by Angus Donald
Perhaps a worse fate awaited a runaway captured by a lonely, lustful freeman in a remote farmstead. The girl was a pretty one, after all.
The old man Valtyr was moving now, pushing through the throng to Olaf’s side. He leant forward, smiling in a friendly way, showing a bunch of scarlet ribbons in his proffered right hand. He spoke urgently, forcefully to the stiff-backed hersir, who seemed irritated at the outsider’s presumption.
Bjarki looked away.
His eye fell on the young face he did not wish to see. But once there he could not tear his eyes from it. Freya’s face.
It was swollen from her weeping but still perfect and wondrously beautiful to Bjarki. He held her gaze, each staring at the other across the empty space in their mute shared agony. He knew this would be the last time they would ever look into each other’s eyes. He could almost feel the love, so often and so urgently professed by both, shrivelling in the space between them, like a hair held to a candle flame. They would never be wed now, despite the oath he had made to her; their cosy talk of a hearth and a home, of babies and the fishing boat that Bjarki meant to build himself – he had already laid the keel – all that was slipping away too fast, dissolving into nothing as even the most delightful dream must upon the waking hour.
This nightmare was the cold reality.
It was for her sake that he would die this morning, under the old oak tree, in the presence of the whole village. Freya’s mother – her father was long dead – stood behind his beloved, looking at him over her daughter’s thin shoulder, seemingly fearful of him even now. She believed her daughter had had a lucky escape from a life yoked to a killer. Yet did she know what had truly happened? Did she grasp at all why he had done what he did?
* * *
It had begun with the puppy. A glossy, squirming pup a few weeks old and black as a raven, one of the litter Ubbi the Huntsman’s bitch had produced. Ubbi lived on his own in a hut in the woods on the north point of the island, a mile or so from the village, and Bjarki had formed the habit of visiting him around noon, when he returned from working the morning boat with Thialfi.
He would rarely speak with Ubbi, for the man disliked all conversation, but he helped him prepare the hides and skins, which the hunter bartered for necessities, scraping them free of fat and flesh, salting, drying and rubbing them with grease until they were supple again. He helped Ubbi most days – when the man had not sailed off to the north on one of his long solo hunting trips – and received a bowl of venison stew as the price of his labour. On a couple of memorable occasions, he had even accompanied Ubbi on a winter trek to hunt the fallow deer in the most northerly part of the Jutland Peninsula.
Yesterday, having seen that the pups were ready to be parted from their milk-drained mother, he had forgone the stew and begged for the glossy little puppy instead. ‘I shall name him Garm,’ he informed Ubbi, ‘after the black Hound of Death that guards the gates of the goddess Hel’s realm.’
Ubbi had merely grunted his assent.
Bjarki had swaggered back to the village like a returning raven-feeder, a sea-warrior with a shipload of booty; the puppy nestled in his under-tunic, sleek black head poking out of the square neck-hole under his chin.
He found Freya on the beach, waiting for him on an old blanket in their usual spot, a grass-filled hollow between the high dunes, out of sight of the fishing boats and their owners. It was their special place, where they kissed, made love, and lay afterwards in each other’s arms, apart from the world.
Bjarki had presented her with the puppy, Garm, which was received with cries of joy. Then he received his own reward from his loving Freya.
They had finished making love, and with the puppy nosing happily through the mound of their discarded clothing, Bjarki lay back, content, and looked at a slew of chubby white clouds scudding across a limitless expanse of blue. It was time, he thought, it was time for him to take control of his destiny. He rolled over on to his knees, and took Freya’s right hand in his.
‘My love for you is as wide as the sky,’ he announced. ‘You are more precious to me than heaven’s jewel!’ He made a gesture towards the sun.
Freya smiled up at him, naked, unashamed, her eyes filled with love.
She is so utterly beautiful, Bjarki thought. She is the most perfect woman in the whole world, the perfect mate and companion for a lifetime.
‘I have no silver for a bride-price,’ he said. ‘I have no father to ask your family for your hand. But I will give you my solemn promise, here and now, Freya Njalsdottir, that I will love you, protect you and keep you safe from harm for all the remaining days of my life. Will you accept my oath?’
‘I will,’ she said, ‘and I also swear to love you until the heavens fall.’
He took her face in his two hands and kissed her deeply. Their bodies moved naturally, drawn together, the one fitting perfectly into the other.
Then Bjarki heard something. A snigger. A guffaw. He broke away from his lover, turned, looked up and saw them. He sat upright abruptly.
There were three young men on the brow of the dune, framed by the blue sky – white-blond Jeki and his even fairer-haired younger brother, Freki, and Ymir, a massive, swarthy, dull-witted older fellow who followed the pair of brothers around like a bond servant or their personal bodyguard.
Freya gave a little shriek and dived for her clothes.
‘I always knew she was a willing slut – but I had no idea what a lustful little whore Freya truly was,’ said Jeki. ‘She’s randier than a bitch in heat.’
Ymir sniggered: ‘She loves a big cock and no mistake.’
Bjarki stood up. He was completely calm at this point.
‘Go away. This is a sacred moment between Freya and myself. It is none of your business. Please take yourselves off and leave us in peace.’
‘Go?’ said Jeki. ‘I don’t think Freya would like that. I think she wants to have a nice ride on Ymir’s fat one. I think she’d like us all to do it to her.’
Bjarki, still tightly controlled, glanced once at Freya, who was now cowering on her knees with the bundled clothes held up before her, and said: ‘Go away. You have no right to disturb us here. Leave us alone. Go. Now!’
‘Or what?’ said Jeki. ‘What will you do, eh? Nothing, orphan-boy. We’ll have some fun with your little slut, I think. We’ll get our pricks wet.’
The puppy, sensing the confrontation between the four young men, charged up the hill, barking sharply. Ymir booted the little beast in the ribs, bowling it back down the sandy slope, little Garm squeaking in pain.
Bjarki felt suddenly very, very cold. He heard a rushing sound like a tumbling waterfall in his ears. That was all he would remember for a while.
When memory returned to him, his face and hands were covered in blood. Slathered. Arms gory right to the elbow. His finger bones burned like fire. Blood was in his mouth, eyes and ears. He spat and wiped. Disgusted.
Ymir lay dead in the sandy hollow, his lower jaw had been wrenched completely free of the joint and flopped over to one side, hanging by a flap of skin. One of his eyes was missing; only a red-brimming hole remained.
Jeki, too, was no more. Higher up on the slope of the sand dune. His face was only red mush, and his spine had been snapped, judging from the flopping head twisted at an impossible angle. His right arm had been wrenched from its socket. The puppy Garm was dead too, trampled in the blood-spattered furrows of sand, destroyed in a battle of which Bjarki had not even the slightest recollection. There was no sign of the other boy, Freki.
Bjarki was aware that behind him Freya was screaming, on and on. He was surprised he had not noticed before. Ignoring her, he sprinted up the slope of the dune and gazed around. The fishermen, half a dozen of them, had all ceased their work on the high-tide line and one of them, his old master Thialfi, was trudging towards him across the sand, his expression grim. Bjarki turned away and looked back towards the village. Freki was running towards it, waving his arms, nearly at the gate. His terrified shr
ieks carried clearly across the three hundred paces or more between them.
* * *
The wooden stool beneath his bare feet gave an ominous creak, and drew every eye in the circle. Bjarki stood very still, his neck extended as far upwards as possible, as if that would make a difference when the time came. He looked over at Olaf Karlsson – it was the hersir who would ultimately give the order to kick away the rickety stool – or he’d do the job himself.
Bjarki wondered how long he would dangle by the neck before he lost consciousness. He wondered if dying would hurt very much. He had heard tell that hanged men always pissed and soiled themselves when the end was near – a bodily failing completely beyond their control. Let Odin preserve him from that humiliation. He wanted to bargain with the god to ensure that this did not happen but he realised he had nothing to offer. His life? It was forfeit. He had no goods to give up, no birds or beasts with which to make a sacrifice.
‘All-Father,’ he prayed, mumbling aloud, ‘let my death be a sacrifice to your glory. Let me hang here as you once hung from an oak tree, for nine days and nights to gain your wisdom. Accept my death as a sacrifice to you, Lord, even though I did not choose it. I choose it now. Accept my sacrifice and take me directly to your dead heroes’ feasting hall in Asgard.’
He could see Olaf approaching, striding towards him with an odd expression on his pock-marked face. This was the time. He looked wildly over at Freya, and opened his mouth to call out to her. But she had turned her face away, and buried it in her hand. He had nothing to say to her, anyway, except that he loved her. She knew that well enough already.
The hersir walked over to the trunk of the oak. Now is the time, he thought. One kick at the stool and I will begin to die. He screwed his eyes shut. Accept my sacrifice, All-Father, he prayed. Make it a good, swift death!
Nothing happened. He was expecting to fall, to feel the prickly noose tighten horribly around his neck and… and… nothing. He opened his eyes. The hersir was fumbling with the rope now, which was secured to a heavy iron stake driven into the flesh of the tree. The village headman slowly loosed the thick knot, taking the hempen rope’s end in his hands.
Bjarki was surprised. He does not have the strength to haul me up by himself. Surely not. I am twice his weight. He cannot be thinking of that.
Then he saw that the old man, the merchant Valtyr, was coming over to join him by the trunk. Two of them – that made more sense. The old trader is lean but wiry. He looks strong. The two of them could haul me up, and so achieve my end. But why not simply boot away the stool and let me dangle?
Olaf put the end of the rope in Valtyr’s hand.
‘Hear me now, all of you,’ he said. ‘This man, Valtyr Far-Traveller, has offered to pay the wergild, the blood price for the deaths of my eldest son Jeki and his bondsman Ymir on behalf of the murderer Bjarki Bloodhand. He has agreed to pay me a fair weight in silver, enough and more to ease my grief and suffering and compensate me for my loss. Therefore I hereby renounce all vengeance against Bjarki for myself – and for this village.’
There were murmurs of surprise and, perhaps, relief, from the villagers. Freya was now staring at Bjarki, a hesitant smile quivering at the edge of her wet mouth. It disappeared soon enough. Wiped away by Olaf’s next words.
‘But Bjarki is declared outlaw from this time forward and for ever. He is exiled from the island of Bago, and from the whole Dane-Mark. He may not return to this land on pain of death. Furthermore, he is now made thrall. His freedom is stripped from him; he shall henceforth be given into the hand of Valtyr Far-Traveller as a slave. This is the law. I, Olaf Karlsson, Bago law-speaker and hersir, have spoken. Let all the gods be my witness.’
Olaf put the end of the rope into Valtyr’s hand. Bjarki heard Freya crying out his name. But he looked instead at his new master.
‘You prayed to the Old One in this sacred place. I believe he has heard you,’ said Valtyr in a kindly voice. ‘Get down from there, lad. We must be far from this village by nightfall; and we’ve a long, hard road ahead of us.’
Bjarki’s legs collapsed under him. He crashed down on the stool, splintering it to kindling, and tumbled unconscious to the ground.
Chapter Two
A mismatch in the marketplace
Tor didn’t much care for the look of this new fellow, the lumbering fisher-boy that Valtyr had acquired in the one-dog hamlet on Bago that morning.
He was too big, too clumsy and too ugly to make a pleasant travelling companion for either of them. She did not know what Valtyr had been thinking. He had paid half a mark of good hack-silver for this oaf – an outrageous amount – and Valtyr had even gone so far as to cut his bonds and remove the rope from his grubby neck before they got on the stinking fishing skiff that took them five watery miles west from Bago to the mainland, the Jutland Peninsula. Since they had disembarked, and taken the main road heading south, this Bjarki fellow had been allowed to walk freely beside them, trudging along side by side almost as if he were their equal.
Valtyr seemed even to encourage him in that belief, talking quietly with the great oaf, apparently comforting him. Telling the newly outlawed slave that his old life was over but that many exciting prospects lay ahead. The oaf walked in silence, like a sleepwalker, or as if he had been stunned by a swift, hard blow to the head, but Tor guessed he was at least half-listening to the old man’s soft, continuous blather. Occasionally, the youth nodded in agreement. After about five miles, his chin lifted a fraction, his eyes seemed to focus, and he began to look with a little more interest at his surroundings.
He’s probably never been off that fly-speck isle in his life, Tor thought.
It was Tor’s turn to make the evening stew when they stopped to camp in a stand of silver birch off the road some hours later. As she stirred flakes of salted herring and oats into bubbling water in the pot, she watched the two of them, sitting like old comrades on a log on the far side of the campfire.
Valtyr was still talking away quietly and, finally, she heard the oaf speak. It was to ask a question: where are we going? As she was shifting the over-boiling pot off the hottest part of the fire, she only half-heard the reply.
She heard the old man say the name Fyr Skola and knew that Valtyr was describing their ultimate destination and what they meant to do when they got there. No doubt filling his head with tales of the legendary heroes, the Rekkar, making promises, and persuading this oaf to accept this path.
He’s wasting his time, Tor thought, as well as his precious silver. This bumpkin had nothing of the unusual about him, not that she could see. He had killed some local fellow in a brawl, the son of the hersir, apparently, but that hardly made him a candidate for the heights of the Fyr Skola. He was also too meek to make a proper warrior, too biddable. This clod would nod and nod and agree to everything Valtyr suggested; then, in a day or two, run off and try to get back to his mud-pie village – the fuss that bedraggled chit made when they took their leave from Bago! Embarrassing for everyone. Wailing, weeping, begging him to stay. Saying he was promised to her. The silly cow had only stopped her noise when her mother dragged her away.
The oaf would run, she was sure of it – and, when he got back to Bago, his neighbours would hang him. It was only a question of whether the big lump would try to cut their throats and rob them before he sneaked away.
She put a hand on the seax that hung horizontally over her loins. She would sleep one-eyed tonight, she decided, with her blade unsheathed.
After they had eaten the fishy porridge and were lounging by the fire, bellies full, with the trunks of the birch forming a ghostly palisade to hold back the darkness, she was surprised to hear the Bago youth speak again.
‘Tell me more of these Groves of Eresburg,’ he said to Valtyr. ‘Tell me about the place we are going to. Is it true that the gods walk there?’
‘They do walk there, my friend, but the gods – and the spirits of the wild – are everywhere in the world. They can be discerned in every hedge, in
every field and wood; in every stream, beside every mountain path,’ said Valtyr. ‘They are, perhaps, even here with us in this copse, on this night.’
Tor saw the oaf shudder and glance quickly over his shoulder at the yellow firelight flickering on the pale bark of the trees all around them.
‘But I shall tell you more about the Groves of Eresburg, if you wish.’
Bjarki nodded.
‘Well then,’ said Valtyr. He shifted his position on his thick bedroll to make himself more comfortable. ‘Once, when the world was fresh, before the first men were made, before even the gods came into being, there existed but a single tree, a mighty oak called the Irminsul. The Northmen, of course, call the One Tree the Yggdrasil, for like the gods it has many names, but by whatever name it is called, all agree the One Tree is so huge, so vast, it connected this Middle-Realm with all the other eight worlds of the universe below and above, its massive trunk running right through the centre of all.’
‘Everyone has heard of the One Tree,’ said Bjarki.
‘Just as they should, son,’ said Valtyr. ‘Just as they should.’
Tor reached for the ale sack, took a long, cooling gulp and passed it over the flames to Valtyr. She felt sleepy. This rendering of the familiar tale made her feel oddly comforted. Almost like a little girl again. She shook out her big, ragged wolf-fur cloak and wrapped it round her narrow shoulders, leaning back and resting her cropped red head on the bulk of her back-sack.
‘For an age before the coming of men, the Irminsul was all alone in the empty world, and she was magnificent. Growing taller and thicker in time, becoming strong and also, perhaps, a little lonely, she desired companions. So she scattered her acorns over the fruitful earth and they took root and made more trees, many children in her image. Thus, after many centuries, she created a vast woodland that covered the world like a thick blanket.
‘In due course, the hundreds of thousands of new trees in this First Forest also spread their seed and they grew thicker and closer than the hairs on my beard. And the Irminsul was the mother of all trees, all plants, even grass and wildflowers; she was the wellspring of all life in the whole world.