Hrodgar walked past carrying his dinner, heading toward the small raised deck in the stern where Hastein and Torvald were sitting. When he saw me he paused, then asked, "May I join you?"
"Of course," I answered.
"I will sit on your sea chest, if you do not mind." After he had settled himself there, he said, "I am glad I finally had the opportunity to see you shoot your bow this morning. I have heard tales about it from Einar, of course." He chuckled. "Cabbage-Slayer. That was a good jest. But the speed and accuracy with which you shot was a fine thing to see. Your father, Hrorik, would have been proud of the warrior you have become. It is a shame he did not live to see it."
"If he had lived, I would not be a warrior," I replied. "I would still be one of his thralls."
Hrodgar was silent for a long time. In the dark, I could not make out the expression on his face. Finally he let out a long sigh, and said, "Ah. Yes. I had forgotten about that."
What Hrodgar had said to me was kind. I hoped my reply had not sounded churlish. "It is difficult for me to think of Hrorik as a father," I told him, trying to soften my earlier words, "for I never knew him as such." After a few moments, I added. "I thank you for speaking for me this morning to Jarl Arinbjorn."
"Hunh," he replied. "It was clear that he believed you had tried to trick his men so Torvald could win their silver. His feelings were understandable, but unjust. That is not a thing you would do. A man who believed that honor and fairness required him to pay me for killing my hounds, although I had sent them to help hunt him down, would not engage in the kind of petty trickery Arinbjorn suspected."
I was surprised that Hrodgar placed such import on my regret for having killed his hounds. He had been deceived by Toke into offering them to help track a man whom he believed had aided in the massacre up on the Limfjord. I had not blamed him for helping Toke's men hunt me, and had not wished him to suffer loss because of it.
"Have you ever sailed across the Austmarr?" I asked him.
Hrodgar shook his head. "I have not traveled widely. Some men are strongly called by the Viking life. They desire the wealth and adventure that raiding—successful raiding—can bring, and have little use for a life of peace. Jarl Hastein is such a man. But going i-viking was never a hunger in me. I find more pleasure in my family, my home, my village, than in the thought of stealing someone else's silver. I have no need for that kind of wealth, or to sail to distant lands. I prefer to see the changing seasons upon the Limfjord, and the rewards each brings. Seeing new lambs born to my ewes in the spring, hearing the wild geese sing as they cross the sky in the evening, such things are my wealth. I will fight if need be, and my spear has drunk blood more than once, but the life of a warrior has not been mine, and I do not regret it."
"Then why did you join in the attack against the Franks? Why do you sail on this voyage?"
"There are things a man must sometimes do even if he has no desire to do them. King Horik sent out the war arrow, calling upon all Danes to join in the attack against the Franks, our enemies. It is a scot that our kings rarely demand, but when they do, it is the duty of all free men to respond. It has happened two times before, that I am aware of. My father answered the war arrow when the Franks' King Louis attacked our lands, but was driven off by the bravery of our warriors. And in the time of my father's father, King Godfred called the Danes to rally in the south of Jutland to repair and strengthen the Danevirke, and defend it and our lands from a mighty Frankish army led by their King Charles, who was a great killer of men. The Saxons who lived to the south of Jutland fell to his armies after a long and bloody war, and now their folk are scattered or enslaved and their lands belong to the Franks. But we are Danes, and no foreign king will ever take our freedom or our lands. It is a lesson it seems we must teach the Franks and their kings time and again."
"What of this voyage? Why have you left your home behind for it?" What I truly wondered, but did not ask, was, Why did you choose to follow this path when your wife returned from the land of the dead to warn you it will cost you your life?
"You father, Hrorik, was a fine man. Although I saw him only rarely after he moved to his great estate far to the south of the Limfjord, when we were younger men we were comrades. And his son, Harald—your brother—was a fine man, too. I would not have Harald's murder and the slaughter of the folk of the farm up on the Limfjord go unavenged. I feel I owe a blood debt to Hrorik's line, and do not wish to leave it unpaid. But for the courage of Hrorik's older brother, my village might have fallen to Gotar and Svear raiders, and my wife and children might have been carried off and ended their lives in slavery."
I nodded. "Einar told me about the attack."
"My body is aging and grows weaker with each passing year. There are not many winters left in it. This thing—helping you find Toke, and kill him—will repay my debt, and is a good way to use whatever time is left to me. I have lived a long life and I am satisfied with it. All I wish for now is a good death."
Hrodgar took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Your own life, though brief so far, has been a strange one. I have never known, nor even heard of, any man who was born a thrall but went on to become a warrior, and a very fine one, at that." He paused for a few moments, then continued. "I have never owned thralls. No one in my village has. We are simple folk. May I ask…does it anger you that you were a slave?"
His question startled me, and at first I was taken aback by it. But I knew Hrodgar meant no offense.
"When I was still a slave, it angered me greatly," I replied.
"You did not think it was your fate and accept it?"
"I gave no thought to things like fate, and the Norns, when I was a slave. The carls of the estate, and especially Hrorik—the man who sired me, but was never my father—were no different from me, but they were free, and could live whatever lives they chose, whereas I was merely property. The free women could choose whom they would wed, but my mother, who once was a princess in Ireland, had no right to refuse Hrorik whenever he wished to enter her bed and use her for his pleasure. She, too, was merely his property, and had no rights. Would such things not anger you?"
Hrodgar did not answer my question. Instead, he said, "The past is the past, and cannot be changed. Your own past—including that you were once a thrall—is part of what has shaped you into the man you have become. Iron must be beaten with the hammer and burned in the fire to become steel. You have grown into a fierce warrior and a fine man. I hope your past will not always anger you."
* * *
We sailed due east all of the next day, following the coastline of Skane. By day's end, we reached the point Arinbjorn had told us of where the land fell away to the north. From here on, we would be beyond Danish waters.
It turned out that Stig had sailed this way many years before, when he was a young man. "I was in the crew of a ship on a trading voyage," he told Hastein. "Our captain had never sailed the Austmarr before, so he followed the shoreline, as we have been doing. I remember this part of the voyage—I remember that after leaving Skane behind, the shoreline turned to the north. We eventually discovered that the shoreline gradually curved around and formed a huge bay, beyond which it turned north again. On our return voyage, instead of following the shore we sailed straight across the mouth of the bay and saved considerable time."
"How long will it take, sailing straight across?" Hastein asked.
"Just one day. With any decent winds at all, if we make an early start we will make land on the far side by evening."
"What course would we need to follow to sail straight across?" Torvald asked.
"North by east."
What Stig remembered proved true. As evening approached the following day, we reached a cluster of islands lying off the mainland and made camp for the night on the outermost one. A marshy inlet lay a short distance down from where we pulled the prows of the Gull and the Serpent up onto the beach. From the honking we could hear coming from it, it was apparent that many wild geese were nesting there. Eina
r and I looked at each other, grinned, and headed that way with our bows.
Tore saw us leaving and hurried after, carrying his bow, too. "Wait for me," he cried. "I am coming."
An extra bow might help us harvest more meat, but with Tore behind it, it might have the opposite effect. Though a good man to fight beside in battle, he was not a skilled hunter and tended to be clumsy and loud in the woods. "You will have to be very quiet," I told him, when he caught up with us. "And do only what I tell you to do." To my surprise, he did not protest.
"Spread out," I whispered to Tore and Einar, as we neared the edge of the inlet. To Tore, I added, "Try to pick a spot where there are several geese close together, and have extra arrows out and ready. Watch me. When I rise up, we will all shoot together. You must shoot as swiftly as you can. For a few moments they may not realize what is happening, but it will not take them long to become frightened and take flight."
I moved down along the shore of the inlet, keeping low behind the fringe of tall grass and reeds that lined the water's edge, until I happened to see the long necks of two pairs of geese raising and lowering above the level of the reeds. Always one in a pair would keep watch, while the other fed.
I glanced back down the shoreline. Einar was squatting, watching me. Beyond him, Tore was doing the same. I pulled three arrows out of my quiver—each with wide, sharp hunting heads—and stuck their points in the sandy soil so that they stood upright in a line in front of me, then laid a fourth arrow across my bow, its shaft resting against the top of my bow hand, and nocked it on the string.
I nodded to Einar, and when he nodded back I stood up swiftly, drawing my bow as I did. The two watchers—from their size, they both looked to be the males of their pairs—swiveled their heads in unison toward me, but did not sound any alarm. I focused my gaze on a spot on the breast of the farther of the two watchers just in front of the edge of its wing, opened the cupped fingers of my right hand releasing the bowstring, and reached down for another arrow.
The twang of my bowstring and soft whoosh of the arrow through the air did not startle them. Clearly, these geese had never been hunted by men. My arrow hit the goose where I had aimed and passed clear through it. The big bird flopped over, dead by the time it hit the ground. Its mate honked in alarm, and both of the other pair turned and looked in its direction.
My second arrow hit the female in the second pair while she and her mate were looking away. She was the closer of the two to me. The arrow's impact as it passed through her body knocked her forward to the ground. Hearing the sound, her mate turned back around and honked in alarm, then waddled over to her, trying to discern what had happened. Meanwhile the female in the first pair, realizing her mate was dead, raised her wings in preparation to fly. I snapped off a quick shot that hit her, but not cleanly. She fell on her side, then staggered back to her feet, honking loudly, and headed off down the shore, dragging a wing that had obviously been broken by my arrow.
By now the last goose had reached its fallen mate and was standing over it, honking loudly in distress. All across the shore of the inlet other geese, heeding the sounds of alarm, were taking flight. I pulled my final arrow to full draw and sent it into the center of the grieving male's breast, then trotted in pursuit of the wounded female.
Einar also took four geese. He killed all of his birds cleanly, and he laughed as he watched me chase my wounded goose back and forth along the shore trying to catch her, until I finally gave up and shot her again. Even Tore managed to take three. As he walked up carrying two clutched in one hand, hanging by their legs, with the third and his bow in his other hand, his face beamed with a huge smile.
"Look!" he exclaimed. "Three geese! I have never before had such a day hunting. We must hunt together more often."
I did not relish the thought of Tore becoming a hunting partner. But he had not looked happy since Odd's death down in Frankia. It was good to see him with something other than a glum frown on his face. Tore had his faults, but he was a true comrade nevertheless. I smiled back and said, "But now the real work begins. Now we must pluck them."
Fortunately several others from the Gull's crew, including Gudfred from the estate and Bram and Skuli from the village, volunteered to help us pluck and clean the geese. By the time we finished, the beach was covered with tufts of wind-blown down.
Though it was a good harvest, eleven geese could not come close to filling the bellies of eighty-one men. While the big birds roasted on spits above two long fires built in shallow pits dug on the shore, Cullain and Regin prepared large pots of barley and vegetable stew, as the men of the two crews staved off their hunger by gnawing on some of the smoked herring we'd purchased on Mon. The smell of the roasting geese made for a festive air to our evening, and Hastein authorized a cask of ale to be broached and shared among the men while we waited for the birds to cook.
"If my memory is correct, it will take us less than a full day's sailing to reach the southern end of the island of Oeland on the morrow," Stig told Hastein. "What of the pirates that Arinbjorn said might be there? What shall we do about them?"
Just then, Einar called me over to the cook-fires to consult on whether I thought the geese were done, so I did not hear Hastein's response. But a short time later he walked over to where Cullain was tending the stew, closed the lid of the wooden chest in which the little Irishman stored his cooking gear, and stepped up on it. Cullain frowned but said nothing.
"Gather round," Hastein called. "There are matters I need to tell you about."
The men of the two crews, who had been milling about on the beach or resting aboard ship while the meal was being cooked, came and stood expectantly before him. When all had arrived, Hastein continued.
"Before we left Mon, Jarl Arinbjorn warned me that in recent months, a fleet of pirates has been hunting the waters off a large island called Oeland. On the morrow, the course we follow will take us past Oeland. It is a long island, and it will take us more than one day to pass it by.
"Stig sailed this way many years ago. He tells me that the center portion of the island lies close to the mainland and the passage between them becomes a narrow strait there. He thinks that if pirates are hunting, that is where they will likely be lying in wait.
"I do not know the strength of these pirates—how many ships and men they number, or even if they are still in these waters. If they are, I think it unlikely they would wish to attack two longships filled with fighting men. But we would be foolish to be unprepared. For the next two days, you must all keep your weapons with you rather than stowed in your sea chests. If they need sharpening, see to it this night. Those who possess brynies or other armor should wear it, and keep your helms and shields close at hand."
* * *
The next morning, after we had broken the night's fast with the day meal, I opened my sea chest and began pulling out what I would need to arm myself. I sorted through my arrows, putting the best ones in my favorite quiver, and filling the extra quiver with the rest.
I had stored my mail brynie rolled up in the padded jerkin I wore under it. Taking them out of the chest, I unrolled them, pulled the jerkin on over my head and shoulders, then did the same with the brynie. I now normally wore the small knife that had once been Harald's. It was poorly suited for fighting, though, so I slipped its scabbard off of my belt and dropped it into my sea chest, threaded the belt through the loops of my dagger's scabbard, and strapped it around my waist.
While the Gull was at sea I kept my bow in its sealskin case lashed with my spear against the side of the ship, by the position where I normally rowed, near the stern. My shield was there, too. I placed my sword, its baldric wrapped around the scabbard, the two quivers, and my small-axe on the deck against the side with them. If we encountered pirates at all this day, it was likely to be only after many hours of sailing. There was no point encumbering myself with my weapons until there was an actual need. Last, I pulled my Frankish helm—which I had taken, like my brynie, shield, and sword, from the bod
y of Leonidas, the young Frankish cavalry officer I had killed—from the sea chest and added it to the pile of weapons. The mail curtain attached to its back and sides made it somewhat heavy but did protect my neck. More importantly, the fact that it had no nasal bar, unlike my other helm, was less distracting to my aim when I shot my bow, although it did leave my face more exposed.
Bram, the young man from the village, walked up and opened his own sea chest as I was finishing. "That is a fine looking helm," he said.
I nodded. "It is Frankish," I told him.
His own preparations were far simpler than mine. He was already wearing a large seax in its scabbard on his belt. He pulled a small-axe from his chest and stuck its handle under his belt, in the small of his back. He, too, kept his spear and shield secured to the ship's side near the stern.
"Do you not have a helm? Or armor?" I asked. The latter was not surprising. Mail armor was expensive and somewhat rare. Mostly just wealthy men owned it, or those who, like me, had stripped it from the body of a slain enemy. But since Bram had gone raiding before with my father, Hrorik, I would have expected him to at least own a helm.
He looked embarrassed by my question, and shook his head. "I had a helm," he answered, "but I lost it on the voyage to England with your father. In the battle with the English, when we were running for the ship."
I lifted the lid of my sea chest again. "I have an extra one," I told him. "And I have this heavy leather jerkin, too. You may use them if you wish."
Bram's face lit up and he took them eagerly. "I thank you," he said.
* * *
The morning winds, though of modest strength, blew in a favorable direction and we forged our way steadily north, hugging the shoreline of the mainland. That had been Stig's suggestion. "If there are pirates ahead, it's possible they may have lookouts along the shore of Oeland," he'd told Hastein. "If we sail close to the mainland, we will be able to travel undetected for a considerable distance along the length of the island, before the channel narrows enough to be seen across from one side to the other."
The Long Hunt (The Strongbow Saga) Page 15