by Henry Treece
Then Starkad began to kick out at the treasure chest, making the broken lid rattle, and spilling coins out among the rushes on the floor.
Gauk saw Thorgaut and said, ‘He broke his sword hacking open the lid, after he had put paid to three of those poor fellows down there. Now he won’t come away. Do you think you could help to carry him? ’ Thorgaut said, ‘ I would as soon try to carry a she-bear away from her cubs, friend! ’
Starkad must have heard this, for he swung round and shouted, ‘Who else wishes to lie here? I still have the hilt of Leg-biter, and that is enough for most men I know.’
The four Jomsvikings stood like stone as Starkad came down the hall towards them. Beorn noticed that even Jarl Skallagrim’s hands were trembling.
When Starkad was three paces from them, he stopped and said, ‘Well, which of you is to be the first? Take your pick. It is all one to me.’
In the sudden silence that followed, Beorn heard himself say, ‘ I will come to you, Starkad. You came to me, when I needed you, on the Iceland shore. You saved me from Glam, Starkad. So I will save you.’ Beorn felt his feet moving as though they belonged to someone else. He heard Gauk draw in his breath sharply, behind him, like a man plunging into icy water off a cliff. Then he saw Starkad bending down towards him, his fierce face growing bigger and bigger,his hands reaching out with hooked fingers, like a goshawk’s talons.
The next thing Beorn knew, he was swung up into the air - and then he was sitting astride Starkad’s shoulders, and Starkad was laughing as though someone had told him the funniest story in the world.
‘ Oh, boy, boy, boy! ’ the baresark was saying. * I have lost a sword and found a hero! I have found another swordless one who dares stand against me, though he is no taller than a sword himself! ’
The empty look had gone from Starkad’s eyes, and he was prancing like a war-horse. Beorn was beginning to tremble and was wondering whether he might be sick with all this jolting up and down. He felt cold all over as he held on to Starkad’s thick hair to keep himself from tumbling.
And now, strangely, the Jarl and the others were all smiling, with their swords and axes put away, and Starkad was still calling out, ‘Tonight I am as happy as a spring lark. I am as brisk as a bridegroom. I am as free as a young stallion who first sniffs the mountain wind.’
Beorn heard Gauk say to the Jarl, ‘All is well. The fit has passed, praise be to God. Now we can take the treasure-chest and go down to the ship.’
But Starkad was already dancing out of the door, and off through the darkness towards the cliff-path. He did not stumble once, although Beorn, who had no great head for heights, was often afraid he might.
Reindeer put off again just as dawn was breaking and the fishing-curraghs were pulling in with their catch. All the Jomsvikings were well pleased with theirnight’s work, and lay about the deck in the morning sunshine, while Dag unfurled the sail and let the wind belly into it and swing them out to sea.
Beorn was so tired, he could have slept on the yardarm. Gauk had put a sheepskin down for him, under the prow platform, out of the spray. But just as he was about to lie down, Starkad came forward and raised him up again, smiling and patting his shoulder with his great hard hand.
‘Come, Beorn,’ the baresark was saying. ‘I cannot find a shipmate and lose him, all in one night. From this time, lad, you shall share my sleeping-place and be like a son to me. And you shall sing your Snorre Pig song only for me, and for no other. And what I gain shall be half yours. And I will stand by you against all the world.’
Beorn went with him, almost weeping now for happiness.
7 Grettir’s Venture
Starkad was a changed man after that night at the village on the cliff. As Reindeer ran southwards, with the grey Scotland-coast just in sight, he would even let Beorn take the steerboard-shaft, if the going was clear and the tide light. This was a thing he had never let another man do; it was like lending a man your horse, or your sword - to lend such things was always a risk, for a horse could break a leg and a sword-edge be hacked. Beorn felt very proud; but he was always glad when Starkad took the steering back again, for Reindeer, though she danced lightly enough on the wave-tops, was wayward to handle, being so broad in the beam. What is more, she seemed to know when Beorn had the guiding of her, for she would tug so hard that theboy feared she might turn about and set off back to the north!
Starkad used to smile and say, ‘These ships are like women. All sweetness and gentleness, when they are tamed. But it is the taming that counts, and that calls for a firm man.’
Once he said, ‘ I had a wife once, a pretty dark girl from Syria. That was when I fought for the old Emperor at Miklagard, among the Varangers, his viking guard.’
Beorn’s eyes went wide at this, for he thought that all Northmen who had been to Constantinople, the City of Gold, were the next best to being magic men. ‘Tell me, what was it like? ’ he asked.
A far-away look was in Starkad’s eye. He said, ‘ I was a young fellow then, and I have almost forgotten. I know it was a terrible, cold run, down the rivers and over the Great Portage. We had to roll the longship on tree-trunks from river to river, and many of us died, with the strain and the cold, and sometimes the wolf-packs. But we got there in the end. We never thought we should, because of the Patzinaks.’
Beorn said, in wonder, ‘What are they, the Patzinaks, Starkad?’
Starkad smiled and said, ‘A sort of dwarf, or troll, I think. They live down there, on the plains in the howling wind, among the marshes and the tall grasses. They never walk, but always ride on little ponies that understand every word they say to them. You have never seen such folk, lad. Their faces are as yellow as my pigskin belt, and their eyes are like little black stones glimmering through slits in their skin. I tell you, to see them hunched up on their sheepskin saddles, with their high hats and their little horn-bows that can drive a shaft through a bullock, is no pleasant sight.’
Beorn said, ‘Tell me, what did they do to you, Starkad?’
The man shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘At first they used to ride down the river bank as we pulled at the oars, and see how many of us they could pick off with their arrows. They thought we had come to dig their old kings up, from the burial place near the Big Waterfall. But when they found we were set for the south to join the Emperor’s Guard, they stopped shooting. Or perhaps it was something to do with what happened the night we got tired of them and went ashore with the axes. Jarl Skallagrim took ten heads and hung them on the prow. Aye, I’ve known him when no man could stand before him, for all his quietness and his Latin, lad! That night, we followed the Patzinaks and burned two of their tent-villages. After that, they passed the word on, with little fires, and the other horsemen, down along the far plains, treated us well. They would call us ashore to eat out of their big iron kettles, and even give us some of their scrawny sheep to take on board for food. These Patzinaks grew no hair on their faces, and our beards were a marvel to them. I got so weary at them fingering mine, I chopped it short. I gave one of their chiefs the end-cuttings, and he danced about as though I had awarded him the Treasure of Asgard, he was so pleased.’
Starkad stopped then, and lifted the short plank near the steerboard. From the darkness under the plank, he hauled up his sailing bag, made of a sheepskin, with thegreasy fleece on the inside to keep things from rusting in the damp below-decks. He rummaged for a space, among his treasures, then pulled out an iron image of a stag kneeling, with the points of its antlers spraying out like a fountain.
He put it in Beorn’s hand. ‘This is what he gave me in return for my beard,’ he said. ‘It is very old. A scholar I spoke with once, in Frankland, told me that an old Scythian must have hammered and chiselled this stag, generations before even the Romans came.’
Beorn gazed at the stag with wonder. There was a strange glint on the iron, almost as though it had a brown enamel over it, but there were blues and even reds in the glint as well. He said, ‘ I have never seen anything so lov
ely, Starkad. This must be a magic thing.’
Starkad shrugged his shoulders and put on a weary look. ‘I have carried it in my bag ever since,’ he said, ‘ and I do not know that it has brought me good luck or ill. Now, with a sword, it is different. A sword can rule a man’s life entirely - but not a stag. Keep it for yourself, Beorn. It has travelled farther afield than most men, and is older than any man. You shall have it.’
When Beorn said that he couldn’t take such a splendid thing, Starkad looked over the sea and answered, ‘Then I shall throw it overboard. If it is not fit for an Iceland boy to accept, it is not fit for Starkad to carry about any longer.’
Beorn knew that he was serious now. So he took the iron stag and swore that he would never part with it for the rest of his fife.
Starkad laughed at this and said, ‘Don’t hold to the stag too hard, lad. One day you might be glad to swap it for a loaf of bread.’
‘No, I never shall, Starkad,’ said Beorn, with tears in his eyes, for no one had ever given him anything like this before.
Starkad drew the boy to him and wiped the tears away with the hem of his woollen shirt. ‘What, crying because I give you a stag? ’ he said. ‘ That’s no way for a sea-rover. Come, take the steerboard again. That will keep you too busy to cry! ’
And it did!
Another time as they sailed on Beorn asked what Miklagard was like. Starkad said that it was well enough, with its towers and walls and big streets. But there were too many churches, he said, and too much praying. There were too many princes and princesses as well; a viking Varanger in the Emperor’s Guard had to remember so many names, titles, and the proper ways of speaking to each of the princes, it was often a relief to get out into the hills and fight one of the Bulgar tribes, savage though they were.
Starkad only mentioned his wife once; he said her name was Maria Anastasia, and she could play the lute better than anyone he had ever heard since. No more than that. Beorn asked where she was now, and Starkad said, ‘Oh, it was the plague they have down there in the summer. She dropped her lute and died. We had a son, called Constantine. He took the plague, too, and went with her. He would have been about your age now, but his hair was black.’
Then Starkad went on and told what it was like in Palestine and Egypt and Sicily. He never spoke of
Anastasia and Constantine again, but often he would put his arm round Beorn and give him a bear-hug for no reason at all.
One day, as they lay ashore waiting for Odd and Thorgaut and Dag to bring a few sheep down from a hillside, Starkad said, ‘ I feel at a loss, without a sword, Beorn. I can manage with the axe, but it is not my weapon. If we ever get down to Northumbria, I must look out for a new sword. Did I ever sing the old Widow Song for you? ’
Beorn shook his head; Starkad often used to break off like that, and the only thing was to let him ramble on till he was done.
Now he sang:
Makers of widows, wander we must,
Killers ’twixt seedtime and salting of kine,
Walking the Whale’s Way, sailing the Swan’s Path, Daring the Suti’s Track, tricking dark death!
In the jaws of the storm, jesting we stand,
Lashed with hail’s fury, hands frozen to line;
Numb head rain-shaken, sharp spume in the nostril, Salt caking hair - and blood’s haven in sight!
When he got to the end of the song, he gave such a hard thump on the gunwale beside him that Beorn nearly jumped in the air.
Starkad saw this and laughed. ‘Aye, that was the old rowing-song,’ he said. ‘ It kept the oars going in time, and the folk who heard it, up on the shore, got to know it! After they had heard it, we never had much trouble sailing in and taking what we needed. But the old daysare going fast, lad, and I’ll wager you there are not more than a hundred men in the world who could still sing you that song.’
Beorn thought a while, then said, ‘Up in Iceland the old men say the same. They say the world is growing old and tired and is almost ready to end. They say that on the day all men take Christ as their lord, the world will sink into the sea.’
Starkad nodded. ‘There may be something in that,’ he said, ‘for I have noticed that whenever a folk take the priests as their law-givers, they all get to be so gentle that it’s almost a shame to rob them. They are like women. Thank God we are only half-Christians! ’
Beorn said, ‘It will be a fair while before the Icelanders get like that, Starkad. News reaches them slowly. Did you ever hear of my father’s kinsman, Grettir? He swore an oath to keep the old ways living, and went round the north burning houses and finding trolls to kill. I never saw him, he had gone to Norway before I was big enough to remember him, but my father often told me of the things he got up to. Some of them were terrible.’
Starkad was whittling a piece of wood with a knife, and said, ‘Tell me some of them. I like to hear of a man with principles.’
Beorn scratched his head, then said, ‘Well, he once killed an alderman with a milking stool, and got outlawed.’
Starkad nodded and tossed the stick over the side. ‘That is well enough,’ he said, ‘but I wouldn’t say it was the bravest thing I had heard of - though Grettir was your kinsman.’
The boy thought again, and suddenly said, ‘Oh, there was a time when he really did something great. It was at Haramsey, at Thorfinn’s Steading. There was a dead old king there, named Karr, who lay in a dark mound, a burial howe, with all his brooches and weapons. So my kinsman went out one night, dug the mound open, and let himself down with a rope.’ Starkad turned to him with a serious face and said, ‘What then, Beorn? This is really to my taste.’
Beorn said, ‘Well, it was awful, because as soon as Grettir had found himself a sword and was coming away, the dead king jumped to life and started wrestling with him, trying to break his neck.’
Starkad leaned forward and took the boy’s hands strongly. ‘ Go on, go on! ’ he said. ‘ Why have you never told me this before?’
Beorn said, ‘You never asked me. Well, all I can say is that Grettir side-stepped old King Karr, then cut off his head and laid it beside his thigh, in the proper manner, to stop the ghost from getting up again.’
‘ What of the sword, though? ’ said Starkad, his pale eyes glaring. ‘Did it bring him luck?’
Beorn said, ‘As far as I know, it did. He used it on a good few baresarks to his advantage before we lost track of him.’
Starkad got up and went roaming along the deck, his hand tugging at his stubbly beard. All the men got out of his way. At last he came back and sat down again by Beorn. ‘ I am glad you told me this,’ he said. ‘ Now I am certain that you bring good fortune with you. It was in my mind to go to a swordsmith in Deira, one day soon, and buy myself a new sword, like any ordinary fellow.
But now I see the right thing to do. A man such as I am should not buy a sword, for a bought sword carries no virtue in its edge. The correct thing would be to take one from a burial howe, then I should be sure that it was an heirloom and carried the old magic in its blade. These new blades have no more magic in them than a hedge-knife, or a bill-hook such as thralls use on the farms.’
Jarl Skallagrim had come up and was listening to this. He said, ‘You would be wiser to buy yourself a sword, axe-friend. Most of the howes are broken open by now, and the best weapons are all gone.’
Starkad glared at him so hard then that the Jarl said, ‘Very well, a man must make up his own mind, I see. If you want to do what this lad’s kinsman did, then I know a place down the coast, three days away, where there is a howe or two. But they lie close to a village where the men are as wild as wolves. That is why they have never been robbed before; most sea-rovers give them a wide berth, for it is a bad bargain to raid such a place and go back to the boat with half the rowers dead.’
Starkad said, ‘We will worry about that when the time comes. You point out this place to me, friend, and I will do the rest. Now tell me as much as you can remember, Beorn, about how Grettir did this deed.�
�
8 Dead Man’s Howe
At last Reindeer came down to Howestead, and, with the autumn turning towards winter and fetching the grey skies out to hide the sun, a more desolate place was not to be seen anywhere in the north.
Skallagrim said, ‘ I do not like the look of this steading, friend Starkad. It has all the looks of a place where a man might find his doom waiting. I counsel you, I who have given you rings and war-gear in the past as a lord should, not to go there. Look, I will give you a sword from my store. I have four of them, stowed under-decks, and you shall take your pick. How is that? ’
Starkad gave a wrench at the steerboard-shaft and said, ‘Jarl, I follow you in all things - but in this matter of getting a new sword, I must be governed by my heart. And heart says that my sword rests up there, beyond the steading. I have spoken. There is no more to say.’
Beorn and the others stared towards the land, where, on the high grey cliff-edge, the tumble-down huts clustered, like rugged clams on a rock. To Beorn, the huts looked more like wild beasts crouching than dwelling-places. It was late afternoon and brown smoke rose above the place, eddying in the light air, like a dirty blanket. Up there, they were weed-burners, he thought. He had seen smoke like that in Iceland, and knew that the men of Howestead must be busy at other trades than gathering wood, if they burned shore-weed. He wondered what their business was.
Skallagrim turned to Gauk and said, ‘Shipmate, what is your opinion? You are a man of good sense, can you not persuade Starkad to get his sword another way? ’
Gauk scratched the end of his pointed red nose and said, ‘Jarl, my advice is not worth a horse’s cast shoe, for my sense comes and goes, like any other man’s. So do not ask me that. All I can tell you is that I was sworn in as Starkad’s Guardian, and so, whatever he chooses to do, I am bound to follow at his back.’