by Griff Hosker
While those in the palisade roared and cheered my uncle ran to support my father. He was badly hurt and could barely keep his feet.
My father, leaning on Snorri, shouted, “This clan of warriors is a mighty band! Fear us, Danes, for we have beaten you!”
I held my sword out. This was not over. Suddenly the Dane I was watching ran, with sword raised. He intended to kill my father. In two strides I was behind him and my sword was already raised. I sensed Arne to my left. The Dane brought back his sword to avenge his leader. My father was no longer conscious and Snorri was supporting him with two hands. Both were within a swinging blade of death. I hacked down with my sword. I hit as though I was trying to fell a tree. The sword bit into the young Dane’s right forearm. It grated from the bone and made my arm shiver. The Dane screamed and dropped his sword. Arne’s sword drove through his back and out of his front. As he pulled out his sword the Dane fell dead and Arne and I whirled to face the other Danes. This was a moment filled with tension. There were enough Danes left to make a stand and we had lost men too.
Snorri’s voice was filled with authority, “Sheathe your weapons and you shall live. Go. Know that this is the land now of Jarl Lars Ragnarsson. Come north of the river again and you will all be slaughtered.”
One Dane stepped forward, “What of our jarl?”
Butar Beer Belly stepped forward and picked up the Danish axe. My uncle looked at him and smiled. Butar swung the axe and took the Dane’s head. He held it aloft. “You want the body? Take it, but the head stays here!”
Our men began banging their shields in approval. The Dane nodded and sheathed his sword. The others followed. While six men picked up the body of the jarl the warrior who had spoken picked up the young Dane Arne and I had slain. He turned to head east. I saw that he was of an age with Snorri and wore battle bracelets upon his arms. This was a warrior. He stopped when he saw Arne and I. “Had any taken my son’s head then this would have ended with more Vikings dead than left alive. I see your faces and they are etched in my memory. You will both die at my hand. I, Hakon Long Memory, swear it on the body of my son. He and my jarl have been denied Valhalla. You shall have the same destiny!”
He led the survivors of the attack east along the ridge. Snorri shouted, “Arne, take your crew back and protect the drekar!”
As much as we wanted to see to our father we knew that we had to obey orders. We had disobeyed once and we would not do so again. We sheathed our swords and headed down to the drekar. The boys lined the sides. I saw that they had slipped ashore and taken weapons from the dead Danes. They would do.
Sven shouted, “Have we won?”
I looked at Arne. Neither of us knew if my father would live or die. He had two bad wounds. Olaf shouted, “Aye but the jarl is wounded. Go ashore and fetch any more weapons and treasure that you can find.” We boarded the drekar as the six of them scurried up the slope to the bodies which lay there.
Leif said, “There are healers. Your aunt, Gytha, is a volva.”
Arne shook his head, “The wound to his arm was a bad one. I saw the bone.” Neither of us wanted to say it but his luck had deserted him. In the combat he had fought well but he had been luckless. Was this dream of a home far from Orkneyjar doomed to failure? It felt like it. We had lost men in the battle. Already perilously few in number, we would now have a small crew for our drekar.
We busied ourselves making the drekar secure. The boys returned with the weapons and treasure. Arne, as our leader, divided it equitably. We let the boys keep the weapons. We all had good ones and they deserved them. I went to the steering board with Arne. The small chest with the compass was there. I picked it up and opened it. “If he cannot fight can he still be jarl?”
“Do you know our people so little, Erik? You are a navigator but you do not know people. Our father cares not if he is jarl. He leads our clan whole or not. Snorri is a warrior. When we raid our enemies, his sword will lead us. This is just the work of the Norns.”
Siggi had joined us and heard our last words, “Arne is right Erik. We are brothers in blood and our fathers are too. The same bond which binds us binds them. This is a setback, that is all.”
It was getting on for dark when we were summoned. As we climbed the slope we saw to the east of us a line of Danish heads on stakes. The bodies were gone. Our dead were laid out under their cloaks. My father was not amongst them. Our first dead had been buried and stones in the shapes of boats laid around them. The ones who had died at the battle of the church would join them. Inside the palisade women were cooking. The dead had been attended to and now we would see to the living. Life went on. I saw bandaged men each look up at Arne and I as we passed. They nodded.
Snorri came to the door of the church and beckoned us. Olaf said, “Give Leif and I your shields and your swords. We will sharpen them for you. We are your oar brothers too.”
We nodded as we handed them over. I did not want to speak. It was as though my father was already dead.
Snorri gave me a sad smile, “Come and do not look so glum, your father lives and he would speak with you.”
The interior of the church which was now our hall was bathed in the light from the fire. I saw my mother holding my father’s right hand. Gytha was stitching his leg. Both women looked up at us and smiled. As we neared him my father said, “You disobeyed an order today.”
We both nodded.
“It was the right thing to do. Had you not then we might have lost. I keep underestimating my sons and nephew. I will not do so again.” There was hope for he sounded as though he would lead us once more. “My left arm is useless. The axe cut through to the bone and I can neither feel nor move my hand. The gods must have aided my arm when I stabbed him. I could not feel my hand. And my leg?”
Gytha did not look up from her sewing. The stitches were tiny. I could not believe that my father was able to endure the pain. My aunt said, “You will limp that is all, jarl.”
My father snorted, “Jarl? No left arm and a left leg which limps. Perhaps I am Lars the Lame!”
Snorri said, “This is wyrd. The Norns have done this to you. We spoke before the Danes even came of how we would defend our walls. There are four of you hurt and no longer able to fight. We saved the clan from the Danes and the Norns sent us four of you to stand on our walls. You can stand on a wall and fight, brother.”
“But I cannot raid!”
Arne knelt and put his hand on that of my mother and my father, “But we can. We are your blood. We have cast the bones and Erik and I will see that the dream is not lost.”
My mother smiled proudly at Arne. He was her favourite. “And you are in God’s house, my husband. You will heal. It was a miracle that you had the strength to stab the Dane. Do not give up.”
My father laughed, “Your mother means the Allfather!”
She said nothing but I knew what she meant.
Snorri said, “We had men follow the Danes. They have fled south of the river. They are hurt. They may return but not before the new grass. Tomorrow we finished the outside walls and the ditch. We hunt and we fish. We build long houses. In seven days’ time we raid. We go to the land of Mercia and we take the grain we shall need for winter. Larswick will be our home until our jarl decides where next we go.”
My uncle had lived in the shadow of his brother for so long that he had been almost invisible but that night he grew and became my father. He took charge and ruled for my father while the jarl of our clan healed.
Later, when darkness had descended and a watch set, we sat and drank the last of the ale we had brought. Finn the Scar said, “We have no name yet for this clan! The jarl called us a clan of warriors. A clan needs a name. What should it be?”
My uncle had joined those who were closest to my father and he stroked his golden beard. “I would say wolf for we are like the wolf. We look after our own but we are too close to the Land of the Wolf for that and I would not risk the wrath of the witch queen!”
Siggi said, “Then why not
the fox? The fox is tenacious. It will fight a wolf to protect its young even though it might die. It can live where there is just ice and snow and its fur is the same colour as the hair of my father and uncle.”
Finn the Scar said, “That is wyrd. We are the Clan of the Fox!” In that moment we were born as a clan. It did not change the way we fought but it changed the way we thought of ourselves. When newcomers came they joined a clan and that clan had a name.
As my father could no longer either work or supervise much fell on my uncle’s shoulders. Arne, Siggi and I also took charge of the younger warriors and boys. I took the snekke out to fish while Arne and Siggi had the young warriors dig a deep ditch. By the time we returned from the sea the gates were in place and the ditch half finished. Over the next days the work continued from dawn until dusk. The women dug turf so that when the gates and ditch were finished, we began to build the two halls we would need. As we had had such a productive two days of fishing Arne and I began to build a wooden quay. I wanted the drekar and knarr to be secure.
By the end of ten hard and long days my father took his first tentative steps and we had one hall already finished. He had a staff and walked without any other support. He nodded approvingly. When he had finished and returned to the heart of Larswick he nodded, “It seems you have done many things without me. We had a new name for our clan. We have walls finished and we have a quay. Perhaps I am not needed.”
“No brother, this was done for you. Tomorrow we take ‘Njörðr’ and we raid for grain. You will command here.” He pointed to the ship’s boys I had been training. “We take half of these with us as ship’s boys but the others have shown that they can fight. Erik has trained them well.” He turned to me, “And we would have your son helm the drekar.”
My father turned to me, “That is not a command, Erik. Can you handle, ‘Njörðr’? Can you stand in my stead? You have a beard and you have killed many times. You can sail the snekke but are you ready for the drekar? Only you and your heart know this.”
“I barely have a beard!”
Snorri laughed, “You do not sail a ship with your beard. My son has told me how you outwitted the drekar. You are a navigator. You are a sailor. The question is, are you ready for this?”
I looked at my father and then my brother. “Aye, uncle, I am ready.”
“Then, Erik the Fearless, go and prepare your drekar!”
Chapter 12
We had the three elder boys as ship’s boys. Sven Fámrsson, Stig Folkmarsson and Eidel Eidelsson, had all shown that they could be relied upon. We only had twenty warriors aboard and that would include me. My father would have eight men to protect Larswick for some had not yet recovered from their wounds. Snorri seemed confident that we would be able to manage. All were better armed thanks to the Danish attack. The Danish jarl’s byrnie was now worn by Butar. We had their spears. I had taken the best of the shields we had found and painted a fox upon it. I hoped it would be luckier than Petr’s had been. We were not sailing far. The Maeresea was a few hours south of us. We would sail up it until we found a settlement and raid it. This was not the way my uncle and father had planned it but the Norns had spun and we had to adapt. When I took back the hourglass from my father, I felt complete again.
My leather byrnie was now studded with even more pieces of metal. I brought my spear. I would have to go ashore. Every warrior would be needed and we would have to leave the drekar under the care of three boys. It was not ideal. We only took ale with us. Any food which we needed would be taken from the Saxons. My uncle stood next to me, along with Siggi and Arne. It was not to ensure that I did things right it was for moral support. We sailed down the coast and that made navigation easier. We left at noon which meant we would arrive at the estuary well before dark. The men would have to row upstream. We had the advantage that we could lower the sail and keep it on the mast fish. It would make us harder to spot.
Snorri said, “Your father is strong you know. He will learn to adapt to an arm and hand which are useless. He is clever. He believes in what he is doing. He should have been jarl on Orkneyjar. The King of Norway would not have taken it over then!”
“I know you believe I can do this but I have never sailed these waters.”
“None of us have, Erik. Your father believes, we all believe, that you have a gift given to you by the gods. You are young and yet you seem to be part of the drekar. Ask Olaf. His grandfather sailed for many years but he did not handle a drekar like you do. We have been at sea a short time and yet you have not made a single mistake. The sails have not flapped and you have barely had to move the steering board. That is truly a gift. Trust in this gift. The gods guide your hand.”
Sven’s voice came from the mast head, “Sands to the larboard side.”
I glanced to my left and saw that although the trees were many miles away it was sand which lay between us and not the sea. I had a piece of wood I was using to mark the coast. I had copied one of my father’s charts with charcoal and by using the hourglass and the compass was marking the rough position of features as I saw them. This was an important one for if the tide covered those sands then they could be deadly shallows for other drekar.
Arne laughed, “See, little brother. If I had the steering board, I would have looked at the sand and then forgotten it!”
Ahead I could see sea birds. That meant either a shoal of fish or an estuary. I said, “This may be the estuary, Snorri.”
He nodded, “Warriors, prepare for war and take an oar. We earn our berth now!”
I was pleased that I had been right and I saw the wide mouth of the river a short time later. It felt strange to be giving orders to warriors. “Oars out!”
I did not trust myself to steer one handed and so I stamped my sealskin boot on the drekar’s deck to give them the beat. I put the steerboard over. The river was wide and there was no obstacle I needed to avoid. I saw that there were people living on the bluff overlooking the river. They could not hurt us. We would be faster than any man running to warn them along the river. A signal tower might have worked but there were none.
“Lower the sail!”
The three ship’s boys were not as strong as we had been and they struggled. Leif and Olaf were close by. They shipped their oars and ran to help. I should have thought of that. It was not disastrous. We had time to get upstream. As far as we knew there were no burghs closer than Ceaster. The ship’s boys managed to store the mast unaided and Leif and Olaf returned to their bench. Sven and his brother came to me shamefaced as Eidel went to the prow. “I am sorry, Erik.”
I shook my head, “It is not your fault it is mine. It needs four men to lower the sail and I sent three boys. When we have raided, I will have the warriors raise the sail. Now go and help Eidel to watch. I need all the information you can give me.”
The sun was lowering in the sky behind us. I kept turning the hourglass and I had an idea that we had enjoyed ten hours of daylight. At this time of year, we could have thirteen or more. Stig came running back, “There is a sharp turn to larboard ahead and the river narrows.”
“The three of you need to form a line to direct me.”
“Aye Erik!”
“Snorri, slow the beat. The river narrows.”
“Aye Erik.”
We had no chant. We wanted no noise to alert those nearby. Once we spied a large enough settlement then we would land and raid.
Stig was by the mast fish and he pointed to larboard. I put the steering board over until he raised his hand. Then I straightened it. As I did, I spied three huts on the south bank. They were not worth raiding. I had just looked up when Stig pointed to steerboard. I put the steering board over and a short time later he held up his arm. I was sweating. It was not hard work it was just nerve wracking. The sun had been steadily setting. As Stig waved his arm to steerboard and I turned a little towards the south bank the rays of the setting sun disappeared behind the bluff we had just passed. The land before us was plunged into darkness. The river was narrowin
g rapidly. Just before the light had disappeared, I estimated it to be no more than forty paces wide. In the end the darkness helped us. We saw in the darkness ahead the glow from a house. Someone had opened a door and the light had flared out.
I said, “Snorri, there is a light ahead and the river narrows. I would not wreck my father’s ship.”
He nodded, “You are right. Put us over. Larboard oars in.”
I put the steering board over to take us to the north bank. The ship’s boys were ready and they leapt ashore and fastened us to two huge willows which overhung the drekar. If the mast had not been on the mast fish it might have been damaged. I opened my chest and took out my helmet liner and then my helmet. I donned them. I took my shield from the side and my sword. By the time I had done so the drekar was empty and Snorri was leading the warband up the river bank. I knew I would regret not turning the drekar but I comforted myself that the river was still thirty odd paces wide. Our drekar’s hull was just twelve paces long. We could turn.
“Sven, I leave your brother and Eidel with you to guard the drekar. You have weapons?”
“Aye, Erik.”