by H A CULLEY
She studied the jarl’s hall from the shadows of an alleyway. Two sentries stood on guard at the only entrance and, unlike the man in the lookout tower, they were awake and alert. Although the sky was getting lighter the sun was hidden behind grey clouds and, whilst she was wondering how to dispose of the sentries without waking the warriors sleeping within the hall, the first drops of rain started to fall, splattering on her face and bare arms. The two men on watch immediately retreated to the door in an effort to find shelter as the rain got heavier. However, it was blowing from the wrong direction and with a curse, they opened the door and slipped inside the hall.
‘Lucky the Swedes don’t like getting wet,’ the man behind her whispered derisively.
‘Who does?’ she muttered. ‘Come on, as quietly as you can.’
Her men followed her across the open ground to the hall. She took a deep breath and opened the door wide. The two sentries were standing just inside the door and it banged into them, knocking them off balance. One dropped his spear and, as he went to retrieve it, Lagertha kicked him hard in his side. He toppled sideways and, before he could recover, she stuck the point of her sword into his neck.
Meanwhile the other sentry had tried to use his spear, but it was the wrong weapon for such a confined space. Before he could thrust it at anyone someone had cut deeply into his neck with a sword and he dropped to the dirt floor of the hall where someone else made sure he was dead by thrusting a dagger into his heart.
The commotion by the door caused a few of those sleeping to wake up and there was some angry grumbling about being disturbed. The voices were slurred and the Norsemen assumed, correctly, that they were still suffering from the previous night’s over-indulgence.
There were more than the new jarl’s thirty hirdmen in the hall; a dozen female thralls were sleeping beside various men and several other servants, mainly boys, lay near the door. Now all was confusion whilst the inhabitants tried to work out what was going on. The quicker witted of the jarl’s hirdmen grabbed their weapons but they wore no armour and had no shields.
Lagertha left her men to kill the rest - whether still asleep or not, armed or not - whilst she made her way to the back of the hall where there was a curtained off section. A man dressed in an expensive tunic and wearing an ornate helmet appeared through the curtains carrying both sword and shield. A woman and a young girl followed him. The former carried a byrnie and was imploring the man to stop and put it on.
He brushed her aside and strode to meet Lagertha.
‘Who do you think you are?’ he asked scornfully. ‘Some shield maiden of legend?’
Although she was dressed like a warrior in a byrnie worn over a tunic and trousers with a helmet on her head, they didn’t hide her pretty, beardless face, nor the long, braided fair hair which was twice as long as any man would wear it.
‘Come and find out, you Swedish turd, born of a harlot mother and a bastard father.’
As she had intended, the insult enraged the jarl and he made a wild cut at her neck. She moved back swiftly before the blade struck and a spit second later she pushed off with her back leg and cannoned into her opponent.
Despite her much lighter body, the momentum of the impact forced the jarl to stagger backwards. He was off balance and his sword was in the wrong place to block her counter stroke. He was fortunate to intercept her sword with the rim of his shield before it struck him, but the defected blade didn’t leave him entirely unscathed. The point sliced open his cheek and nicked his left eye, leaving him in pain and partially blind.
The Swede realised that his adversary was much more skilled at fighting than he had expected. Ignoring the battle going on around them he forced himself to calm down and studied the girl in front of him, trying to read her next move. Lagertha’s eyes flickered towards the jarl’s left leg and he dropped his shield to cover the expected cut. Instead she whirled her sword in a semi-circle and brought it down on his exposed right thigh, the sharp edge cutting through flesh, sinew and muscle until it struck the femur.
The Swede howled in rage, hobbling back out of reach. Blood streamed down his leg, which was scarcely able to support his weight, as pain gripped his whole body. Lagertha’s sword was wrenched out of her hand, still stuck in the flesh of the Swede’s heavily muscled thigh, leaving her unarmed for the moment. Her opponent saw his chance and, gritting his teeth against the agony, he lunged forward in one last attempt to kill her.
She contemptuously blocked the blow with her shield, batting the blade away. Then she smashed the boss of her shield into his face, reducing his nose to a bloody pulp. He instinctively closed his eyes as he fell backwards and landed on the foul straw that covered the hard earth floor, so he never saw Lagertha discard her shield, draw her dagger and plunge it into his left eye socket.
She rose to her feet, swiftly looking around her in case she was about to be engaged by another enemy, but the fighting in the rest of the hall was over. The woman and girl rushed to the dead jarl, wailing and embracing him as if they could will him back to life. She ignored them, spitting at them to show her contempt for their display of emotion.
Her men cheered her to the roof beams before hoisting her onto their shoulders and carrying her around the charnel house that once had been the Swedish jarl’s hall. She had lost five men and a few more had minor wounds. The enemy hirdmen were all dead and she had captured sixteen thralls, if the dead jarl’s wife and daughter were included, to show for the night’s work. Her men found a hoard of silver which she distributed amongst them after taking half for herself. Leaving the Norse inhabitants to select a new jarl, she returned to Lysebotn richer than anyone else there, with the possible exception of Jarl Magnus.
-℣-
Her success attracted new warriors to her banner, all seeking fame and fortune. She would have to keep up the momentum of her attacks on Froh’s followers or they would vanish just as quickly as they had appeared. She had returned the snekkja she’d used for the raid on Rennesøy to its owner with enough silver to make him forget that it had been stolen, but she needed ships of her own. She used her share of the hoard from Vikevåg to pay Magnus’ shipwright to build her two new longships, both drekars – one with thirty oars a side and one with thirty five.
It took time, but by mid-summer she had the ships and the men needed to man them. She also needed ship’s boys, but she was inundated with lads too young to be warriors who wanted to sail with her. In the end she chose the best ten, one of which was Magnus’ son, her thirteen year old cousin Tóki.
Her next target was Lauvvik on the Høgsfjord, which joined the Lysefjord from the south near its mouth. However, when she got there she found that its Swedish jarl had taken fright and had fled back to Arendal. She decided that Lauvvik would make a better base than Lysebotn as it was much nearer to the open sea.
‘What will you do now, cousin,’ Tóki asked her as he poured her a goblet of ale one evening.
The boy had attached himself to her and was eager to please her. It didn’t seem to bother him that he was acting like a thrall. At first Lagertha thought that he had a bad case of hero-worship, but now she suspected that he fancied himself in love with her. She knew she should have put an end to his infatuation straight away, but the truth was she liked him and was enjoyed his attention, young though he was. After all, she was only a few years older herself. Her failure to nip his infatuation in the bud was a serious error of judgement.
Of course, Tóki wasn’t the only male sexually attracted to the shield maiden, as her men now openly called her, but all of them respected her skill as a warrior and a leader and no-one overstepped the mark.
‘Don’t be impudent, boy, she retorted. ‘You may be Jarl Magnus’ son, but such matters are of no concern of yours. If you want to behave like a thrall and serve me, then do as the thralls do and hold your tongue.’
She had spoken more sharply than she had intended– after all Tóki was her cousin – but the truth was she didn’t know the answer to his question a
nd it vexed her. She didn’t notice but the boy reacted like a whipped cur. He said nothing but he seethed with resentment at the way she had treated him. After that he avoided her, for which she was thankful. She had other, more important, concerns than lovesick boys.
The three jarls – Magnus of Lysebotn, Gedda of Rennesøy and the newly elected Liðsmaðr of Lauvvik bonded together for their own protection, certain that Froh would not accept losing control of the northernmost part of his kingdom without a fight. They were certain that any attack would come by sea as the mountains provided an impenetrable barrier between Arendal and the region known as Roga controlled by the three jarls.
Although not a jarl, Lagertha Bótolfrsdotter was acknowledged as a hersir by the three jarls and treated as such. It was an important increase in her formal status but she considered herself better than any of them. However, she had to be content with that for now and, albeit reluctantly, she swore allegiance to her uncle Magnus.
Between them the jarls of Roga now had a dozen longships with which to defend their coast. As the king in Arendal had eight other jarls and a total fleet of nearly thirty ships, it wouldn’t be nearly enough if they all came north to attack them.
There was one factor in their favour. Most of Froh’s jarls in the south were Norsemen, not Swedes. Froh had installed the two Swedes on his northern boundary, partly to reward them and partly to defend his newly acquired kingdom from possible attack by the King of Hordaland to the north. The latter was Norse and had been alarmed by the encroachment of the Swedes across the Skagerrak. It had also frightened the King of Vestfold, whose kingdom lay between Alfheim and Agder.
Only two of Froh’s remaining jarls were Swedes – both based to the west of Arendal to guard his eastern border – although he had replaced several of the wealthier Norse bondis with Swedes on one pretext of another.
‘I still say that we should enlist the aid of Úlfrekr of Vestfold to attack Froh,’ Jarl Gedda maintained.
‘Úlfrekr has his own problems,’ Magnus pointed out. ‘Several of his jarls are in rebellion against him. He’ll be lucky to hold onto his throne. In any case he’s sandwiched between Froh in Agder and Alfheim, now ruled by Froh’s brother. No, you can forget about any help from that quarter.’
‘Then surely he would welcome the removal of Froh?’ Liðsmaðr butted in.
‘Yes, of course. But he is not a man to take risks. He is cunning and will bide his time before joining the winning side. Froh’s days will have to be numbered before he’ll risk helping us, particularly as his own position is precarious.’
‘If they won’t join us, what about the Norse jarls of Agder? They can’t be happy being ruled by a Swede and there are six of them.’
‘They have given their allegiance to Froh. Honour is as important to them as it is to us. They may want to get rid of him, but that’s a very different thing to breaking their oaths and becoming his enemy.’
‘Will they stay neutral if we attack Froh?’ Lagertha asked.
‘I suppose they might be persuaded to be a little dilatory in responding to a muster,’ Magnus said, guessing what his niece was thinking.
‘As I see it we have two alternatives; we can either sit here and wait until Froh attacks us, bringing the whole of the rest of Agder with him, or we can send messages to the Norse jarls and strike first.’
‘Perhaps the first thing to do is to sound out the other jarls,’ suggested another of the hersir present.
‘I agree, then we’ll know where we stand,’ Lagertha added, unexpectedly getting a dirty look in return for her support from the hersir who’d just spoken.
She knew that she wasn’t popular amongst the other hersir and senior bondis. Whilst the skálds might sing of the redoubtable deeds of legendary shield maidens like Brünnhilde, in reality most Vikings believed that women should stay at home and look after the children.
-℣-
Froh paced up and down in the king’s hall at Arendal, trying to contain his frustration and anger.
‘Where in the name of Hel are they?’
The three Norse jarls who had summoned his call to arms looked uncomfortable. They knew full well that the other three had delayed on purpose because they didn’t want to fight against their fellow Norse jarls. Without the missing ships Froh had eighteen longships, but he didn’t trust the three Norse jarls who had answered his summons not to hang back when it came to a fight. If they did that he would have to engage the dozen longships the rebels had with ten of his own. Consequently he needed to dissuade them from betraying him.
‘I would like you to send me your eldest sons to help crew my own drekar,’ Froh told them.
It was supposed to be an honour to crew the king’s own longship, but it wasn’t. They were hostages for their fathers’ good behaviour. The jarls had no option. If they refused then Froh would depose them and place a Swede in their place. So the three sons joined him, even though one was only nine – too young to be a ship’s boy by two or three years.
Froh was puzzled. He’d expected the rebels to sail out onto the open sea to fight him. Instead they stayed inside the relatively narrow Lysefjord. The fjord was approximately five hundred yards wide for much of its twenty six mile length, including at the mouth where it joined the Høgsfjord. Although he had their sons as hostages he still didn’t trust the three Norse jarls not to hang back, so he signalled for them to overtake the Swedish ships and lead the attack.
As their eight drekar closed on the rebel fleet two things happened. Magnus’ ships came together to form three rafts and behind them men on the shores at the entrance to the fjord started to heave on two windlasses, raising a rope boom behind them. Now the leading Norse ships were cut off from Froh’s Swedish fleet behind them.
Froh’s Norse jarls tried to persuade their men to attack Magnus’ ships but their heart wasn’t in it. They knew that they would be condemning the boys being held hostage to death, but after the first few men were killed they stopped fighting and rowed their ships clear.
The three jarls watched helplessly as their sons were hauled up the mast of Froh’s drekar one by one with a rope around their neck, the eldest first. When he had finished thrashing about, his legs kicking wildly as the air was cut off from his lungs, he was lowered and the next boy was hanged. Finally the nine year old was hauled up the mast to suffer the same fate. As a final indignity the bodies were thrown into the sea.
The Norse jarls’ rage was profound. Without any need for communication, they turned their ships as one and headed back towards the mouth of the fjord with Magnus’ longships right behind them. The men on the shore hastily lowered the boom and the combined Norse fleet swept on towards Froh’s remaining ships.
Outnumbered now by two to one, Froh hastily gave the order to withdraw. Confusion reigned as the ten longships tried to turn in the confined space. Two crashed into each other and another sheared off the oars of a fourth with its bow. Before they could sort themselves out properly the Norse longships reached them.
Lagertha’s face was a picture of ferocious joy as her ship came alongside one of the Swedish drekar. Without waiting for the grappling irons to be hauled in to bind the two ships together, she leapt across the gap between them and landed on a rower, sending him sprawling onto the deck. As she came up from the crouching position she thrust her spear into the chest of the oarsman behind the one she’d landed on, then killed the first man.
She re-adopted a crouching stance just as three men attacked her. She used her shield to knock away the spear of one and met the axe of another with the haft of her spear, deflecting it. The third man’s eye gleamed with triumph as he saw an opening and aimed his sword at Lagertha’s throat. It never reached its target; he fell back with an arrow in his chest shot by one of the archers on her own ship. She had no time to thank him as the other two renewed the attack, but by then more and more of her men were pouring into the Swedish drekar. When another Norse ship grappled itself to the other side of the Swede the outcome was never in d
oubt.
The remainder of the Swedish crew tried to surrender, but the Norsemen were in no mood to be lenient after watching the murder of their jarls’ sons. They were slaughtered to a man and thrown over the side to join the bodies of the innocent boys.
Lagertha ran to the stern to see how the sea battle was progressing, but it was all over. Three of Froh’s longships had been captured but the other seven had managed to extricate themselves and had fled. Magnus’ ships pursued them but it soon became obvious that they weren’t going to catch them before nightfall and he was forced to call off the chase.
-℣-
Froh was furious at the failure of his attack but, for now, there was little he could do about Magnus and his growing power in the north. He contented himself by pillaging the settlements and farms of the three jarls who had betrayed him. Norse bondis and their families were enslaved and Swedish immigrants were given their land. Of course, this did nothing to endear him to the Norse of Agder, who still formed the vast majority of the population.
Unrest was rife and Lagertha continued to attack the halls of the Swedish jarls and bondis. Her reputation grew and, despite the antagonism of many of the Norse jarls and hersirs, she became a heroine in the eyes of the great majority of the warriors.
When Magnus died suddenly the following year Tóki, now sixteen, was chosen to succeed him. However, he was too young to also take over as the leader of the six jarls and Gedda of Rennesøy was chosen instead. This infuriated Tóki, who decided to contest their choice. To bolster his position he proposed marriage to his cousin, Lagertha. She didn’t think he was fit to become jarl in Magnus’ place, though many bondis supported him just because he was Magnus’ son. She certainly didn’t want him to share her bed, and scorned his proposal, calling him a puppy still wet behind the ears.