last it was time to fit the first small hoop into place. Thora handed him a rawhide strip and he bound it tight. He grinned proudly and picked up the next hoop, but when he tried to tie it down, it sprang out of his hands. Again and again he grabbed it, but it wriggled as if it was live. Tears of frustration pricked his eyes. He was about to give up and hurl the piece of wood across the clearing when he saw Thora’s eyes, bright with anticipation. Cursing, he wrestled it into place, and wiped his sweaty face with his sleeve. Then he picked up the next hoop.
Slowly, the skeleton of the boat began to take shape.
Thora chatted while they worked, only stopping when there were footsteps or voices beyond the brambles. Then they would both freeze, waiting till the sounds faded. Once they heard a girl with a strident voice telling someone else what to do.
‘That’s Astrid,’ whispered Thora. ‘My bossy older sister.’
‘Have you got sisters?’ she asked later.
‘Dias . . . two. Little ones,’ mumbled Dúngal.
He was embarrassed to speak, fumbling to find the right words in this strange tongue. But Thora kept asking him questions.
‘Tell me about your family,’ she said.
Gradually, as the weeks passed, Dúngal found the Viking words flowing more easily to his lips.
‘What do your sisters wear?’ asked Thora. ‘Do they weave their own clothes, like this?’
‘Weave, yes, but not like this.’ He pinched the rough woollen cloth. ‘Not from wool. They use leaves – special, long leaves.’
‘I can make rope out of leaves,’ said Thora. ‘Nettle leaves! Hey, will you need ropes for your boat? Are you going to have a sail? I could make them for you.’
One day, Dúngal picked up three rawhide strips, plaited flowers into them and wound them round Thora’s long, honey-coloured hair.
‘Pretty,’ he said. ‘Like my . . . sethir. My sisters. Also, they wear . . .’ He pointed to the brooches on her apron dress. ‘Like this, in their ears.’
‘Pins? In their ears?!’ squealed Thora.
‘Not pins, gold.’
‘My brooches aren’t gold,’ said Thora. ‘I think they’re bronze. Do your sisters wear brooches? And necklaces, and bangles?’
‘Yes. Much gold in Ériu.’
‘What are your sisters’ names?’
‘Aífe and Eithne.’
Dúngal picked up a stick and scraped their names in the damp earth near the pit.
When he looked up again, Thora was gaping at him.
‘You can do runes,’ she breathed. ‘You’re magic!’
‘Magic?’ He looked down at the writing. ‘No. These are just words, my sisters’ names.’
‘You can . . . draw . . . people’s names?’
‘Of course. Can’t you?’
Thora shook her head. ‘Does everyone in Ireland draw names? Where do you learn?’
‘From the priests. They are very clever. They can draw many, many words, not just names. I go to the priest. Other boys go. And we learn to draw words.’
‘Can you do my name?’
Dúngal thought for a moment, then scraped her name into the soil.
‘And that says Thora?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you don’t have magic in Ériu?’
‘Of course we do. We have the Sídaigi . . . magic people. They are tiny, but very . . . powerful. On the nights of the big fires, when the farmers plant or harvest – that is when we see them. We must give them food and drink to make them happy. If not, they do bad things.’
‘Just like here!’ said Thora.
‘You have Sídaigi too?’
‘We call them Little Folk. And when it’s a festival, we give them presents to make them happy, like you do. Tell more about Ériu. What’s your house like?’
So Dúngal described the ringfort where his family and all his kinsfolk lived, and the big, open-air cooking fire where they gathered in the evenings to eat, and tell stories, and listen to Grandfather sing.
‘When I go back and sit at the fire again, Grandfather will make a song about my adventures.’
He told about the summer meadows outside the walls, where bees droned and sheep stood knee-deep in buttercups. He described the brook where the mustard-flavoured watercress grew. And, best of all, he described the round house with its high, pointy roof, so different from the squat, turf-covered houses of Norway. As he spoke, he pictured his father stooping to come through the low door, laughing at Aífe and Eithne romping round the floor with a litter of kittens. He could see his mother lighting the beeswax candles, filling the room with their sweet scent.
‘Máthair,’ he whispered.
And then he thought of the smelly, smoky oil lamps in Grimmr’s house, his lonely nights sleeping in the barn with the animals . . .
He jumped as Thora’s voice broke in and she thrust the axe into his hand. ‘Don’t mope. You’re making this fine curach. You’ll get back to your family. I know you will.’
6
A basket full of holes
‘Oddo, we’ve got to help him!’ pleaded Thora. ‘He’s building a boat and he wants to go back to Ireland.’
‘So? I’m not stopping him! I’ll be very pleased, thank you, when I can go outside again and not have an idiot throw dung at me.’
‘He only did it that one time.’
‘Oh, so that makes it all right, does it?’
‘Don’t be silly. If you’d just been kidnapped, you wouldn’t be too friendly either.’
‘Well, fine with me. I don’t want to be friends. I won’t be stupid enough to go near him again. And I don’t see why you want to shove yourself under his nose every five seconds. Have you looked at him? He’s got speckles all over his face, and silly short hair that sticks up like barley stubble, and . . .’
‘Don’t be mean. It’s not Dúngal’s fault someone turned him into a slave and chopped his hair off.’
At the sound of her agitated voice, Hairydog, who’d been dozing in a patch of sunshine, woke up and began to yip excitedly. Oddo scuffed the ground.
‘Well, there’s nothing I can do about it,’ he growled.
He glanced up again. Thora’s eyes were sparkling.
‘Yes there is. I’ve got it all planned. We’ll both go with him in the curach – that’s what he calls his boat – and you can use your magic powers to make the wind blow the right way till we get to Ireland. If a storm comes, you can stop it. We’ll get there in no time.’
‘What?! You expect me to spend days on end stuck on a boat with that lemming?’
‘Of course. You’ll like Dúngal when you get to know him. Come on, I’ll show you where he’s building the boat.’ She pulled on his sleeve excitedly. ‘Dúngal’s—’
‘Dúngal’s a stupid name. Sounds like you’re swallowing something. Dúngal. Dúngal.’
‘Come and look. He’s started making the boat. He’s building the frame out of ash branches and then he’s going to cover it with ox hides. I’m going to weave the sail, and make the ropes out of nettles, the way Hallveig and Erp showed me at the Gula Thing.’
They were in the wood now and Thora came to a halt in front of the bramble patch.
‘It’s in here,’ she whispered. ‘Where I used to have my secret garden.’
‘Peuugh, what’s the stink?’
‘The tanning pit, where Dúngal’s curing the hides. Come on.’
A moment later, Oddo wriggled out of the tunnel, and found himself face-to-face with Dúngal. The Irish boy looked as startled as Oddo. He scrambled to his feet, scowling and waving his axe.
‘Viking!’
This time, Oddo was wearing his dagger. He whipped it out of his belt and glared back. This time, he wasn’t going to be intimidated by a thrall.
‘Oh, stop it, you two. Dúngal, put the axe down. Oddo’s a friend.’
Hairydog’s head popped out of the tunnel. At the sight of Dúngal, the bristles rose on her neck. Thora reached over to grab her as she bared her teeth and let out a growl.
Oddo kept the dagger in his hand till Dúngal lowered his axe.
‘Come on, silly,’ said Thora, ‘come and look at the boat. It’s so clever the way Dúngal’s made it.’