The Wolf and the Raven

by H A CULLEY

  The heart had gone out of the Swedes by then and, as the wings of the Norse and Danish line curled around the remaining Swedes, they began to surrender. It didn’t save some of them as the blood of the Danes, in particular, was up and they wanted revenge for the murder of the unfortunate inhabitants of Skagen.

  One of Lagertha’s men blew several blasts on his horn and gradually the slaughter ceased. Half of the Swedes had died or were badly wounded and most of the rest had flesh wounds. The only one unscathed was Finnulf, protected as he was by his hirdmen. Casualties on the other side were relatively light with barely more than a dozen killed and a score or so wounded, for which Lagertha was thankful.

  She took a bow from one of the archers and took careful aim at the Swedish jarl. The arrow flew straight and true and struck him in the right eye. He collapsed to the ground, twitched once and was still. Everyone was awestruck at the impossible shot and she handed the bow back to its owner in the stunned silence that followed. She hadn’t aimed specifically at his eye, of course; it was just a lucky shot.

  ‘You can keep the Swedes as thralls, Grimulf. It’ll teach them that they should have accepted my offer instead of fighting.’

  ‘Er, I apologise for what I said earlier, jarl. I can see now that your tactics saved us losing warriors unnecessarily.’

  ‘Thank you, Grimulf. Your apology just saved me the necessity of fighting you to preserve my honour.’

  This was said with a smile, albeit a grim one, and the Dane didn’t know whether Lagertha was being serious or not. What she said next stunned him though.

  ‘This invasion has convinced Ragnar that he can’t realistically remain as the jarl of this area. He needs someone living here to rule and defend his Danish lands for him. He gave me the authority to appoint the man I thought best suited to take over. Provided you swear fealty to him as your king, I will make you the jarl.’

  Grimulf was about to accept with gratitude when he thought of a snag.

  ‘I am most grateful and I would like to accept, of course, but I doubt that King Herik would approve.’

  ‘You leave Herik to me. He will accept the situation or he’ll lose his throne.’

  Grimulf never thought for a moment that Lagertha was boasting.

  ‘In that case, I swear to follow Ragnar Lodbrok as my king and to give him my undivided loyalty.’

  -℣-

  Ragnar was getting bored watching the godis consulting the gods to decide who he should marry. The temple stank of blood from the sacrifices they had made and which, of course, he’d paid for.

  ‘Why are they taking so long?’ he muttered to his own godi, Torstein.

  ‘They don’t know who to please, Ragnar, you or their king. They’ll probably end up telling you that Thor favours Ingeborg and Frey has chosen Aslaug, a solution to their dilemma which will offend neither of you.’

  ‘What about Odin? Doesn’t the All-father want a say?’ he asked cynically.

  ‘Careful, Ragnar. The gods have favoured you so far; you don’t want to offend them, least of all Odin.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

  ‘This temple is dedicated to Thor, and Frey is the god of fertility. Odin is more interested in war, wisdom and poetry, not matrimony.’

  ‘I know that, you fool,’ he replied testily, earning a glare from Eystein.

  He realised that he’d spoken louder than he had intended. He nodded in apology then whispered in Torstein’s ear.

  ‘Go and ask your fellow priests why it’s taking so long.’

  Torstein sighed and went up to the godi who was kneeling in front of the statue of Thor, pouring the blood from a black bull he’d just butchered – at some cost to Ragnar’s purse – into a large golden bowl.

  ‘Haven’t you reached a decision yet?’ he asked the godi, who gave him a pained look; you didn’t interrupt ceremonies in the temple.

  ‘No, these things cannot be rushed,’ the kneeling godi replied tersely, then ignored Torstein.

  Ragnar muttered something under his breath and waited impatiently for the man to finish. When he got up another godi moved forward to kneel before Frey, pouring another libation of fresh blood, this time from a ram, into the golden basin at the statue’s feet and started to pray.

  ‘Enough of this foolishness,’ Ragnar cried, his patience finally at an end. ‘If you want me as an ally, Eystein, then I will marry Aslaug; if not, I will return home and find a bride elsewhere.’

  ‘Ragnar, you will antagonise the gods!’ his fellow king told him, a shocked expression on his face.

  ‘Well, they are upsetting me, or rather their witless godis are. I have a solution. We’ll leave the choice to your daughters.’

  Eystein beckoned him and, with an apologetic look towards the affronted temple priests, he led the way into the sunshine outside.

  ‘What if both or neither want you for a husband?’

  ‘If neither, there’s an end to the matter. If both, then I will choose.’

  Eystein paced up and down whilst he considered Ragnar’s proposal. He too had been getting irritated by the protracted ceremony in the temple and this seemed a reasonable idea, much as he didn’t want to lose his younger daughter’s services as a völva. In the end he reluctantly nodded his agreement.

  When Ragnar returned two days later to marry Aslaug, the temple godis almost gabbled their way through the ceremony, wary of another sacrilegious outbreak from the groom.

  Chapter Thirteen – The Sons of Ragnar

  844

  Aslaug proved to have been a good choice. Theirs wasn’t a passionate relationship, as it had been with Lagertha. However, she had produced four sons in as many years.

  The first had been Ivar, who the other boys at Arendal had nicknamed the boneless because he was a contortionist who could bend his incredibly flexible young body into positions that no other boy could emulate. He was followed in 837 by Bjorn. He too earned a nickname – ironsides – because he did exercises to develop the muscles of his torso from a young age until his body felt as hard as metal to the touch.

  Sigurd had been born thirteen months later with a left eye which had a vertical slit instead of a round pupil. Inevitably he was known as snake-in-the-eye. The fourth son, Halfdan, was something of a disappointment in that he had no peculiar distinguishing characteristics. He was just Halfdan.

  All Ragnar’s sons by Aslaug had been born in the summer when he had been away raiding, having been conceived almost as soon as he had returned each October. It therefore came as something of a surprise to him when, after a break of three years in which Aslaug didn’t get pregnant, she told him that she was expecting another baby.

  In 844 Ragnar planned to spend the whole seven months plundering the east coast of England. It would be the longest he’d been away from Adger and Alfheim and he decided that the time had come to give two of his sons some responsibility. Thora’s sons, Agnar and Eirik, were nineteen and seventeen respectively and so he decided to leave the elder in charge at Arendal and send the younger to Bohus to rule Alfheim.

  His son by Lagertha, Fridlief, was now twelve so he was old enough to sail with his father as a ship’s boy. Their daughter, ten year old Ragnhild, would stay and help Aslaug, who was already so large this early in the pregnancy that Ragnar was convinced that she would have twins.

  At the start of April he set sail for the east coast of England with Lagertha, Olaf and a fleet of twenty longships. Three weeks later his wife gave birth to a baby girl. When he returned it wouldn’t take him long to work out that the child must have been conceived in August when he was away raiding in Ireland. She gnawed her lower lip until it bled trying to decide what to do.

  ‘What will you call her?’ Ragnhild asked her.

  ‘I thought of Åløf. Åløf Ragnarsdóttir.’

  ‘I may only be ten, Queen Aslaug, but even I know that this baby wasn’t sired by my father.’

  ‘Not his? Of course it’s his.’

  She had always thought of Lage
rtha’s daughter as a sweet, innocent little girl. She was about to find out that she was wise beyond her years.

  ‘I’m not a fool. I can count back nine months as well as the next person. Who’s the father?’

  The queen’s shoulders slumped.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not lying, Ragnhild,’ she added, seeing the sceptical expression on the young girl’s face.

  She paused for a moment, trying to decide how best to explain it.

  ‘You know that I sometimes go into a trance when I dream about the future? Once I dreamt that a man – a stranger – came and lay with me. Perhaps he was responsible.’

  ‘A stranger?’ Ragnhild didn’t look convinced, then the frown on her forehead cleared. ‘Maybe it was one of the gods.’

  ‘It’s possible, but even so your father would never forgive me.’

  The two were silent for some time, each lost in their own thoughts. Suddenly the girl spoke again.

  ‘Have you had a vision about the future? About what he will do and what will become of you and Åløf?’

  ‘Yes,’ the queen whispered. ‘I have also dreamt about Ragnar’s end, I think, but I don’t understand either dream.’

  ‘What happens?’

  ‘I’m with a little girl and we’re crossing a lake in winter. It’s not anywhere I know. There are mountains but they are grey and barren, not like here, and not like Sweden either. The ice breaks and we sink below it.’

  Ragnhild shuddered. ‘Are you sure that it’s you? How old is the little girl?’

  ‘Not very old, perhaps five or six?’

  ‘So it’s not immediately after father returns then. What about him? You said you saw his death?’

  ‘It was a strange dream. He was wearing the animal skin leggings and tunic that caused him to be named Lodbrok, but he told me that he hasn’t worn them since he was a young man. I don’t even think he has them anymore. In the dream snakes kept biting him but they couldn’t get through the hairy clothes.’

  ‘How do you know he dies then?’

  ‘I don’t. But he was alone and in a pit. How could he survive?’

  ‘I’m glad I don’t have the second sight,’ Ragnhild said with feeling. ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘I can’t stay here. I’m certain that he won’t forgive me and he’ll probably kill Åløf too. I’ll go back to Uppsala, to my father.’

  ‘Will he take you back?’

  ‘I don’t know. He valued my gift, though I think of it as a curse now.’

  -℣-

  ‘Where’s mother?’ five year old Sigurd asked his brothers a week later as he came out of the king’s hall to join them at the horse trough. He splashed water in his face perfunctorily to wake up properly.

  ‘Probably looking after our wretched baby sister. By all the gods, she can scream louder than any of us and she never shuts up,’ Ivar, the eldest replied.

  ‘No, but come to think of it I didn’t hear her last night.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Bjorn cut in, drying his hair by shaking it so water droplets struck the other three.

  Ivar punched him in the arm and then they both grabbed Halfdan and dunked him in the trough, accompanied by the four-year old’s struggles and squeals of protest. By the time that the small boy had got his own back by splashing the others, the four boys had forgotten all about their mother and new born sister. That is, until Ragnhild told them that they’d left.

  ‘Left? For where? Why,’ Halfdan asked, feeling bereft.

  His mother had protected him from the others’ teasing and horseplay before it got too out of hand. Now he felt alone and vulnerable.

  ‘Why didn’t she tell us, or take us with her?’ Bjorn asked.

  Ragnhild thought about explaining but realised that her half-brothers were too young to understand, so she said nothing.

  ‘Does Agnar know?’ Sigurd asked.

  If the boys weren’t depressed enough at their mother’s disappearance, the thought that they were now at the mercy of their eldest half-brother sent a chill down their collective spines. He had never liked them, nor had Eirik, and the feeling was mutual.

  ‘If he tries to bully us I’ll kill him,’ Ivar said, fingering the small dagger at his waist – a present from his father when he’d turned seven.

  ‘He’s acting as father’s deputy; he could lock us up and starve us to death and we couldn’t stop him,’ Bjorn said despondently. ‘We could kill him first though,’ he said suddenly, brightening up at the idea.

  ‘If we did that the Thing would try us for murder and their punishment would probably be worse,’ Ivar pointed out, bringing them back down to earth.

  ‘Where has the queen gone?’ Agnar asked them, fixing them with what he fondly imagined was a piercing stare.

  ‘We know as much, or as little, as you do, brother,’ Ivar replied sullenly.

  None of the four boys liked the way that they had been escorted into the king’s hall by three of their brother’s hirdmen. The fact that Ivar had been deprived of his dagger was even less reassuring.

  ‘You’re lying. Don’t think that, just because you’re little boys I won’t have the truth beaten out of you.’

  ‘You can’t do that, they’re the king’s sons, just as much as you are, Agnar,’ one of the bondis present called out. There was a murmur of agreement around the hall.

  ‘Who said that?’ Agnar snapped.

  ‘I did.’

  One of the blacksmiths stepped forward and several men joined him. Agnar had the sense to realise that he was treading on thin ice. Ragnar might have left him in charge, but he was no more than a bondi in status, just as all these men were. His father wouldn’t thank him if he returned to find he’d been deposed and the Thing had elected another temporary leader. He would never be trusted by Ragnar again.

  ‘I am determined to find out where Queen Aslaug has gone. She may have been abducted for all we know.’

  ‘She left of her own free will,’ another man called out. ‘She hired a ship to take her to Uppsala, to her father, and she took the baby with her. I saw them leave early this morning.’

  The speaker was the captain of a knarr and Agnar had no reason to doubt what he’d said.

  ‘Very well. Then I shall go to Uppsala and find out why she has gone there.’

  -℣-

  Edmund of Bebbanburg was visiting Alnwic when the messenger found him.

  ‘My lord, the Vikings have attacked Whitby in force; some twenty ships with nearly a thousand men, or so the story goes. King Eanred has called out the fyrd and asks you to make haste to defend your coastline.’

  ‘What was the fate of Whitby?’

  ‘The heathens burned the town and sacked the monastery, but the stone buildings still stand.’

  There had been sporadic raids by Vikings ever since Lindisfarne was attacked fifty years ago, but nothing on this scale. It would take all of Lothian and Islandshire to equal their numbers, but even then the fyrd were no match for Viking warriors. Edmund’s main worry was Lindisfarne. The monastery was still a popular destination for pilgrims and it had been a long time since it was last raided, so it had grown rich again. It had a palisade to defend it but it wouldn’t take a thousand men long to breach it, unless it had a strong garrison.

  Suddenly he had a thought.

  ‘Was the king there?’

  ‘No, lord. He is in Eoforwīc, making preparations to defend it in case the Vikings attack there.’

  And letting the rest of us fend for ourselves, Edmund thought bitterly. Instead of shutting himself away, cowering like a trapped rat in his capital, Eanred should be mobilising the kingdom to fight these raiders. He had never forgiven the king for the death of Ilfrid two years before and now he began to think that the time was coming when Eanred should be deposed in favour of a more able man.

  He came round from his reverie to realise the messenger was still standing in front of him, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. He nodded a dismissal to him and then yelled for
Laughlin to pack for their return to Bebbanburg.

  ‘First I need to know where these Vikings are now. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find such a large fleet,’ he told Garr, the captain of his warband.

  Garr was getting on in years now. He would like to have appointed Erik to replace him; he found that the Norseman was now his closest confidante and he depended on his advice, but he too was getting long in the tooth. Besides, he wasn’t sure that his warriors would accept orders from a man who’d been captured from a Viking ship, even if he was a boy at the time.

  The most promising candidate to take over from Garr was Cynefrith, a warrior in his mid-twenties who was respected by his fellows. Perhaps the time had come to test him.

  -℣-

  Cynefrith cautiously raised his head above the crest of the sand dunes and peered through the marram grass at the beach below him. There were seven Viking longships drawn up in a line in the shallow bay. Three were the larger type which the heathens called drakar and four were the smaller snekkjur. Evidently the raiding party had divided, even so the crews of these ships had to total something like four hundred men – too many for Lord Edmund to take on with the men he had available.

  He looked down at the beach again. There were a dozen men and about thirty boys gathered around four camp fires. Nearby a few sheep were standing or lying disconsolately in a pen made roughly out of driftwood; mainly branches brought in on the tide after the recent storm. One of their number had been skinned and gutted and was now being cooked on a spit over one of the fires.

  An iron cauldron was hanging over another fire, suspended from a tripod made of crooked branches. One of the boys was throwing something into it from a bag at his feet whilst another was chopping up root vegetables on a flat stone using a dagger.