by Griff Hosker
I thought about it, “Almost. How many warriors do you have?”
“Gareth!”
“It is all right. There are but twenty eight warriors left. We had many more and could have filled every bank of oars last year but the disease killed many.” I opened my mouth to speak and he laughed, “A last answer. We do need more warriors for others could raid us but we will have to wait until the young men are old enough to go to sea.” He held up his hand. “And now it is time for our bed, if not yours. Your mother will wake you with father’s food. Sleep well tonight you will need it.”
He was correct of course but sleep took some time to come for I could hear my mother and Butar coupling in the sleeping room. I had heard it before with my father and her but this time it seemed noisier. Normally it had just been my father I had heard. Tonight my mother was making as much noise as Butar. Eventually I fell asleep.
I seemed to be asleep for no more than a moment before I was woken. I was given a bowl of porridge and then the old man’s food. It was pitch black dark when I left. The guard grumbled as I approached but Butar must have spoken with him and I was allowed through. The forest seemed even more terrifying than the night before. When I finally reached the door I wondered if I should just go in for the old man would probably be asleep. I had to put down the pot of food anyway and so I knocked and shouted my greeting. I was surprised to hear a shout from inside and I entered.
The old man was awake and beckoned me over. He handed me the empty pot from the night before. He said something and rubbed his stomach with his good arm. I took the word to mean good and I repeated it. He nodded, seemingly satisfied. I took the lid off the pot and he sniffed appreciatively. He said another word; I repeated it and he grunted. So the day passed. I learned words by his pointing, speaking and me repeating. It tended to be objects but soon I was picking up the sound of the word. He worked me hard. I was given a brush and told to clean. I was sent to climb into the upper part of the cave and take away the nests and spider’s webs I found there. I chopped more wood. He took me into the forests and he showed me which berries we could pick to eat. He had to bend down and peer at them closely but he could find his way around the paths quite easily. We went to his hives and he showed me where they were. I was thankful I was not asked to get any honey combs. I looked at the sky and saw that it was late afternoon. It was time for his meal. I had learned the word for food and he waved me away with a, “Go!” As I turned and ran I think I saw a ghost of a smile but I could not be sure.
This became the pattern of my day for the next weeks. I only ever saw four other people, Butar, my mother, the guard on the gate and Ragnar. There was a change in me. I learned the language very quickly. I seemed to have an ear for it. I began to fill out. We ate better here than we had at home. Back across the sea I was given whatever my father hadn’t eaten and he could eat a lot. Here, even for a slave there was plenty. These people liked their meat and they ate huge quantities. The fish and shellfish were plentiful too. The constant climbing of the hill with heavy weights and the cutting of the logs all seemed to make me more muscular. I was no longer the scrawny crow who would blow over in a strong wind. Soon the hill and the wooden collar meant nothing to me.
There was a change in the old man too. He seemed to be less frail and slept less than he had when I had first arrived. He still rarely smiled but he did not scowl as much as he used to. One summer’s morning he was waiting for me. He had a bow and a quiver of arrows. He had learned to use the words I knew and then he would teach me the new words I needed.
“Today, when we have eaten we will hunt. Now go and chop wood.”
He came out and I was still chopping. He handed me a bow and a quiver. “Have you hunted before?”
“No.”
He sighed, “If I want to eat well then I must teach you.”
He began to teach me how to draw and release an arrow without an arrow and then with an arrow. He did not seem bothered if I could hit anything, just as long as I could draw a bow. Then he led me through the woods. He pointed to the ground and taught me to track animals. He would ask me to describe the tracks I saw. He told me what the animal was. He was in the mood for some game and he wanted hare. I wished that he had picked something bigger. He must have been a good hunter when he was younger for he brought us to the edge of the forest and a patch of bare hillside. He seemed to know how to get there almost by touch. We would walk with his good arm on my shoulder. When we reached the bare ground we could see the hares but they seemed too far away to hit. He led us around the hillside until they could not smell us. We managed to approach to within fifty paces of our prey, sheltered by the trees, and he handed me an arrow. He pointed at eight hares which were close together. He mimed aiming at them. I took an arrow and pulled back. Looking back now I can see that he could not have given me an easier target. I loosed and, to my delight, a hare was pinned to the ground. As we hurried over he explained to me how I could have done it better. He criticised everything I had done. I did not mind. I had succeeded. I retrieved the arrow; to the old man they were precious and put the game in my bag. He then taught me how to make a trap which we laid outside the burrow.
“Tomorrow you can come back and find another hare.”
I did and so another pattern began to emerge; chopping wood, cleaning and hunting. I learned that his one arm was very strong having had to do the work of two and he could see things but they tended to be shapes rather than detailed images. His hearing and his sense of smell were uncanny. He could smell me approaching when I was not making the slightest sound. Under the old man’s tutoring I became quite adept. When I killed my first deer the old man insisted on coming to the village so that my mother could skin it and cook it under his supervision.
Ragnar and my mother approved of each other as soon as they met. While they talked Butar took me outside. “Thrall I am pleased with you. Come with me.” He took me to the blacksmith’s, Bagsecg. “Take off his collar.” The blacksmith was surprised but Butar was an important man and the smith did as ordered. “You are still my slave but I do not think you will run.”
As we passed through the village I saw some of the boys from the village and they all had their collars on. I might not have seen them for months but their looks were still murderous. I suppose they now had another reason to hate me. I was given special treatment and they were not. When the skin was cured my mother made it into my first jerkin. As we killed more deer during the summer it meant that all four of us had fine footwear and jackets. I was growing so much that mine had to be renewed quite frequently. My Norse was now fluent. There were few words that I did not use. Ragnar and I would come down to see his son once a week. My mother told me that this was a good thing for the old man had lived alone too long since his wife had died.
One summer’s evening, when the day was so long that the night lasted less time than it takes to fell a tree, I asked Butar why he had chosen my mother and me. My mother, of course, shook her head at my questions but Butar smiled. “I liked your spirit. You did not take the capture as the end of your life and, besides, the others followed the White Christ. I do not like that. You two follow the old ways and we like that. Besides I think the Norns had much to do with it.”
“The Norns?”
“They are three sisters who weave webs which entangle men. They decide on what we will do and how we will do it.”
Mother nodded and said to me, “Wyrd.”
“Ah. Now I understand. You had lost your family and the Norns gave you another one.” I pointed to my mother. “So you will soon have more children.”
My mother blushed and Butar’s face darkened. “We have been trying but the Norns have decided otherwise.”
The next few months seemed to fly by and I found, for the first time in my life, that I was happy. I had no contact at all with my past as I was rarely in the village and I was learning to do things I had never done before. Once I had mastered the bow I was taught how to use a javelin and I looked forward to t
he time when I would hunt wild pig. Ragnar was, really, a wise old man and a wonderful teacher despite his grumpy ways. Everything he taught me seemed to be an effort for him and yet he taught me well. The amazing thing was he seemed to grow younger as the year went on. He was old but he began to sleep less and eat more. I think it was my mother’s food and we both grew well on it.
It was at the turn of the year when leaves began to fall and the nights became longer than the days when he took me to the back of the cave. He made me climb up to a rocky ledge and bring down the object wrapped in sheepskin. I handed it to him and he took it into the light. When he unwrapped it, I saw that it was a sword. Even though it had been wrapped up it had been well cared for. The light from the fire made the shiny blade seem to sparkle and I could see that there were runes all over the two sides. He carefully explained what they meant. The sword was called Odin’s Fang and belonged to Ragnar. He was proud of the blade and what he had achieved. He had told me, after much questioning, how he had lost his arm and it been when wielding the sword and protecting his Jarl, Harald’s grandfather and his father. His voice became so gentle I thought that he was crying as he told me of the times he had used it.
“I have not held it since I lost my right arm. No one has.” He looked at me, “Hold it.”
I gripped the sword and suddenly I felt as though I had grown a head taller. It felt light and seemed to sing to me. Without realising it I began to swing the blade gently. If I had tried this when I had first come it would have fallen from my feeble arm but it felt comfortable. Ragnar smiled. “When the days become longer I will teach you how to use a sword.”
My eyes widened in excitement. “This one?”
His face became irritated and angry, “No, you stupid boy! This is the sword of a warrior and not a thrall. We will make a wooden sword for you. That will be your task this winter and it will take all winter believe me. Then in the days of flowers and the days of new birth we will practise and I will teach you, thrall, how to fight like a warrior.”
I loved that hard cold winter. I struggled up the hill each day through the snow and the cold but it was worth it as Ragnar told me how to cut the wood to make the shape of the sword and then how to make the blade and the handle. I became quite excited when it was finished and I showed him my handiwork. He laughed at me, his toothless face breaking into a cackle, “This is a lump of wood. We need to make it live and make it a sword.”
I spent the months when the sun rose for a brief moment, carving intricate runes and messages onto the wooden blade and making the hilt look as though it was embedded with rubies. When I had finished I had to agree that it was worth it. It was beautiful and I could not wait to use it. It was only a wooden sword but it was mine and I had made it.
Ragnar seemed to take malicious pleasure in taking me out during the short cold, snow filled days to practise with my wooden sword. He also insisted that I take the bow and quiver in case we discovered any game. He was wrapped in his bearskin whilst I just had my deer hide jerkin. It was better than my tunic had been but little good at keeping out the cold. He had me hacking and slicing at a particularly thick blackberry bush. He chortled as he saw the thorns ripping into my bare arms. “When you can direct where the blade goes then you will avoid the thorns.”
He was right of course and I did improve. Just as I had that first day when I had struggled to cut logs for the old man with the axe.. He had told me that when I had the speed of the swing and the angle correct then I would be able to chop the bushes. He was right. Of course it had the added benefit not only of strengthening my arms but clearing the blackberries for a better crop the following spring. He was a wise old warrior.
After a week I was feeling stronger and more skilled. Never one to let me rest on my success, he took me deeper into the forest. He made me climb the lower branches of the huge fir trees and, whilst I hung from my left arm, I had to hack away the dead wood from the lower part of the tree. I had not used my left arm as much and it burned so much that I thought I would drop.
“What use is this? When will I have to hang from a tree and wield a sword?”
“If you ever have to then this is a good lesson but heed my words thrall, you may have to hold a shield in your left arm and that is harder than hanging from a tree.” As I came to discover, he was right.
It was the next day when we came close to death. We both made a small sacrifice to Joro the goddess of the earth as we always did and set forth. We had not been out for two days due to the severe storm. I had slept in Ragnar’s home where it was warm and we had the food I had managed to hunt. Squirrel stew is neither the most nourishing nor the tastiest but when the alternative is to fight your way through a blizzard to the village, it will do. After we had sacrificed I cleared the snow from the door. It warmed me up considerably. Ragnar took his staff and we headed into the woods.
There was an eerie silence in the woods. The snow was without any prints. Not a bird had ventured down to the white blanket covering their food. There were no signs of deer or hare. Ragnar found an empty piece of land and decided to have me dodging snowballs and smacking them with my wooden sword. I had to make the pile which I then had to make into a pyramid before him. He then began to pelt me with them. I was just a blurred shape to him but he was effective enough. Although I was warm from my exertions, the icy balls of wet snow soon chilled me and I began to hit more than I missed. It was a good exercise and speeded up my reflexes.
“Move your body too!”
I heeded his words and none of the last four snowballs struck me. He then made me make him some more. This time I was only struck once and that was due to the cunning of my mentor. He feinted and then, with the speed of a snake striking, he hit me full on the face. It was funny enough for me to laugh and the old man to smile. Then our smiles left us as we heard the howls of the wolf pack.
Ragnar’s face fell. “Come this is no place for an old man and a boy. The blizzard has driven the wolves from the high places.” We struggled through the snow. Ragnar led us along our own steps in the snow. “Notch an arrow!”
I did as I was bid. Suddenly he stopped. There were other tracks in the snow that were not ours nor were they deer or hares. They were wolves and they were ahead of us. Ragnar held up his hand and we stopped. He sniffed the air. I remembered our first hunt. Were we upwind or downwind of the wolves? The path we trod was wider than most but it narrowed close to the house. I hoped that the smell of man would make the wolf fearful but it had been a harsh few days and who knew how desperate they would be?
We hurried through the woods both listening and watching for danger. I am ashamed to say that it was the rheumy, fading eyes and ears of Old Ragnar who sensed the wolves. I had no idea they were there. When I did see them I saw that there were three of them. Ragnar held up his hand. “Which is the largest one, thrall?”
“The one in the middle.”
“Then he is the leader. You must put an arrow into him but one will not kill him or even slow him. You will need a second. When you have loosed your second then you will have to use your wooden sword as a weapon.”
I was going to die on this remote path in the forest and our bones would only be discovered when the snow melted. My wooden sword could not kill a wolf.
The old man chuckled as he sensed my fear, “This is a test sent by Ullr.”
I had not heard of the god but I assumed he could help us. I aimed the arrow and held a second in my teeth. As soon as I loosed it the mighty beast leapt at me. I notched a second and loosed that too. Both struck him but he kept coming at me. I dropped my bow and grabbed my wooden sword in both hands. His mouth seemed to be a cave filled with huge teeth and it was coming directly for me. I managed to get the wooden sword out and in front of me. It was none too soon for its foaming mouth was almost at my throat. I was knocked to the ground and all went black.
Chapter 3
I awoke and thought I was still aboard the ship. I seemed to be moving up and down. I opened my eyes and saw
above me the trees. I shouted, “Ho!”
The motion stopped and Ragnar’s face loomed above me. His half blind eyes came almost to my face and his ancient foul breath oozed over me as he chuckled. “You are not dead then. The gods must look kindly upon you. As you are awake then you can stand. We are almost at my home.”
When I stood, I felt a little woozy and faint but I could see the smoke rising from Ragnar’s chimney and, leaning on the old man I struggled into the safety and security of the hut. The old man plunged a brand into the fire and said, “Take off your jerkin. I want to see if there are wounds.”
I wondered how he would see with half blind eyes but I complied. When he found the necklace he had put his milky eyes close to it and then felt it. He laughed. “Had I known you had this then I would not have worried. This is a wolf charm. Who gave it to you?”
“My mother.”
“Then she is both wise and caring; as well as being the best cook in the village. You can put your jerkin on and we will go back.”
Terror coursed through my veins. “Go back! There are three wolves there.”
He laughed. “There are two and they have slunk away. You killed the leader. Your bow, quiver and wooden sword are there and wolf makes good eating. This time we will take a real sword. Take the weapon down and carry that.”
I lifted the precious sword down and handed it to Ragnar. “You may be brave but I wonder about your intelligence. I have one arm and can barely see. How would I use it? Strap it on.”