Scots in Lorne will be quarreling and fighting to choose new ones.”
“It was like the stroke of an ax,” Barra told her. “One blow from the Northmen, and the Scots in Cumhainn are like a man without a head on his shoulders. But the body still lives, and it shall not be long before it will seek its vengeance.”
“Ah, the terrible things which were done!” a woman wailed. Some of the others began to weep.
“Quietly,” Doireann told them. “You will wake my child.”
“But there are no Northmen at the embers of the Coire now,” Barra said. “They have stripped it and gone. Yet I understand from the men in the hills that their ships still stand off Eileen nan Ron. Perhaps the Ard-Ri will hear of this and turn back to attack them.”
“Have you any food?” They shook their heads.
“It cannot be helped,” she sighed. “But I am hungry.” The Picts exchanged looks.
“What is it?” she asked, frowning. It was Barra who spoke.
“Doireann nighean Muireach, you cannot stay with us.” “Why not?” she cried. “Is Calum macDumhnull alive?” They shook their heads.
“Then there is no one to pursue me. And I am the only one remaining of my father’s line! I claim the clans now.”
“This is a matter for the Scots to decide,” Barra said, “and no affair of the Cruithne, the Picts. As for any claims on us through your kinship, the Picts here know what happened in Inverness when Nechtan sheltered you. The Picts say you are a witch. It is plain that although you are not harmed yourself you bring destruction upon others.”
“You, Barra,” he cried, “can you say I have been safe from harm or that I
would hurt others willingly?” He would not look at her.
“It can be argued,” he answered. “I have a loyalty to you through my oaths to your mother and the old chieftain, your father. Many dangers have I faced for you, and I birthed your child in the snow. It was my knife which let the life out of the macDumhnull’s body and your debt of revenge is owed to me for this act.”
“I no longer care for revenge,” she said softly. “As for Calum macDumhnull, I wish that he still lived, that his blood had not been taken for me.”
“Nevertheless you cried for revenge and with my own ears I heard you. It is this vengeance which I have taken for you.”
“What is it you want of me?” she said quietly.
“I wish you to break the oaths for me. It was your father who bound me, and although I owed Calum macDumhnull nothing I stayed to serve you. I claim your blood debt for the death of the chieftain of Cumhainn. Say that I am no longer your bound man and there is no tie between us.”
“I say it,” she replied. “You are no longer bound to me or my kin, for the debt is paid. But why must you have this from me? It is only words. You could have left me many times.”
Barra was interrupted by one of the men who pointed to the west and muttered.
“It is not wise to stand like this on the hillside,” he said abruptly.
“We would not have you with us, Doireann nighean Muireach,” a woman cried. “There is only death where you are!”
“Also,” Barra added, “some of the Norse ships have departed, but still one remains. It is the ship of the demon bear. He waits to kill you.”
“We will give him what he seeks,” a squat man cried. He seized her arm. Doireann was stunned, her eyes on Barra’s face. But his look was averted. “Do not despair, Princess,” he muttered. “We will not harm you. We seek
only to satisfy the Northmen.”
“But you could hide me!” she burst out.
“There is no place for you here,” they told her. “The demon is not a man, but magic. He would find you.”
They hurried her over the steep ground and she clutched the child, trying to keep from falling.
“Barra, help me,” she pleaded.
“No, Princess,” he answered. “I can help you no more.”
They took her to a little cove where two coracles were hidden in the over-hanging trees. There was room for only one person and a paddler in each. Doireann was parted from her child. They laid Ian in the bottom of the boat gently enough, but the bundle moved and he wailed.
“Give me my child!” she cried frantically.
“You shall have him when we reach the islet,” one of the Picts told her. She turned to look back at the men on shore as the craft pulled away, but the remnants of the dwellers in the Coire had melted into the hillside.
There was silence as they paddled. The coracles were perilously close to the water and the Picts struggled with the currents. Slowly the showers and the haze lifted in the valley and ragged tears appeared in the mass of clouds. All at once gray light crumbled, and dazzling sunlight poured down between the peaks, making great pools of light on the water. The boats traveled from grayness into brilliance and out again, and the paddlers squinted their eyes. A circlet of gulls came in from the sea and wheeled between the cliffs.
The water under the paddles was choked with dead swirling leaves. The current carried the boat swiftly toward the sea and they reached the island in the loch quickly. The coracles ran aground under the willow banks and the Picts wasted no time in handing Doireann ashore.
“What shall I do?” she cried. “Will you leave me here to starve, and my poor child also?”
“Oh, no,” they assured her, “for we will help the demon find you.”
Her boatman pulled a long length of tartan from his sheepskin and gave it to the other man. He climbed swiftly to the top of a tall tree and hung it there. It unfolded, the green and yellow of the plaid hanging brightly, like a banner.
“He will come back for you,” they told her, “for his anger is terrible and you are what he seeks.”
She followed them to the edge of the water.
“Have you nothing to say to me now?” she demanded. “Can you do this knowing that the Scots will have revenge upon you?”
Their eyes were hard.
“We do not claim you,” they told her, “and the Scots who would seek revenge are dead and gone.”
“Take a message to Flann the Culdee at Glen Laghan,” she commanded. “No, tell Barra, for I know he will do this last for me.”
She grasped the side of the coracle, holding it briefly to the shore despite, their tugging. She bent her head and managed to slip off the cross which Flann had given her. She threw it into the boat and it gleamed at the feet of the paddler.
“Tell Flann the Culdee I do not need his faith to protect me, for I will soon be strong in my own.”
She tried to think of other, better words for Flann but the Picts broke away and turned their boats against the swift current.
She watched them, shading her eyes with her hand against another burst of sunlight which illuminated the island. The boats were gliding into deep shadow.
It was futile to call to them; they were like ghosts now, and they would not heed her voice.
She sighed, the sunlight warm upon her head. No, she could not find the words to call to them and they would not listen. So it went with all upon this earth, forever crying to each other through the light and the dark, unheeding, wordless, uncomforted.
22
There was the usual difficulty in getting the cattle into the ships. The darkness and the wild bursts of wind, the tossing of the longships in the rough sea, maddened the animals. They had to be thrown and tied and hauled over the sides in loading. Many were injured in the effort; Hallfreor bellowed for them to be thrown back overboard.
“Where is Sweyn Barrelchest?” Snorri Olavson called. Hallfreor went to the prow of the longship and looked down at the man on the beach.
“There,” the steersman pointed, indicating a knot of men. Snorri folded his billowing cloak about him, cursing the wind.
“Who is it?” Sweyn called. Snorri followed the sound of his voice. The older man was sitting with his back resting against a pile of clothing. Arne Hammershield and his steersman, Braggi, bending over him.<
br />
“Who is it?” Sweyn asked again.
“Snorri Olavson. I was seeking you at shipside. What sort of wound have you caught?”
“Where is Thorsten Ljot? Where is the berserkr?” Sweyn insisted.
“Where is anything? In the dark, in the cursed wind,” Snorri growled. He knelt and pulled away the shield which Sweyn held tightly pressed to his middle. A gush of dark liquid leaped out and ran down the man’s groin onto his legs. Snorri quickly pushed the shield back into place.
“They have gutted you, man,” he said quietly.
“A little dark man with a knife, under my guard,” Sweyn said. “I think he stood on tiptoe to do it, the runted little whoreson.”
“You know we cannot wait for you,” Snorri said. “My ships are taking water now, and it may be we will have to lighten them by throwing the livestock overboard if the wind keeps up.”
Sweyn nodded.
Snorri’s crew chief appeared at his shoulder.
“I am coming;” Snorri said to him. He unbuckled his sword belt, let it fall from his shoulder. He laid the sword at Sweyn’s feet. “Your death gift, Sweyn Barrelchest.”
Snorri’s crew chief pulled out a brooch, laid it on the sword. “For your funeral pyre, Chieftain,” he said.
They were gone. Sweyn stirred.
“What is the look of the sky?” he asked. “Still dark,” Braggi told him, “and overcast.”
A sudden shower muffled the sound of Snorri’s ships being cast off from the beach. When it died they heard the faint voices of the crew chiefs calling for the masts to be set up, the sails unfurled.
“Now, what is that?” Sweyn cried irritably, as some caterwauling broke out on the beach.
“Some argument over women, doubtless,” Arne Hammershield answered. “I will attend to it.”
When he had left them Sweyn shifted his back restlessly against the pile of clothing. Another dark stain spread out on his tunic, wetting the sand by his side.
“My belly bleeds like a spring freshet,” he complained. “It waits for nothing, not even Thorsten Ljot.”
He was interrupted by shouting, scuffling in the darkness.
“Now, do not tell me they bring their wenching fights into my lap!” Sweyn barked.
He shook his fist into the air.
“Chieftain,” Braggi said, “it is Gunnar Olavson and another man. They bring the berserkr.”
Sweyn pulled forward, clutching the shield tightly.
“Laggard!” he called. “You will keep us here until the Scots come over the mountains to kill us.” He peered anxiously into the darkness. “Is that you now, Thorsten Eiricsson of Sogne?”
The dark shapes seemed to lurch toward them with difficulty. Something fell, and they stopped.
“This time was the worst,” Gunnar Olavson said as he approached. He wiped his perspiring face with his hands. “When the berserkr had calmed enough to be tied, it was still like hauling a whale at the end of a line. A foot at a time we went, stumbling and wallowing. I despaired of ever reaching you.” “Lift me, lift me!” Sweyn ordered impatiently. They put their arms under him and carried him the few feet to the figure sprawled on the sand. A line of blood trailed after them.
“Now,” Sweyn said, as they put him down at the Jarl’s side. “Take a knife and cut the bearskin away. No, no, do not take it away. Leave it by him.”
The Northmen looked down at the still giant, his legs sprawled, his arm drawn up to pillow his cheek.
“He sleeps,” Braggi observed.
“Yes, he sleeps,” Sweyn rumbled. “How he sleeps! My blood is running out and he lies like a child in his mother’s arms, sweetly sleeping. I have waited death to speak my last words to him.”
He stopped, grimaced, and looked forlorn.
“What I would have said to him is lost. He will wake and find me dead, and he will still be a prisoner of his bonds.”
“Speak to me and I will tell him,” Braggi said. Sweyn looked at his steersman.
“Yes, tell him,” he said morosely. “Tell him that he thinks he must revenge himself upon her and his son, that he must destroy what he wants in order to satisfy the bjorn. He may be right, for I have seen this is the usual fate of the berserkr. You may tell him I, too, remember Ouela, who was an Inglinga from Uppsala and a kinsman of Thorsten Ljot’s mother’s, and I remember the winter he spent in Sogne. This Ouela was the famed berserkr, the great warrior, even though slight of stature and with brown curling hair like a woman’s. A fair man, a handsome man, yet a beast when he was in his rage like all the bjorn brothers. All the children, and Thorsten Eiricsson was among them then, were forbidden to come to him or bother him because he was the great berserkr, sitting wrapped in his bearskin before the fire, waiting for his battle, for the voices which would speak to him. Alone he was, and shunned by men in their great awe and fear. At the end he went mad and roamed the forest with the spirit of the bear always on him. He starved to death or froze, there is no way of knowing. But he was with the bjorn, and until death took him he heard only their voices. Will you tell this fine tale now to Thorsten Ljot, to remind him of his fate? Which one of you will bear this message?”
They looked away from him and shuffled their feet uneasily.
“No, only Sweyn Barrelchest could speak to him thus,” Braggi said. “Your words will mean nothing for they will be your words, and he does not hear them.”
Sweyn paused and knitted his brows.
“But I would have my last joke! I do not fear the bjorn. When they come to me in hell and taunt me, I will spit in their faces! Odin is my god… he gave a good left eye for wisdom. That is something to be proud of!”
He paused again and he was panting for breath. But he began to grin ferociously. “No, wait! I have a good thought” He started to laugh. He pulled the
shield to him and bent over it and laughed heartily.
“Tell him,” he wheezed, “tell Thorsten Ljot, the sworn brother of the bears, that his first-born, his son who lives, shall bear my name, not his. I take the child from the bjorn and it may be I also take his father! Yes, say that this is my death wish. I swear it now. My death wish, which cannot be broken. My ghost is upon his son and I say the child shall sacrifice to Odin, not the brotherhood of the bears. The ravens of Odin shall be the child’s sign instead of the bearskin. Hear his name: Sweyn Thorstensson! It has a good sound! And this is what he shall be called. In this way I pierce the berserkr’s dream, I break the vows, I shatter the beast. He will see it.”
He bellowed his laughter. Braggi bent over him, touching him. Sweyn shook him off.
“My blood seals it!” he roared. He threw the shield from him. “Burn me well, here on the beach, so that the Scots may see what a big fire I make!”
His steersman went to his knees with a cry, pressing back the spurting wound with his hands. But the red fountain died.
Sweyn was dead.
At the dawn a steady fresh wind sprang up to drive away the clouds. The crews of the bear ship and Sweyn’s longships had gathered driftwood in a high pile on the beach. They wrapped Sweyn Barrelchest in his long cloak, set his horned helmet upon his head, and carried him to the top of the pyre, laying him out straight, placing his funeral gifts around him. The sunlight broke through then, touching the sea and making the roughened waves glitter, the gold scattered in the driftwood pile, lighting the brow of the old chief’s helm.
Gunnar held a bucket of sea water for Thorsten Ljot while he washed. “How is it with the Jarl?” Braggi asked.
“He feels good. His head is clear,” Gunnar said. He nodded. “He knows what has occurred.”
“Yes, I know,” the Jarl said. He was getting to his feet slowly.
Gunnar emptied the bucket onto the sand. The big man bent and picked up the bloodstained bearskin. He shook it out carefully, folded it.
“Sweyn Barrelchest gave me words for you,” Braggi began, but the Jarl shook his head.
“Gunnar has told me what I need to know. As for the re
st, I see what
Sweyn Barrelchest has done, and I am thinking on it. This thing he calls his ‘last joke’ and which he has left for me. The bjorn oaths are not easily broken. But then who can defy a man’s death wish?”
“He was a stubborn man,” Braggi said, “and will make a stubborn ghost.” The Jarl looked at Sweyn’s steersman, at his cousin Gunnar Olavson.
“You know this might bring our deaths,” he said softly. “We do not linger in an empty land.”
“I speak for the ships of Sweyn Barrelchest,” Braggi answered him. “His trust is now our trust.”
Gunnar nodded.
“Then let us go down to the dead,” the Jarl said.
They went down to the edge of the sea, to the pile of driftwood where the Vikings stood silent. The Jarl took the lighted pine-knot and cast it high on the pyre. The wood began to sputter, to burn. Flames crept under the cloak-wrapped figure, burst out around the gleaming helmet and the shining gold of the death gifts.
Braggi the steersman stepped back, the men watching him. He threw his arms wide, his chin to the sky. His bared throat moved, fluttered, and then a low moan curled from him, rose like the black smoke going skyward from the pyre.
He cried out again and again, the eerie sound wind-whipped back into the cliffs of the loch. The Jarl stood with bent head, sternly silent, the bearskin in his arms.
The Viking crews threw back their heads and the low, mournful death song was begun. The pile of wood was now a mesh of flames, the figure on top hidden.
The massive Jarl stepped forward to the fire and threw open the once-white bearskin. He shook it once, the flames guttering before it, and then tossed it high onto the burning pile.
“Sweyn, son of Harald, son of Leif, take my death gift!” he shouted.
He stood close to the heat and smoke, watching the hide smoldering, burning reluctantly.
The thing finally charred; then little tongues of fire burst through it and it fell in shreds, disappeared. The figure of the Jarl seemed to sigh.
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