Winter Serpent

by Davis, Maggie;

  The Jarl studied her from under half-closed eyelids. She was partly turned to him and naked to the waist; the tartan looped over one shoulder and straggled across the bed to the floor. On her arm a circle of ruby enamel and black metal was clasped against the flesh. It gleamed there, heavy and opulent against the smooth skin. She was fair, he observed, but not with the fairness of the Norse. There was a gold tinge to her skin which told that the summer sun would brown it without freckling or burning. It was a trace of the Pictish blood which also showed in the delicate cast of her eyes and cheekbones. He had seen many women called beautiful, but they were faded and indistinct compared to this girl with her childish full mouth and feline eyes and slender body. In any land men would fight for her and spill blood for her favors, yet, in looking on her, it was doubtful that any man could find himself her complete possessor. She had an innocently wicked look about her which spoke the knowing trap. It was a thing to think on.

  He touched her arm lightly with his finger tips as he lay there, and because her head was turned away from him she permitted herself a small, secret smile.

  4

  Doireann was greeted at the morning meal by Sweyn, who rose from his duties by the fire in the meadow, grinning hugely, and pounded her on the back benevolently, much to her disgust. He looked immensely satisfied. The Northmen, who had been lounging on

  the beach in front of the house, drew somewhat closer to them, looking on with interest. The Jarl took Doireann’s hand in his with a deliberate air and addressed himself to the older man.

  “I have decided to take her for my wife,” he said, laying careful emphasis on the words. Sweyn drew down his mouth and looked genuinely surprised. “In front of you, because you are my friend, and also before the crews of the longships who have sworn their oaths to me, I say now that I will put behind me all that has been… the claims which I now declare forfeit, and all else both good and bad.” Under the careful flatness of the younger man’s voice there was a meaning which was not lost on his friend. “This is a new life we start, and this wife-taking is a proper and auspicious thing.” Sweyn nodded at this. “So I will cleave only to her according to the old customs and the way of honorable men. It would not be my way to take many wives, and she pleases me as well as any. You are a true friend.”

  “It is a true thing,” Sweyn rumbled. “These Scots say she is of noble blood and thus she is worthy of your regard. She is young and has the fault of a lively temper, and I have taken note of the sharpness of her tongue, but a good beating will mend that. Besides, she is uncommonly good-looking and will well warm your bed. As your wife she will learn to ease your sorrows and the memory of what has been. This has been my thought. May you be wellpleased with your sons.”

  Silently they clasped hands.

  Sweyn turned his attention to the girl at the Jarl’s side. It was plain she sought to look submissive, but she carried it poorly. Yet there was something to be said of her: she had not given herself over to the usual screaming and lamentations of women.

  He smacked his hands together.

  “So now what we need is a proper feast to seal the thing! Too long have we lagged about. Let us enjoy ourselves!”

  The Jarl permitted himself a frown.

  “Yes, a feast is in order,” he conceded. “We shall trade again with the Scots for beer and meat. And we must do some hunting.”

  “Trade? Let us take it,” Sweyn laughed.

  “No,” the younger man said flatly. “We will keep the peace here for a while as is my wish. If we raid, it will not be on this coast, for I do not wish to have the Scots drive us out. We have built our house here; let us keep it. There is still gold enough to buy what we need.”

  Sweyn shrugged.

  Doireann dropped her eyes to the ground, examining her toes as they showed from under her gown. Something had passed between the two men which was beyond her understanding. Yet if the Northmen went to trade at the Coire now, Calum macDumhnull would learn that she was not the property of Sweyn nor the whole Viking band. She was instead the announced wife of the Jarl, their chief. There was some small satisfaction in this. Perhaps Calum knew of it even now. They were easily observed here in the valley between the peaks, and doubtless other eyes watched her in the Northmen’s camp.

  It was obvious that the Vikings agreed with Sweyn that too long had they lain idle in the shadow of their chief’s illness. They greeted the idea of a feast with shouts of approval. The party chosen to take the smallboats to the Coire for beer and meat did so in high good humor, returning with boats overladen and dangerously low in the water. The beerskins were dragged from the craft and the drinking began without ceremony there on the beach.

  The sound of Viking laughter echoed in the narrowing cliffs above them, and startled flocks of gulls, and other birds broke from the ledges to take to the air, adding their shrill cries to the uproar. The Northmen shouted at the tops of their lungs. They ran along the strand, throwing stones at the wheeling clouds of birds, and the cove seemed to burst with an ominous racket. At last the birds scattered away and the evening fog came drifting in from the sea, floating on the stiller waters of the loch like a sad wraith. The red glare of the bonfire tinted the mist and from time to time the shadows of men passing in front of the fire were thrown like giant figures on the gray curtain.

  While the night was yet young the Jarl came to Doireann and led her before the blazing fire where he held her hand clasped aloft in his for all to see. The Vikings pressed close about them and he took his sword and held it before him, the point touching the sand lightly.

  “Now before all of you,” he said unsteadily, for he was quite drunk, “I will tell you that she is my wife according to the law and I will look to you to honor what is mine. When I die it will be her sons who will follow me. By my sword I swear it!”

  He was answered by screeches and the brandishing of weapons. A group of the younger men who had been lurking in the rear now ran forward, led by Raki. They were howling like demons and carried willow switches in their hands. To the girl’s horror they fell upon her and began to beat her on the face and shoulders, with the stinging branches. She gasped, throwing up her arms to protect herself.

  “Softly,” Sweyn shouted, fending off their blows, but he was laughing. “Get away, now that you have bestowed Frey’s blessing.”

  He pulled the girl away from the young men and led her to the door of the log house.

  “It is all right,” he assured her. “Such is the custom at certain times of the year when the women and the cattle are beaten with willow wands to make them fertile. It was a joke.”

  From the doorway the girl turned to look at the frolicking about the fire. Each warrior was decked in full gear as if for battle and, although the round shields and heavy swords hindered them, they did not put them aside. They seemed bent on a ferocious, clamorous gaiety. A few of the most drunken had gathered to perform shuffling dances with their arms looped about one another’s shoulders.

  Raki was hoisted to the top of the piled barrels where he began a long yowling song in Norse. He was soon pulled down amid jeers. Then the Forkbeard, who was called Olav, sprang to the perch.

  “Attend me, you vig-men of the good fight,” he shouted. “Listen now, men of the verdungr, men of honor, men of rank who follow the sea road to glory and fame! Long have we traveled in the longships. For our honor or our death we come! For our chief!”

  “Ja!” they howled at him.

  “Who shall turn his hand against us in this foreign land? Who is strong enough to daunt us? No one! For are we not the brothers of Sinfjotli who was sent into the forest as a child to live with the beasts in order to be hardened for great deeds? Our waiting is over and our great deeds are before us! Like a mighty swell from the great ocean of the north do we come, on the cold breath of Father Odin and Thor the Hammerer and the old gods do we come, and we shall slay the Britons and plunder them of their gold and their women! In the oak groves shall hang the flayed skins of their heroes an
d in their women shall our seed spring forth as the Winter Serpent’s spawn. Who can resist us?”

  A competitor began to reel about the fire, shouting at the top of his lungs. “My brothers are the bears. From a wolf was I sprung and I will devour the earth. Great will be the glory of my name for I shall have fame above all men. Gaze upon me. I am the bravest, most noble, most terrifying of all men! I am the berserkr! I am unconquered!”

  They seized him and threw him into the waters of the cove.

  Olav began to chant, keeping his footing on the sides of the round kegs with difficulty. His face was covered with sweat, and firelight shone on his beard and on the metal ornaments of his belt.

  “Long have we waited, my brothers. But we are of the old gods and their magic is strong within us.” He drew his sword from its shoulder scabbard. “Great are our swords and battle-axes. Who among the lowly Danes has better?” A howl of rage drowned him out. The mention of the hated Danes drove them to frenzy. In the uproar many were overcome with drunken excitement and fell on the nearest comrade. The beach came alive with combat.

  Doireann had withdrawn into the shadows of the hall, but the sound of fighting drew her to the door. Sweyn was still stationed at the entrance and looked at her with drink-reddened eyes.

  “They are killing each other!” she exclaimed. He shrugged.

  “They enjoy themselves,” he told her. “What were they shouting about?”

  “They are boasting of their strength,” he answered, “and liken themselves to him, the berserkr, the most admired, the bearer of the terrible gift which they cannot claim.” He nodded in the direction of the giant Jarl.

  “What is this berserkr?” she asked curiously. “What gift is this you speak of?” He swung his head from side to side, drunken, but still guileful.

  “Not a gift such as you are thinking of. Not gold, not precious stones nor the things which women esteem. A different gift.” He paused, and seemed to speak to himself. “A thing which destroys all before it and then turns on the destroyer. Ah, these others, they would like to be as he is, but the berserkr, he knows the weight of it. I see it in him now, that he knows. He sees that he is lonely and apart in that high place to which he has come.”

  “I do not understand you,” she complained.

  “Nor do they understand,” he answered, waving in the direction of the beach. “Though they shout that they are indestructible, they do not know what they are saying. Only to a few does it come, and it is a force before which I tremble, and I am no coward. But I would not look into the eyes of the bear brother when the rage is upon him.”

  He motioned for her to sit beside him. He took a swallow of beer from the horn in his hand and then gave forth a tremendous belch.

  “For the crews of the longships there is no return to the past. What is done is done, ill luck or no. So they drink much and blow up their courage like bladders. But they are worthy men, brave and daring above all, and they follow the man who is invincible, the taker of terrible oaths. They will all take unto themselves foreign women like yourself, and these women shall be like us, and their sons the true Norse. We will know the old gods again in these Christian lands. There are others of the blood of Scandia upon the sea and there are more to come. They will follow the sea road and fall upon the fat lands like the lean wolf upon the herd. In this way the Northmen will conquer the world. In the old country there are many petty kings who have many sons, more than can inherit the land. So the kings and these udal chieftains give their younger sons and heroes the longships and the companions of the sword who will follow them, and they set forth. Sea kings they are called, the brave, strong, and true men. Their inheritance is the green sea and the lands beyond it waiting to be conquered. Now they will have revenge upon this Carlus Magnus who cuts down the sacred oaks and subdues the Saxons and the Wends. Is it not said the Romans with all their legions could not conquer the Germans and the north tribes? Now will we triumph over all, we who have never been weakened by defeat!”

  The old Viking turned his eyes on her and they burned with fervor.

  “Most mysterious in magic is the man who takes you. Much love have the rest given him; they have followed him to this land for his sake. Among warriors he is a great hero, the bravest of the brave. Heavy is his heart.”

  He subsided into drunken muttering in Norse.

  The girl wrapped her plaid about her and stood for a moment looking at the wild men upon the beach. What Sweyn had said to her so boastfully did not surprise her, for all men talked so when the fighting spirit and drunkenness were upon them. Yet it was easy to fear the Northmen. They had the outward appearance of men but she knew now that they worshipped demons in the form of beasts, and the secret mark of their madness was upon them.

  They were bringing more wood for the fire. It leaped up and showered sparks into the loch. The Norse were in an orgy of destruction; it seemed they would set fire to the very night. They lurched about in their battle gear, hacking drunkenly at any shadowy tree or boulder which they thought to be an enemy come upon them from the darkness. They flung themselves about, growling like bears or wolves, giving bloodcurdling screams like wildcats.

  Doireann took a last look at the firelit scene. The Jarl, the man who had claimed her as his legal wife, had been astride a beached smallboat when last she saw him, downing long draughts from a drinking horn. Now he lay sprawled on his face on the sand, and his loyal warriors stepped carefully around him.

  The morning of the second day there were only a few Northmen still left on their feet. But already a new group was recovering from the night’s debauch; they had gathered around the ale pot to nurse their aching heads. When she went out cautiously Doireann found Sweyn across the door, his beard laced with vomit.

  The first night had been noisy, but in the full moon of the second a weird conviction came upon the Northmen that they were indeed filled with the spirits of animals. They began anew the insane screeching and howling, and there was more in it than just drunkenness. As she lay in bed she could hear their bodies hurtling crazily outside the house. Neither the late spring cold nor the obstacles of trees and boulders seemed to hinder them. She heard their feet rattling on the pebbles and the thud of flesh on flesh. In their craze they screamed out that they were eagles, serpents, and other monsters that nothing could subdue. With daybreak the noises faded away, and when Doireann came to the door the scene was one of quiet and stillness; the fury had spent itself.

  Their sacred weapons dedicated to their valor and manhood lay scattered among the fallen bodies. The dawn breeze ruffled their hair and clothing as it passed the shore. The gray light was over all in pitiless clarity: the dull expanse of the inlet, the leaden sea beyond the bar, the vanquished Northmen.

  Doireann rubbed her eyes, still gummed with sleep, and thought what a sight this was to greet the day. Her head felt as though it had burst in the night from all the racket.

  The bonfire site was blackened and cold. Close by it lay a knot of men, among them the Jarl tightly wrapped in his bearskin. The smaller guard fire in the meadow was abandoned.

  She gathered some leaves and twigs and went to revive the guard fire. The embers at least had been carefully covered, and she soon kindled the leaves. Even the sea watch must have come down from his perch to enter into the celebrating, for there was no sign of life anywhere. The small fire burned fitfully in the damp air, but she was able to coax enough flame from it to warm her hands.

  She shivered. The place was so quiet, with not even the gulls about, that it was like the gray land of the dead.

  There was someone coming. Any movement was like the rending of the spell which hung over the place. Her eyes made out a small figure, indistinct in the misty light but becoming clearer as it approached. It was a Pict, one of the shepherds from the Coire.

  He skirted the bodies warily, holding his spear alert for any signs of movement from them. He looked the typical Cruithne, short and bandylegged, with the lank black hair, high cheekbones, and tilte
d eyes so common to his people, his forearms and chest marked with blue tattoos. The blue mouth-tattoo of the eastern Picts, the mark of the free peoples, was missing. His kilt of sheepskin slapped his knees as he trotted and the light glinted softly from his round iron helmet. Doireann recognized him as Barra, one of the bound men of the macDumhnulls, and the same Pict who had signaled her in the forest.

  He gave no greeting, still tight-lipped with caution, looking over his shoulder mistrustfully at the fallen Vikings. She motioned him over to the fire and, after hesitating a moment, he squatted on his haunches. He took from his belt a leather pouch containing meal and rapidly mixed it with beer from a discarded horn nearby. He quickly fashioned two cakes which he thrust into the fire. As they cooked he turned them with a stick until they were hard and well-covered with ashes. But when he broke them between his stubby fingers they were gray and steaming and smelled good. The girl and the man ate without speaking and washed the cakes down with beer.

  “All this I saw from the tulaich this morning,” the Pict said abruptly, waving his hand toward the beach, “and I could hear that which occurred in the night. Of this I wish to speak.”

  He brushed his hands together and held them to the fire.

  “Doireann nighean Muireach, I bring you greetings from the north. Word travels among the Picts in Dalriada that the Red Fox of Coire Cheathaich, Calum macDumhnull, gave the Northmen what they wanted for their feast and did not call the warriors from the dun to drive them out when they were drunken. This is a very strange thing. It is my thought that Calum toiseach wishes them here, although he should fear and avoid these Fingall, these fairhaired ones. The people wonder at this madness and that he shelters pirates in the lands, believing their words when they say they are peaceful. Who has heard of peaceful Northmen? It is not good. The Fingall are devils; they have destroyed many earth villages in the far north. Their mark is that they leave nothing without the blackening of fire, no dead body whole, unless they are driven off and must leave in haste. Not only are they savage but they take the shapes of wild animals and ghosts and are protected by their magic.”