Erik the Red

by Tilman Roehrig

  Tilman Roehrig

  Erik the Red

  Translation by Oliver Latsch

  Sharpcliff

  He hadn’t counted how often he’d walked the stony path from the meadow up to the farmstead and back, nor how often he’d passed the other servants and Erik. They’d all been exchanging jokes in the morning, but soon everyone had fallen quiet, silently battling sweat and weariness. We’re two-legged hay-creatures, he thought, and I will soon choke on this smell.

  He carried the hay-filled sailcloth on his neck and shoulders. It was his last load for the day, and having reached the barn, Tyrkir dropped his burden with a sigh. He folded the cloth and shuffled back across the yard, scratching at the fleas. The new biters were everywhere, under his tunic, on his neck and arms. The two vertical jambs, the crossbeam, and the driftwood door were all one could see of the main building, which otherwise was nothing but a long, grassy hill that seemed to smoke from its depths.

  The scrawny seventeen-year-old stepped inside. He was greeted by darkness. The grassy sod between the floor supports smelled musty, and after three steps, he opened the inner door.

  “Drink!” Erik was standing by the barrel right behind the entrance to the hall, his red hair matted with sweat. He grinned at Tyrkir, dipped the ladle into the sour milk, and handed it to the slave. “Our first harvest. Thanks to the gods! You will see how we get our steer and cows through the winter. Come spring, we’ll have done it!”

  Tyrkir quickly emptied the ladle. He dipped it in once more and drank again. Despite their difference in class, he and the son of farmer Thorvald had formed a deep friendship, even with Erik being three years older. “Tastes better than any beer back home!”

  “This is home now.” Erik clenched his fist. “Forget Norway. This is Iceland, and by Thor, this forsaken rocky land will not defeat us. Never.”

  “All right. I believe it. But the hay will only get us through a month.” Before Erik could respond, Tyrkir added, “I know. We’ve found three more meadows with good grass. I know.”

  Erik threw back his shaggy mane and turned around. “It’s getting better, Father. Our wise German thinks so, too. All will be well, you’ll see.”

  He got no answer from the high seat near the center of the great firepit, which stretched like a glowing band through the main hall. The light from the embers flickered over the rows of rough beams supporting the ceiling before it faded into the dark of the two side rooms.

  “Father, tomorrow we should drag the ship higher up the beach. Who knows how long this good weather will last.”

  There was still no answer. Erik squinted toward the fire. No wave of the hand? No nod from the mighty head?

  Tyrkir shrugged. “The master is sleeping.”

  “Nonsense. My voice wakes everyone, even those without ears.” But the jest quickly died on Erik’s lips. The young men shot a glance at each other, then they both dashed toward the high seat. There was Thorvald, his back stiff, his gray-haired head against the backrest, empty eyes staring into the fire.

  “Father?”

  Tyrkir put his arms around his friend’s trembling shoulders. They stood that way for a long time, as though waiting for the scene before them not to be true.

  Outside, noise and laughter echoed down the hall. The other five male servants entered, along with two maids.

  Tyrkir rushed toward them, his hands raised in warning. “Quiet! Stop! The master is dead.” Unconvinced at first, they quickly saw the hard edge in Erik’s narrow, freckled face. Realization set in. The women pressed their lips together; the slaves nodded. One of them let out a groan.

  “Go outside and wait until you’re called,” Tyrkir said quietly before turning away.

  Erik was already standing behind his father in the dark. Tyrkir approached him slowly, keeping close to the rough pillars on the right side of the hall. Catching the eye of a dead man could bring terrible misfortune. Anything but that, he thought. The danger was too great that the farmer’s last thought would burn itself into his mind and torment him for the rest of his existence. He slipped into one of the side rooms and felt along the benches and tables until he found a woolen rag, then quickly started tearing it into small shreds.

  The two young men worked together in silence. They were ready. Erik approached the high seat from behind, reached around, and closed his father’s eyes. Now no more thoughts could escape from his eye sockets.

  Only then did they dare step in front of the dead man. Quickly, they stuffed a woolen shred into Thorvald’s mouth and used the other scraps to block his nostrils and ears. They could leave no opening for the spirit to slip out of the body’s protective shell so it could go on to perform terrible deeds. Only after they’d sealed every one of Thorvald’s seven openings did they step back.

  “Why did he have to pass on like that? As a straw-corpse?” Erik muttered, slamming a fist into his hand. “Father was a brave Viking. If anyone was deserving of a seat in Valhalla—”

  Tyrkir cut him off: “Not now. Later.” He called in the maids, and under his stern supervision, they cut out Thorvald’s toenails and fingernails. He threw them all into the fire; nothing could remain of them. Soon, the stench of burning keratin joined the thick smoke.

  Erik ordered the other servants to assist him, had them move the tables and benches from behind the high seat, and then he strode in a straight line from the chair to the wall. He scraped the outline of a big square into the wall with his knife. “Begin.”

  The men removed the sod and earth from the joints, before carefully lifting out the stones one by one. Two of the men rammed their spades into the protective layer, while the other two went outside to work toward them. The earth kept caving in, and it took much effort to keep the tunnel to the outside as narrow as possible.

  “It’ll do.” The twenty-year-old man lifted his father from the high seat. Tyrkir grabbed the feet and walked ahead, and so they shifted the dead master through the opening to the outside. They carried him a good stone’s throw from the house, placing the corpse on a rock. “It’s far enough.”

  Tyrkir folded his arms. Behind him, the servants had already begun to relay the bricks and patch the opening. They would soon have the six-foot-thick wall sealed again. “We will stand guard until we’re sure the master’s spirit won’t find its way back into the house.”

  The two friends stared down at the ship and out to the restless sea. The day was fading. It was July, and the sun was setting again, though its pale glow would keep lighting the night as it wandered east, beyond the horizon to reappear from behind the rim of the earth.

  “I mourn him. Had he known of his end, he would have asked me. I’m sure of it.” Tears dripped into Erik’s red beard. “One quick stab would have secured his eternal joy, but now he has to move to the domain of Hel.”

  Tyrkir understood his friend’s sadness. The thought of his father spending eternity in the dim afterlife under the earth rather than enjoying feasts and joys with the gods was grim. Up there, in Asgard, honorable Vikings rode out every morning to meet on the battlegrounds and measure one another with axes and swords, sparks flying and blood flowing. After the battle, all wounds would close, and the warriors would go back to the shield-covered Valhalla to feast with the gods. Every day was a feast day and a celebration. The vat of mead would always be full, and there would be an endless supply of bacon and meat from boiled hogs.

  But as Thorvald hadn’t fallen like a warrior—since he hadn’t himself determined the time and manner of his death—he would have to wander through darkness and cold to the realm of the goddess Hel. His path would lead him past roaring rivers, until he finally reached the golden bridge across the chasm, which would take him to the hall of the straw-dead. There, Hel reigned over all the shadows
. She was awful to behold. The body and face of the cruel goddess were half black and half blue. Only her eyes glowed brightly. She would assign Thorvald his place among the silent masses, where he would endure nothingness, boredom without even the tiniest diversion, until the end of all time.

  “The master was always good to me.” Tyrkir picked up a pebble and rolled it in his hands. “When he bought Mother and me, I was afraid of him. I was so small and scrawny.”

  “But you are also wise and clever, and that impressed Father.”

  The servants called them. Only the fresh sod showed where the opening had been. They had done quick and thorough work. Now they came nearer to help with the body.

  “He shall lie there, at the edge of the cliff,” Erik ordered, “looking east over the sea. Dig the grave as deep as you can manage.”

  There was no wood for a coffin; it was too precious. All that grew here in the stormy northwest of Iceland were scraggly birches, and what driftwood they found on the beaches was urgently needed for building houses or making tools.

  Erik secured his father’s sword. He left him some bread and meat for his journey, and then they wrapped him in sailcloth before lowering him into the knee-deep grave. One last silent nod, and then the two friends formed the burial mound with rocks. They gave it the shape of a ship, the bow pointing due east.

  “It’s not enough,” said Tyrkir. “Every stranger should recognize the master.” He crouched down and cut some runes into a stick, then rammed the rod into the middle of the pile. Erik said, “Read it to me.”

  “‘In memory of Thorvald the Brave.’”

  “That is good and true.” Erik nodded. “We will not forget anything, and he will live forever in our memories.” He turned to the servants and maids. “Come to the house. Let’s honor your master!”

  The high seat between the two richly carved wooden pillars remained empty. After the meal, Erik had the servants tap their only barrel of mead.

  Since their departure from Norway, Thorvald had guarded that barrel of intoxicating liquor like his own life. It was meant for their first Yulefest in the new land. Now it was tapped for a wake.

  Erik stood close by the great fire. He looked across at the maids, and then at the servants by his side. “Let me call my ancestors!” There was nothing more important than the clan. It was the only refuge. A freeman answered to no lord; he was responsible only to his family, then to his neighbors, and then to his people. Their names formed the chain connecting the forefathers to their children’s children. “Grandfather Asvald! Here stands the son of your son. Do you hear me? Bring your father, Ulf, and you, Ulf, bring your father, Oxenthorir, to us!”

  Erik waited. The only sound was the crackling of the fire. Suddenly, the smoke stopped rising to the wind-eye, the opening in the ceiling. Instead, it drifted as a thick cloud through the hall, before it again formed a pillar of smoke straight up to the ceiling.

  Tyrkir closed his eyes. He quickly thought of his ancestors far away in Germany. Even if I knew your names, you would not hear me. Never would you come to sit with me, a slave.

  Erik continued. “Today, Thorvald joins you. He was honorable and proud, like you.” Erik told of the campaigns and battles his father had fought, how he had built a farm in Norway and had become a farmer and trader. “He was respected and liked at all the trading posts. . . .”

  Tyrkir felt a sting. He no longer focused on the speech, his thoughts drifting to Haithabu on the banks of the fjord Schlei. It was where the Vikings had brought him and his mother after their raid on their home far south by the river Rhine.

  I was called Thomas then, he remembered, and I was just five winters old. And my mother? He didn’t recall her age, only that she had been beautiful and wise. And her smell when he snuggled up to her—he would never forget that smell. She’d served in the house of a slaver, carefully guarding her child, no longer raising him in the Christian way. “You have to live like these people. You have to think like them, or else you won’t survive when they take you away from me.”

  Getting used to his new name had been hard. She’d begun calling him Tyrkir, instead of Thomas. “There is no god in Viking heaven like Tyr” was how she began every story about Valhalla, teaching him to be proud of his new name.

  During the years that followed, Tyrkir had soaked up everything about his new surroundings. He’d only spoken German when he was alone with his mother. Otherwise, he’d spoken Nordic, like all the children in Haithabu. He’d soon learned every custom, and he’d learned to feel and think like them. His time in Germany hadn’t been erased, but it had become a distant secret buried deep in his soul, one he rarely touched.

  Tyrkir had lived eleven winters when the prosperous trader Thorvald came with his ship from Norway and took a liking to the slave woman and her child. He’d paid a high price for them. His laughter had been so loud when he squeezed Tyrkir’s mother to his side. The small boy had been terrified of him.

  During their journey back to Norway, his mother had become sick, and by the time they reached the homestead in Jaedern, she’d had to be carried off the ship on a stretcher. She’d died a few days later. Tyrkir remembered the farmer cursing: “A bad trade! Not once did she entertain me, not once did she work in my household. I paid good silver for her.”

  Then he’d looked at the crying boy. “I don’t want you, you scrawny thing. I’ll leave you to the wolves.”

  Tyrkir had wiped his eyes. “Don’t send me away, please,” he’d whispered. “I have learned a lot, Master,” and he’d shown how he could carve wood with his knife, how quickly he could build a fire. Then he’d dashed across the yard and back. “That’s how fast I am.”

  The master had muttered into his beard. “And what else can you do?”

  The little brown-haired German boy knew about herbs and healing plants. “My mother taught me. I also worked in the vineyards back home. . . .”

  “Wine?” Thorvald licked his lips. “The little mite knows how to press wine?”

  “Yes, I learned it all from my mother,” he’d lied. “Believe me, Master. I’m useful.” Desperate, he’d spread his arms. “I also know the gods, all of them! Odin, Freya, Thor, and the wisest god, Tyr! He chained the wild hound Fenrir and bound him for all time. Well, he lost his right hand in the process. . . . But I still have two! Tyr is the best warrior and the wisest scholar. That’s why Mother named me after him, because I’ll become like God Tyr—”

  “Quiet, you grub. None of us will be like a god.” Thorvald had grinned broadly. “Your everything, everything, everything is going to clog my ears. All right, you may stay. I give you to my son Erik. And woe to you if you keep him from his work.”

  In three years, a friendship had grown between the two boys. Erik, the strong, slightly irritable heir, and the agile, sharp-thinking, narrow-chested slave had found trust in each other. And today? They shared their joys and sorrows and were able to settle even the sharpest disagreements without falling out. It will stay that way, Tyrkir thought as he refocused on the speech.

  “It came to a fight!” Erik had just reminded everyone of his father’s quarrel with his neighbors in Jaedern, an insult that Thorvald could not accept without revenge. “By Thor, our fight was honorable. No ambush. We openly faced the enemy. But on the day of the tribunal, the witnesses testified against us. They’d been bribed.”

  The Thing-gathering had found Thorvald guilty of malicious murder, and the verdict had been the loss of honor. The farmer would only be granted a short period before he might be openly hunted and killed by anyone. Thorvald had quickly sold the farm, equipped his ship, and set sail with his son, some servants and maidservants, a few cattle, and the most necessary belongings. His destination was Iceland, the promised land of emigrants. Westward for seven days, through the ups and downs of the stormy waves. The dragon at the bow defied the sea.

  But they came years too late to claim good, fertile Icelandic soil. “No land for you!” Erik clenched his fist. “You, my friends, heard it again
and again. No land! We were pushed farther and farther north. It was only here, on Sharpcliff at Hornstrand, that we could finally build the farm.” They had all worked hard, including Thorvald, until a few weeks before he’d been overcome with fatigue. Because his limbs would no longer obey him, he had stayed in the house.

  “Take leave, friends! Drink with me to Thorvald!” Everyone in the hall grabbed their cups, draining them to the bottom.

  Erik looked at Tyrkir quizzically. They exchanged a nod and then Erik walked calmly to the seat of honor. The murmuring ceased—not one sound in the hall—as all eyes followed him anxiously. He slowly stroked the carving on the posts. These supports were like a sacred shrine. The leader of a clan maintained them, and everyone to whom these duties and rights were assigned added an ornament or magical sign at some point. Erik stretched his chest and took the raised seat.

  Tyrkir waved the servants and maids closer, signaling them to refill their cups. “Long live our Lord Erik, who is called the Red, and he shall live and protect us. May the gods never deprive him of their favor!” The servants joined in. Yes, praise to our new lord. The cups were filled and refilled again. Sip by sip, the sweet mead transformed the sadness of the last hours into the joy of serving Erik.

  But the great man couldn’t stay on the bench of honor for long. “If the gods have the right, so do we. Let us celebrate!” He waved his cup in his left, and with his free arm, he embraced the hips of one of the two maidservants, pressing her against him, then slowly turned with the girl still pressed to his side and kissed her. Breathlessly, he released the maid and grabbed at the second slave. “And you, Katla?”

  As the pretty maidservant pressed closer to her master, much to his delight, Tyrkir noticed the greedy hunger in the other servants’ eyes. There was danger in the air. Heated by the mead, they might easily forget that only the lord was allowed to help himself to the women. In three steps, he was beside the maid and pulled her away. “Leave it alone, Katla,” he warned quietly. His angry look sobered Erik for a moment.