by H A CULLEY
‘Where did you get all these thralls from? Are they Northumbrians as well?’
‘No, Ragnar smiled. Thorkel was in charge then and he gave his oath not to raid Northumbria in exchange for our freedom. No, there are a few Picts and the rest are Swedes.’
‘Swedes? You’ve raided Sweden? Did I know about this?’
‘Don’t worry, it was two day’s sail from here and I have a chest of silver to give to you as your share.’
Gutfred was going to rebuke his nephew for going raiding without permission but the mention of a chest of silver mollified him. Ragnar sat down at the table at the far end of the hall and invited the jarl and his daughter, who had followed them into the hall, to sit either side of him.
Thora seemed a little miffed at being ignored so far, but she soon thawed when Ragnar started to talk to her. Now it was Gutfred who was feeling a little ignored until Olaf came and sat beside him.
‘Aren’t you a little young to be a hirdman?’
The jarl had made the natural assumption that Olaf must be one of Ragnar’s household warriors; no-one else would come and sit with their hersir.
‘Ragnar and I are the same age, jarl. Oh, I know that I’m small for sixteen but I’ve killed my fair share of men.’
Ragnar stopped talking to Thora and turned to her father.
‘There is no-one I’d rather have beside me in a fight. Olaf and I met when he defeated me in the final round of the boys’ swordsmanship competition at Arendal.’
‘You do seem to have the knack of inspiring loyalty, Ragnar,’ he said, a trifle enviously.
‘I suppose so. At any rate I seem to have attracted enough young bondis looking to blood their swords to fill another longship. I’ll be leaving enough men behind when I go raiding this summer to guard my hall and to start building another drekar.’
Gutfred narrowed his eyes at that. As jarl he had several snekkjur and knarrs, but only one drekar, and that was smaller than Ragnar’s. With two drekars and a knarr Ragnar would become his most powerful bondi; so powerful that in Norway or Sweden he could have called himself a jarl.
He listened to Olaf with half an ear whilst he watched Thora and Ragnar deep in conversation. They obviously got on well together; perhaps he should bind his nephew closer to him by offering him his daughter in marriage? He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and turned his full attention to what Olaf was telling him about Ragnar’s plans for raiding that summer.
-℣-
Leofstan was excited. Once again he’d be going to sea and this time he’d be the senior of the four ship’s boys. He wasn’t the oldest but his position as Ragnar’s body servant gave him precedence over the three Picts and the young Danish boy who made up the rest of the crew.
As a youngster in Northumbria his father had made his life a misery; it wasn’t just the beatings he gave the lad when he was drunk, which was much of the time, but it was the mental torture that Leofstan had hated the most. The man made him feel more unworthy than the meanest cur in the settlement. Life as a Pictish slave had been no better. It was only Leofstan’s resilient nature that enabled him to survive.
During the tour of his lands the previous year Ragnar learned something of the boy’s background and, unlike most Vikings, he felt a growing responsibility for the lad’s welfare. It wasn’t just that he felt sorry for him - servants were beneath his notice generally – but the boy’s eagerness to please and his lively sense of humour made him stand out.
He soon found out that the boy wasn’t just a good servant, he was a good raconteur, making the most mundane tale amusing. Had the boy been Norse or Danish he would have made a good skáld when he grew up. He could be cheeky at times but, as the months wore on, Leofstan never once stepped over the line and became too familiar. He even took his turn on the roasting spit with good humour; something none of the household thralls did.
It was when he first took a turn at the spit and took off his homespun tunic because of the heat that Ragnar saw the matrix of scars on the boy’s back; the scars that later Gutfred had seen and which had led him to assume that he was a troublemaker. But it wasn’t Ragnar who had disciplined him, it had been the boy’s father. He’d been whipped repeatedly with something like a leather belt and, judging by the depth of the welts on his mutilated body, he was lucky to be alive. From that day on Ragnar’s respect for the boy grew and they gradually established a relationship that was as close to friendship as was possible in their respective circumstances.
-℣-
The drekar bumped gently as its prow hit the sand. Leofstan and three of the other ship’s boys leapt ashore and ran up the beach with two anchors and embedded them securely in the sand. The knarr came to rest fifty yards away and was similarly secured. There was no tidal rise and fall in the Baltic Sea so, barring a storm, the two ships wouldn’t move.
Leaving the ships’ boys and the crew of the knarr as guards, Ragnar led his seventy warriors off to explore. The island of Gotland, where they had landed, was the largest Swedish island in the Baltic. Its main settlement, Visby, was an important trading centre and Ragnar believed that its warehouses would be full of furs, iron bars, fleeces and, of course, silver and gold. They had landed in a deserted bay ten miles south of Visby and, as the bay was surrounded by woodland, he hoped that their ships would remain undiscovered.
Once clear of the wood they cautiously traversed the undulating countryside with scouts out to the front and the flanks. Apart from a few sheep and the occasional bird, the place seemed bereft of life. At the sun neared its zenith it blazed down on the column of warriors sweating in leather jerkins, byrnies and helmets.
Suddenly one of the forward scouts came running back, keeping to the hollows.
‘There’s a party of mounted warriors ahead, Ragnar,’
‘How far and how many?’
‘About half a mile and there are about ten or so.’
‘Do you think they know we’re here?’ Olaf asked in a low voice.
‘Hopefully not, it’s probably just a routine patrol. We’ll stay in this hollow and hope that they don’t notice us but pass the word for everyone to get their shields ready to use, just in case.’
When on the move warriors kept their shields slung on their backs.
The sixty men of the main body clustered into the depression in the ground and waited, clutching their heavy ash spears. The ten men with bows strung them ready for use and selected their best arrow, wetting the feathers with their lips to give them the best chance of flying true.
Olaf crept to the rim of the hollow and cautiously peered around the bottom of a bush. He could hear the muffled sound of horses’ hooves on the hard packed earth of the nearby trackway but the Swedes were hidden from sight in another undulation in the ground. Then he saw a helmet appear swiftly followed by the man’s torso and another head. He counted a dozen men coming towards them before slithering back down to join Ragnar and the others.
‘There’s a dozen of them, some in byrnies, but most in leather jerkins or quilted tunics. They’re two hundred yards away - nearer now – but they’re on the track so we should remain undetected,’ he whispered.
Ragnar shook his head. ‘I can’t take the risk of them finding the ships,’ he mumbled quietly, almost as if he was talking to himself.
Olaf was about to point out that the beach where they were was well hidden from the track when the sound of someone’s spear point clattering against a helmet broke the silence. The patrol came to a halt looking around in alarm for the source of the sound. He cursed the idiot who’d made the noise, but the decision had now been made for him.
Ragnar signalled frantically for the archers to get ready, then pointed at Yngvi, one of his most experienced warriors and gestured for him to take half of the warband to cut the horsemen off. He beckoned the other half to follow him and then he called out ‘now!’
The Vikings swarmed out of the hollow, one group heading left and the other right as fast as their legs could carry them. Th
e archers halted at the rim and taking a couple of deep breaths to calm their breathing, they let fly with their first volley.
The Swedes sat there for a moment, shocked by the sudden appearance of so many armed men. Then their leader kicked his horse into motion, but it was too late. An arrow struck it in the rump and another pinned the rider’s calf to its side. The horse reared in surprise at the agonising pain and the horseman fell off, tearing the arrow in his leg free in the process. His horse bolted with blood streaming from its rear and chest before collapsing a hundred yards away.
Ragnar saw this out of the corner of his eye and swore; he had a use for the horses. Fortunately most of the other archers were better shots and, apart from one who missed his target entirely, they managed to hit five more riders, killing three and wounding two more. That left half a dozen who looked around them in panic.
The Vikings were rapidly forming a semi-circle ahead and behind them, cutting off any escape along the track so they did the only sensible thing and headed for the scrub to the right of them. As they fled the archers brought down two more with arrows in their backs but four escaped before the circle could close. A well thrown hand axe brought another down and a third volley of arrows at long range hit the thigh of another Swede, but it didn’t unseat him.
‘Odin’s blood, they can’t get back to Visby and warn them,’ Ragnar cried in alarm.
He ran and vaulted onto the back of a surprised stallion, who was calmly eating grass after the death of his master. Olaf and two other warriors grabbed other horses and set off behind him as he galloped off in pursuit of the escaping Swedes.
It soon became apparent that horses carrying warriors weighed down by byrnies were unlikely to catch ones ridden by men in padded tunics, except for Ragnar’s stallion which was proving to be much faster than any of the other horses. However, the man with the leg wound was evidently feeling faint from loss of blood and two of his companions came alongside him to support him. It was a mistake as it slowed them down.
Ragnar caught them up but he ignored them and continued after the fourth man, leaving the others for Olaf and his companions to deal with. Now the fourth man was a mere two hundred yards ahead. He glanced behind him and, seeing only one pursuer, he pulled his horse to a sudden halt and turned to face Ragnar.
In leaping onto the stallion Ragnar had dropped his spear and shield so he now found himself facing a man armed with both when he only had his sword and dagger. He didn’t draw either, however. As the Swede lunged at him, Ragnar ducked then launched himself into the air, barrelling into his opponent’s body and knocking him out of his saddle.
They crashed to the ground, Ragnar on top. He was slightly winded but his adversary was struggling to breathe. The Norseman recovered first and thrust his dagger into the other’s neck. Hot blood spurted up soaking his face as the Swede convulsed once and then lay still. Ragnar stayed where he was for a minute recovering then struggled to lift the corpse onto his own horse.
Leading it he retraced his steps until he found Olaf and his other two men. The three Swedes were dead but they hadn’t died quietly. Olaf had wounds to both legs and his left arm and, although no more than nasty flesh wounds, they would need washing in sea water to stem the blood flow, sewing up and binding. He therefore sent him back to the ships on one of the horses.
They buried the dead Swedes in a shallow grave away from the track so no-one would find them until it was too late to matter and they continued on their way towards Visby.
‘What are you plans, lord?’ Yngvi asked him as he rode beside him.
Ragnar was dressed in the clothes and padded tunic taken from the smallest of the Swedes whilst Yngvi wore the polished byrnie and helmet taken from the leader of the patrol. All the other riders were also dressed in the Swedes’ clothes and one carried aloft the red and green pennant that one of the patrol had been carrying.
They stopped behind the last ridge before Visby and Ragnar crept forward with Yngvi. The settlement was quite large and they estimated that it probably had about three or four hundred adult inhabitants. There was a large longhouse surrounded by a palisade that had to be the jarl’s hall, and two other longhouses. The rest of the buildings were huts and down by the quay there were five warehouses of varying sizes. Three jetties jutted out at right angles to the wooden quay to which there were moored three knarrs and a snekkja.
One of the knarrs was being loaded and another unloaded. They could see four warriors on guard duty on the quay and another two stood in front of the open gates in the palisade which ran around the whole settlement. There didn’t appear to be any guards patrolling the palisade itself but just behind the warehouses there was a tall tower with a lookout in it. However, his attention appeared to be directed out to sea.
Next Ragnar studied the lie of the land. It was too flat to offer any hope of concealment, but there was a wood which was only a hundred yards from the main gates at the closest point. Ragnar smiled to himself. Had he been the Jarl of Gotland he would have made sure that the perimeter was clear of any undergrowth out to at least three hundred yards.
‘Come on, Yngvi. I think we’ve seen enough.’
But the man grabbed his arm and pointed.
‘That must be the warriors’ hall,’ he said, pointing at the larger of the two longhouses outside the jarl’s enclosure.
Three men had just come out of it armed with shields, spears and wearing helmets. They proceeded to change places with the men at the gate and the lookout. Ragnar nodded.
‘Well spotted. We’ll need to take care of the warriors living in the longhouse before attacking the jarl’s hall,’ he said.
He studied the settlement again carefully, expecting to see at least some of the off duty warriors training, but there was no sign of anything except the inhabitants going about their normal business. He smiled to himself. Such indolent behaviour indicated to him that the warriors in Visby wouldn’t be very well trained.
A little later one of the sentries at the main gates nudged his companion.
‘Jarl Öjulf is returning. I wonder why? I thought he was meant to be away until tomorrow.’
‘Ours is not to reason why, boy,’ the older man said and the pair drew off to one side to allow the horsemen to pass. ‘That’s funny, there seems to be fewer of them than left this morning. I wonder if they ran into trouble.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘Shhh, lad. Best not to be seen chatting away by the jarl when we’re meant to be on duty.’
Had the sentries continued to examine the approaching horsemen they would have realised that they looked nothing like Öjulf and his men, apart from their borrowed clothes and helmets. However, the Swedish jarl didn’t like his men staring him in the face and so the sentries stood with their eyes to the front as the cavalcade reached them.
As Yngvi drew level with them he drew his sword and chopped down into the elder warrior’s neck. The man dropped like a stone. The younger man, who was scarcely old enough to have a proper beard yet, stood paralysed by shock. Before he could gather his wits one of the other horsemen stuck a spear into his unprotected chest.
Yngvi took off the Swedish jarl’s ornate helmet and tossed it away, taking his own helmet from one of the other men. Ragnar rode forward and congratulated them before riding on towards the warriors’ hall. Thankfully the lookout was either dozing or looking out to sea and no alarm bell rang as they trotted through the busy streets, not wanting to seem in too much of a rush.
People stared at them, wondering who these strangers might be. The subterfuge had ceased at the gates when the banner had been discarded along with the jarl’s ornate helmet. It was useless to pretend that they were Öjulf and his men in the narrow streets. The deception would never stand up to scrutiny at close range; far better to be a band of visiting strangers.
Odin was with them it seemed. The warriors’ longhouse was unguarded and there was a carpenter’s workshop nearby. Ragnar had intended to kill those inside but now he saw
a better alternative. Beside the one door, there were two windows on each side of the long building. Both had two shutters either side of the opening to keep out the wind and rain when necessary, but today was warm and they were open to let in what breeze there was.
Sending men to grab hammers, nails and lengths of timber from the carpenter’s yard, others slammed the four shutters to and it was the work of moments to seal both the windows and the door. Now he wouldn’t have to worry about the men inside, at least for a while.
As they were doing this, the rest of the Vikings had reached the open gates before the jarl’s hall and poured in through them. If the sealing shut of the warriors’ hall hadn’t alerted the inhabitants of Visby the screams of those near the gates and the belated ringing of the alarm bell did.
Ragnar cursed. Now the residents of the jarl’s hall would be alert. However, that wasn’t his prime concern. He sent Bjarke and the first of his men who arrived on foot down to the quayside to secure the warehouses and prevent any of the ships from leaving.
It didn’t take him long to persuade those in the hall to surrender. Once she knew that her husband was dead, Öjulf’s wife agreed to surrender the hall and its contents in exchange for the lives of herself and her three young children. The eldest, a boy of ten named Finnulf, swore to avenge his father’s death but, as no one knew who the raiders were – apart from the fact that they were a mixture of Norse and Danes – Ragnar ignored him. Had he suspected that the boy had the remotest chance of carrying out his threat, he would have killed him on the spot.
-℣-
Ragnar sailed around to the beach in the captured ship to find that it had been Leofstan who had sewed Olaf back together again, a skill he had learned from the female thralls at Fladstrand. He was a little surprised to find that Olaf didn’t seem at all grateful to the boy. For the first time the thought crossed his mind that his closest friend might be jealous of the bond between him and his servant. However, he dismissed the idea as preposterous.