Honour is All

by Marianne Whiting

  ‘Sigrid Kveldulfsdaughter, it is a pleasure to see you again.’ He led me to sit next to him behind the large table in the centre of Leifr Olafson’s feasting-tent. Leifr sat on Dunmail’s other side and the local chieftains were placed according to rank. Some commented on my elevated position. Leifr tried to placate them. Dunmail didn’t seem to notice but began to caress my thigh. I brushed off his hand.

  ‘Noble King, I am honoured to have been placed at your side but there are chieftains here who surpass me in years as well as in rank. I fear some may feel overlooked. I seek no favours but those I am entitled to. Please allow me to take my rightful place.’ I didn’t wait for his reply but rose and went to sit in my accustomed seat half-way down the table. I didn’t care if Dunmail was insulted. I was a respected farmer and warrior, not a plaything. Other guests nodded their approval. Eysten Mordson winked and raised his meadhorn at me but Kohl Ivarson, next to me, muttered:

  ‘Honourably done, let’s hope you don’t live to regret it.’

  Lawman Leifr Olafson had a reputation for hospitality and this feast was as sumptuous as any I had attended anywhere. The abundance of meat made me wonder whether they’d even done their autumn slaughter early; there was wine, mead and strong ale; there were sweetmeats from foreign countries and each guest had their own measure of salt in a small bowl.

  When all the guests had eaten their fill, we came to the real purpose of the feast. Dunmail cleared his throat and spoke.

  ‘Fellow Cumbrians, we have shared the dangers of the battlefield and...’ Someone disguised a derisive laugh with a cough; others looked at each other with raised eyebrows. I wondered how Dunmail had the stomach to utter such lies. We all knew he had run not just from the battle at Legburthwaite but from the one at Brunanburh as well. He seemed oblivious to our scorn and, when the man had stopped coughing, continued:

  ‘There’s peace in our land and we all benefit from the benevolence of our illustrious overlord King Malcolm. Delivered from the dangers and hardships of war you have made your land rich and your farms prosperous. But…’ He looked around at us and his smile died. ‘But there is danger. Our peaceful lives are under threat.’ He paused to refresh himself from his beaker. This gave one of my neighbours the opportunity to ask:

  ‘Is King Aedred on the march again? Is he not satisfied with what he already has?’

  ‘Not Aedred,’ said Dunmail and wiped his whiskers with the back of his hand. His eyes met mine and I shrank back in my seat. This was what Leifr had tried to prepare me for. Dunmail lowered his voice to a near whisper: ‘The former King of the so-called Kingdom of Jorvik.’ He waited for this to sink in. I glanced around me. Astonishment and worried frowns were on every face. I was grateful to Leifr. I would not have managed to restrain myself without his warnings. Eysten gave me a grim smile and nodded that he understood. I felt better for his support but not much.

  Dunmail revealed that Archbishop Wulfstan had left King Aedred’s court, where he had been a near-prisoner, and headed for the North. That much he knew from Malcolm’s scouts. The rest sounded like guesswork but, I had to admit, very plausible guesswork. Wulfstan was expected to launch yet another campaign to gain independence for Jorvik. I knew, of course, that he had little confidence in Anlaf Cuaran, who he regarded as King Aedred’s puppet. If Eirik had raised an army among his Orkney jarls, Wulfstan would be sure to support him. It could only mean one thing: war.

  ‘But,’ said Leifr Olafson. ‘as I understand it, after we were defeated at Legburthwaite King Malcolm received Cumbria from King Edmund against the promise of support. But that promise was made to King Edmund in person, so that duty would have lapsed when he died and Aedred became king.’

  I felt a glimmer of hope. It was soon extinguished.

  ‘King Malcolm swore an oath to Aedred at Tanshelf, as did I and Archbishop Wulfstan. We are not, like the Archbishop and his Northmen, oath-breakers. King Aedred is our ally. We Cumbrians are honour-bound to muster under the combined banners of King Malcolm and King Aedred.’

  I closed my eyes and saw my Cumbrian neighbours with King Dunmail on one side, Ragnar with King Eirik on the other and me caught in the middle. Eysten saw my distress and whispered:

  ‘It might not come to that.’ But he didn’t look all that confident.

  Dunmail was, however, very confident when he declared: ‘You should all be ready for the call to muster. It will be early this spring. Failure to respond will be regarded as treason.’

  That’s when Kohl Ivarson’s temper got the better of him.

  ‘Treason to whom?’ he bellowed. ‘We are not your subjects. We pay our dues but our sworn allegiance is to our Thing, our laws and our gods. Nobody has ever tried to order us about before and it will not happen now. We shall vote and decide together which way our interests lie.’

  Dunmail’s face took on an unhealthy shade of purple. He glared at Kohl and shouted: ‘Are you a man with nothing to lose? To dare insult your King. Who is he?’ This to Leifr, who had the look of a man caught on the horns of a raging bull.

  He poured Dunmail another cup of wine and set the bowl of candied almonds in front of him.

  ‘Kohl Ivarson is a faithful Cumbrian, he sometimes gets his facts a bit mixed up. I plead your forbearance on his behalf.’ His smile was ingratiating and his voice soothing. It was not a pretty sight, our Lawman fawning to a king none of us had any respect for, but it worked. Dunmail sat back, stuffed a handful of almonds into his mouth with one hand and grasped his beaker with the other. Leifr continued to pour flattery into the King’s ear and wine into his cup. I helped Eysten and another neighbour persuade Kohl that this was not a good time to voice his resistance to Dunmail’s ideas of who decided over us Cumbrian Norse.

  Lawman Leifr rose to indicate that the parley was over. ‘Expect a message to meet here again in Spring.’

  ‘To vote on whether to muster or not,’ shouted Kohl as we led him outside to calm down.

  My hird had already gleaned the news from servants and thralls. Their faces showed that they understood and were no happier about the news than I was. They lined up with a flourish as if to show their solidarity. I drew a deep breath and straightened my shoulders. I must not show the turmoil that raged inside me. It was late but, in the dark, the camp was alive with talk and speculation. Most of the voices were resentful and angry. We were all expected, forced in fact, to fight on the side of a longstanding enemy against people we had seen as our allies. The night air cooled me and helped clear my head. But it didn’t provide any answers.

  Back at my booth I found Ylva’s parents and my relatives from Buttermere and Rannerdale waiting. We sat down and compared the rumours they had heard with my information from the meeting with Dunmail. Ragnar’s sister, Gyda, said:

  ‘You must find Ragnar. He may not be aware that Dunmail must side with Aedred and that he will call on the Cumbrian Norse. What if Ragnar is with King Eirik and you and Anlaf have to fight for Dunmail? Ragnar must come home. And,’ she added with a glance towards the cooking fire where Nanna Kjeldsdaughter turned the spit, ‘you must find Kveldulf too.’

  I looked at Nanna. She was pretty. Since she came to live at Becklund she had filled out and her cheeks had regained their healthy colour. Now they were red from the heat of the fire, her dark hair fell in ringlets from under her headdress. She had caused no real worry. Vida had taken a liking to her and so had my fostrings. Most of the rest of the household had accepted her – only Aluinn and Thrall Toki still regarded her with hostile suspicion. The girl had made herself a pauper in order to support my lawsuit against her own father. Was it time to put my suspicions to rest? Was the threat of a war that would crush my family more important than my son’s unwise choice of lover? At that moment she straightened up. Our eyes met and I saw her mother in her and I felt a stab of fear. It lasted no longer than a heartbeat before she lowered her eyes and the likeness was gone.

  I realised they were all looking at me.

  ‘I don’t know where Ragnar i
s,’ I said, ‘or Kveldulf. If they’re with Eirik, I can’t go. Eirik would invoke family-duty and claim my sword for his side, and Kveldulf’s as well.’ Ylva put her hand up:

  ‘Would that be a bad thing? For myself, I would rather fight for King Eirik and the freedom of the Kingdom of Jorvik.’ Unn nodded as did my five warrior women. I looked at them.

  ‘First of all, be clear about this, if there’s any fighting at all, my fostrings will be sent to the safety of their fathers’ farmsteads.’ They raised their voices in protest but I stood firm. ‘I learnt my lesson from the last battle when one of my fostrings was killed. You are not coming. As for choosing sides it’s not as simple as that. If we join Eirik’s army you will be fighting family and friends. Is that what you want?’

  ‘They might agree with us and come too,’ said one of the fostrings. I shook my head.

  ‘And lose farms and land, expose their families to attack from those who think different? No, the only way to avoid fighting for Dunmail and the English is to stay out of the battle altogether.’

  ‘That would get my vote,’ said Anlaf, ‘but how do we do that?’

  There were still a couple of days left of the Thing. Dunmail left and Lawman Leifr was busy talking to people.

  ‘Yes,’ he said when Eysten, Anlaf and I approached him, ‘we shall vote on the matter as usual and deal with the consequences whatever they may be. I am quite sure that nothing will happen before spring. Eirik and his Jarls will over-winter on Orkney. They won’t be able to muster until the Mud Month is over. Hold your Yule blots as usual and then you have two more turns of the moon before I call a meeting of the Thing. It will give you time to think and prepare yourselves. But have no doubt Eirik Haraldson has set his aim at the Kingdom of Jorvik. Well, I say Eirik Haraldson but really, as you know Sigrid, I should say Archbishop Wulfstan. An independent Jorvik strong enough to stand up to the English has become his life’s ambition.’

  We were not the only ones who felt unhappy at the thought of more fighting. Many families had suffered great losses at Legburthwaite and had cherished the peace to build up their farms and trading endeavours. The settlement around the Thing-mound buzzed with arguments and speculation. Maybe that was why the children had more freedom than usual. In the case of my children that was never a good thing.

  ‘Mor, you have to do something,’ said Harald, frowning and shaking his head. ‘Some of those little ones will get seriously hurt.’

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Gudrun, the little troll-head, she’s organised a battle.

  She’s been training her hird and now she’s issued a challenge. It’s all because you wouldn’t let her take part in the football game.’

  ‘Gudrun has a hird? Who’s in it?’ I wasn’t quite sure whether I was proud or angry, maybe both. Harald sighed.

  ‘The usual bunch: our Rannerdale cousins, Asa, Skuli and Yngvar and Valgerd Thorfinnsdaughter as well, Aisgerd and Sif from Buttermere, Osred and Cub, who now wants to be called Varg Njalson because Cub is for babies, Thorstein of course and …’

  ‘Thorstein! Where are they? Why didn’t you tell me before?’

  ‘She didn’t confide in me. I should have known there was a reason why she left me in peace.’

  He led the way and we were joined by other parents in varying stages of panic. In a corner of the horse-meadow two groups of about a dozen stood facing each other. They were boys and girls no older than eight or nine and some, like Thorstein considerably younger. They were in the process of forming two shieldwalls while shouting bloodcurdling threats and obscenities fit to make the most debauched berserker blush.

  ‘They’re armed! Those are real weapons.’

  ‘Yes,’ Harald pointed to the middle of one of the shieldwalls. ‘You may be interested in looking closer at my little sister, her headgear in particular,’ I spotted her behind a familiar looking shield.

  ‘Gudrun, that’s my helmet! Gudrun, Gudrun, come here immediately.’ But the miniature warriors were now banging their shields with their weapons and there was no way my daughter, or any of the others, could hear me. ‘Oh, no, look, Thorstein is over there. Quick Harald grab him.’ He set off and I raised my arms and walked straight in between the two shieldwalls just as they began moving towards each other. Stones, arrows and the odd spear sailed through the air. I waved my arms and screamed at them. Then I don’t know what happened because something hit me on the head and everything went black.

  ‘Just lie still,’ said a familiar voice and as always I obeyed. ‘If you need to be sick use this pail.’ Kirsten sighed and put a cold cloth on my forehead.

  ‘My head …’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harald, ‘you were hit by a stone. You could have been killed, Mor. What in Odin’s name made you just walk in between them like that?’

  ‘I had to stop them.’

  ‘Shush now, Sigrid, just lie back and rest.’

  ‘Is Thorstein safe? Where’s Gudrun?’

  ‘I’ve got them both,’ said Harald. ‘It was tempting but I have managed not to kill either of them. Lots of other parents came when they heard the noise. There’s quite a lot of shouting, shaking and beating going on around here at the moment.’

  ‘Harald,’ said Kirsten, ‘this is not funny.’

  ‘Oh, come now, Kirsten, it has a funny side to it surely. Mor wading into a battle without shield or helmet trying to stop it by the sheer force of her anger. It worked too, they stopped almost straight away.’ Kirsten turned to him:

  ‘Out, Harald! Go and see that your sister and her “hird” are waiting for their punishment.’

  I slept through the rest of the day and the night. The next day I had a lump on my forehead but Kirsten declared me fit to receive visitors. It took most of the morning. A whole army of small miscreants came with their parents to apologise. They all brought gifts and some, who suspected the stone had come from their offspring, offered compensation. I absolved every one of them, children and adults, from responsibility – I was quite certain in my own mind who was the ring-leader. As they left my booth each parent received an apology from Gudrun. I was just grateful that nobody else had got hurt or the whole thing could have worked out very expensive for me.

  I called Gudrun in for a serious conversation. She arrived with tear-swollen face and demurely downcast eyes. I was almost, but not quite, taken in by this show of contrition,

  ‘What have you got to say for yourself, Gudrun?’

  ‘Oh, Moo-ho-hoor, I’m sorry!’

  ‘You can stop the crying. I want to have a grown-up talk with you.’

  She hiccupped a couple of times and looked confused. ‘But I’m not grown-up.’

  ‘You are now. You can go back to being a child when we’ve finished talking but for now I want you to be very grown-up.’

  ‘But can I still be your little squirrel?’ She knew the power of those eyes. I hardened my heart.

  ‘At the moment I’m more interested in Gudrun Ragnarsdaughter. We can either have an honest talk about this or I beat you black and blue.’

  She knew, of course, that I had never beaten any of them. Maybe it was the lump and the colourful bruise on my forehead that lent credence to my threat because she sat down quietly.

  ‘Why? What made you even think of it – real weapons?’

  ‘I want to be like you. We were only going to use sticks but then…well, you see…’ She stopped and sighed.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Some of the boys were showing off their weapons so I said I could get better ones than theirs.’

  ‘You could have agreed to just use wooden swords and axes. They hurt but you wouldn’t kill anyone.’

  ‘I didn’t trust some of them and I wasn’t going to be caught out.’

  Somewhere at the back of my mind I could hear Ragnar laugh.

  ‘So you had real weapons even though they weren’t going to.’

  ‘No, no, not like that. We agreed to make it real.’ Her eyes wandered off to one side.
<
br />   ‘Don’t lie to me, Gudrun.’

  ‘Well, I thought we agreed.’ I didn’t quite believe that either but let it rest.

  ‘Did it occur to you to ask a grown-up to be there and make sure nobody cheated?’

  ‘No, cause nobody would have let us fight then.

  Maybe Varg would have or Thorfinn but they are dead.’ It was difficult to argue with the logic of that.

  ‘Why could you not just fight in the competitions? They are a very good way of testing your weapons-skill.’

  ‘I wanted to know what it feels like on a battlefield. I told you I want to be like you. I want to be a shieldmaiden and when I die I shall be a Valkyrie.’

  What was I supposed to reply to that? I accepted Gudrun’s assurance that she realised she could have caused somebody’s death, that she was deeply sorry and would never do anything like it again, ever. She then tried to extract permission to join my fostrings in their weapons training. We compromised that she would, together with Cub and Vida’s son Osred, get serious weapons practice albeit with wooden swords.

  The next ordeal imposed on me by my children was the great horserace.

  ‘You have to be there,’ said Harald and that was that. It was however very different from last year. Kjeld Gunnarson’s horses were still there, he had traded widely and many of my neighbours owned animals from his stable. But Kjeld himself was missing and the whole atmosphere was more friendly, less frantic. Ole had not been put off by his experience the previous year and made good use of his knowledge. He was quickly off the mark and headed for the upper route. Lord of the Fells responded to him and they came in third. Ole beamed with pride and excitement.

  ‘Next year,’ he said. ‘I promise you, Mistress Sigrid, next year.’

  ‘Next year, my friend,’ said Harald, ‘I’ll be doing the riding. Your turn to watch.’

  ‘We might have more than one horse by then,’ said Ole. ‘Stargazer is shaping up nicely. The year after we should try to persuade Gudrun to let us race Rainbow.’

  ‘Bribe, you mean,’ said Harald.