Honour is All

by Marianne Whiting

  I had surprised the attackers. One was distracted and Kveldulf ran him through with Bearkiller. But others came to take his place. I tried to reach Kveldulf but there were too many enemies separating us. More and more came. Soon we were each alone, surrounded by Saxon warriors. I felt a sword slice into my thigh from behind, another reached through my defence and pierced my side. Kveldulf was on his knees still letting Bearkiller sing her deadly song. Two warriors ran him through from opposite sides. They grinned at each other over his broken body. My wounded leg gave way. A horn sounded short bursts. The battle was at an end. I stumbled to the ground and the noise retreated into darkness.

  I came to and heard the pitiful and sad mixture of sounds that make the music of a battlefield after the armies have left and only the dead and the wounded remain. In this remote place the only human scavengers were warriors who helped themselves to helmets, swords and mailshirts, the spoils of victory. Ravens and other carrion darkened the sky with their numbers and swooped down to dig their hard beaks into the flesh of the vanquished. Soon it would be dark and the four-footed beasts would arrive and use their sharp teeth to feed on the fallen heroes.

  I chased off a crow and crawled over to Kveldulf. His blood had painted his body and the ground underneath him. Bearkiller was gone as was his helmet. His mailshirt had been pulled from his body and through the torn shirt his bare skin showed, bruised and scratched. My helmet too had gone but I could see Dragonclaw under some trampled brushwood. I leaned against the rock and looked around. A seaxe lay discarded in the heather. I put it in Kveldulf’s hand and closed his fingers around it. Bearkiller would have been better but it was a weapon. I reached out and pulled Dragonclaw to me. Then I settled down to wait for death.

  The victors had, as custom dictated, left some people behind to light funeral pyres for their own dead. There was little fuel for such fires and smoke billowed thick and black across the moor. Soldiers and camp-followers walked the field collecting their fallen, helping their wounded and ignoring their enemies. Some of the defeated were making their way to safety, walking, crawling, supporting each other. The bodies of those who had fallen to Jarl Arnkel and Kveldulf must have been collected. I could see only Norse and Cumbrian warriors. Orm lay still clutching the wolf-banner and around him I recognised, or thought I recognised, the mangled bodies of what had been Ragnar’s old comrades-in-arms.

  When footsteps approached I thought it was yet more of the victorious warriors returning to make sure they left none of their own behind.

  But this one stopped and snorted. I looked up. Haeric, bloodied and leaning on a spear loomed over me.

  ‘So you’re alive, cousin,’ he said. ‘So am I. My father is dead. I woke up next to his body. They took his head. The cursed vipers, the treacherous trolls, they took his head. Now I shall have yours. I told you I would and that of your sons. I’ll take what I can now and one day I’ll catch up with that other little shit-head.’

  He raised his axe to cut Kveldulf’s head from his body.

  ‘Oh, no you don’t!’ Anger, fear and grief gave power to my voice. It unsettled him and he held off just long enough for me to realise that yes I could do this. I let go of my son and rolled to one side. Haeric smiled when he saw I was injured.

  ‘Both of you,’ he snarled, ‘this is a happy day for me.’

  ‘You belong to Odin,’ I began the warrior chant. I knew I would die here but I would die with honour and not until I had killed Haeric. I could not run, I could not even walk or sidestep an attack. He knew that and laughed out loud. I stayed on the ground but pulled my uninjured leg underneath me. I would be able to do one lunge at him. I only had this one opportunity. It must work. If it failed, Haeric would have both mine and Kveldulf’s heads to display as his trophies. My heart thumped, blood pumped from the wound in my side and ran down the inside of my thigh. Haeric came closer and raised his axe. He thought himself safe. When both his arms were held aloft I sprang at him. I landed on my knees and drove Dragonclaw into his exposed torso. That faithful blade found the spot between the waist and the ribcage and thrust upwards. He fell like a stunned ox. He landed on his back, arms still extended over his head. I rolled to the side to get out of his reach. There was no need. A thick stream of blood from his mouth and nose choked his breath from his lungs and soaked the ground. He looked up and his eyes met mine. So much hatred. I held his gaze until he could see no more.

  I noticed that he’d let go of his weapon. I was tempted but one should honour one’s enemies. There is no gain in humiliating a defeated warrior whatever he had intended to do. We are each of us responsible for our own honour. I closed his fingers round the grip of his axe. He had been a bad man but a brave warrior. Odin was in need of such.

  I trembled with fatigue. My legs were cold and numb. I no longer felt the pain from my wound. Shivering, I managed to reach Kveldulf’s body. I leaned against the rock and lifted my dead child’s head to rest on my lap. I held on to Dragonclaw and closed my eyes, weary, spent. I thought of Kveldulf and his brave fight against the many attackers. We would enter Valhalla together. I thought of Harald, Gudrun and Thorstein and also of Nanna. They were safe. I knew they were. With Eirik Bloodaxe dead there would be no more calls to arms. I stroked Kveldulf’s hair. It was hard to breathe. I took a shallow gasp. After a while I took another short breath, more like a sigh. Then all went dark. Dark and peaceful.

  Deep, resonant calls from a thousand horns. Music from lyres rising and falling like wind through treetops. Where am I? Still here, leaning against a broken shield. Stainmore Pass. The ambush, the treacherous attack. Kveldulf. My son! Yes, he’s here, his head resting in my lap. Haeric. I look around. Yes there, no more than four ells away, lies the cousin who sought to kill me. But this music? I raise my eyes to the sky. A rainbow, Bifrost. I shall see what no mortal has seen before – the Valkyries! On a storm of hooves they arrive. Their horses have tails and manes of silver that sparkles in all the reflected colours of the rainbow. They have no saddles or bridles. They sing, their eerie, haunting voices fill the sky. They are beautiful, tall, strong and unafraid. Their hair flowing behind them like golden veils. They are dreadful, they are the bringers of death. They have decided which warriors were to die today and now they come to collect them and bring them to Valhalla.

  One by one Odin’s Shieldmaidens select the warriors on the ground. They lift them on their strong arms to rest in front of them on their wondrous steeds and ride back across Bifrost. One picks up Haeric. Another stops by Kveldulf. He looks so peaceful. My child, my first born. The Valkyrie takes my proud warrior son.

  ‘What about me?’ I say.

  She looks at me with fiery eyes. ‘Someone will come for you.’ She salutes me and rides off. My son is on his way to join his ancestors in Odin’s hall.

  I’m alone in the mist. The rainbow is still there but fading. It is very still. The heather rustles under heavy boots. Who disturbs my peace? A voice reaches me through the silence. A familiar, dear voice I have not heard for a long time.

  ‘Thought I’d find you here.’

  ‘Ragnar!’

  He walks towards me, tall and proud, his hair like a golden halo and his eyes the colour of the sea. He smiles, the teasing smile that still makes me blush and smile back. I raise my arms to him and he pulls me to my feet. I leave my pain on the ground, strength is restored to my limbs and I know that like him I am young again.

  ‘Time to go, Shieldmaiden,’ he says. ‘Odin waits. Don’t forget your sword.’

  THE END

  Historical Notes

  Eirik Bloodaxe has captured the imagination of many but very little is known about him. Stories abound but the truth is elusive. He was one of 20 legitimate sons of Harald Finehair, the king who united Norway, or some of it anyway. He got his name Bloodaxe because he was said to have murdered some of his brothers and half-brothers – in other words he killed those of his own blood. He was King of Norway for only a few years before he was forced into exile when his younges
t half-brother, Hakon, gained the support of the Norwegian Jarls and was elected King.

  Eirik was possibly king of Jorvik three times:

  In 937, after the battle of Brunnanburh, Aethelstan may have appointed him his sub-king, perhaps as compensation for supporting Hakon when the latter ousted Eirik from the throne of Norway. Eirik was made Aethelstan’s sub-king on condition that he converted to Christianity. When Aethelstan died his successor Edmund got rid of Eirik who withdrew to Orkney and devoted himself to the traditional Viking pastime of raiding.

  There followed a period of war. The Kings of Wessex pursued their aim to rule over the whole of England and the Northumbrians (Norse) defended their independence and their tradition of electing their own kings.

  In 948 Eirik Bloodaxe was elected King of an independent Jorvik. It didn’t last long. King Aedred mounted a determined campaign and in 949 replaced Eirik with Anlaf Sithricson, known as Cuaran who had already been King of Jorvik a couple of times.

  In 952 Eirik was again elected King of Jorvik possibly after a battle. In 954 he was killed in battle or assassinated in an ambush depending on your source of information and point of view. He is said to have been unpopular both in Norway and Jorvik due to his greed. He was the last King of Jorvik.

  Queen Gunnhild’s identity is uncertain. She may have been the daughter of a shaman from whom she learnt sorcery. Or she may have been the daughter of King Gorm the Old of Denmark. The latter is very probable as she sought support from King Gorm’s son Harald Bluetooth after Eirik’s death. King Harald Bluetooth took one of Gunnhild’s sons as a fostring and was succeeded by him. (After some blood was spilt but that’s another story!)

  Gunnhild was reputed to be a volva and shape-shifter. Is it possible that the daughter of a king spent time with shamans to learn magic? Perhaps she was a hostage or captive as in some versions Eirik releases her from captivity.

  Or were there two wives? Eirik was born 895, Gunnhild sometime between 910 and 920. He may already have had a wife or concubine when he met the enchanting young daughter of King Gorm. Remember that Eirik’s father Harald Finehair had six wives and two recognised concubines so polygamy must have been quite natural to him, at least before his conversion to Christianity.

  Was Gunnhild an evil sorceress or one of the most vilified women in history? She was certainly ambitious and shared power with those of her sons who, in time, became kings. She was probably also greedy and encouraged the heavy taxes and dues imposed by Eirik and later by his sons on their subjects.

  ***

  Gunnhild and Eirik had seven sons and one daughter. Some sources mention nine sons. Were two of them perhaps by another wife?

  Haeric died with Eirik on Stainmore. Some name him as Eirik’s son others as the son of one of Eirik’s allies. He may well have been Eirik’s son but probably not by Gunnhild as Haeric is not listed in the best known sources as among her and Eirik’s children. Since his background is uncertain, I have taken liberties with this character and made him the son of another wife or concubine of Eirik’s.

  Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, was the real power in Northumbria. What drove him, time and again, to challenge the ambition of the grandsons of Alfred the Great to create a united England? He repeatedly broke his oaths of loyalty to the Wessex kings. He may well have seen them as usurpers if he adhered to the age-old tradition of elected kings. But he may also have preferred a Viking king who would be a warrior and leave the politics to him. Or did he have some argument about dogma with the Wessex kings, perhaps along the lines of Celtic vs Roman Christianity? He remains an enigma.

  Gudred was Eirik and Gunnhild’s second youngest child. He became King of Norway and seems to have been as unpopular as his father was. He abducted, raped and forcibly married the daughter of a Norwegian Jarl. She got her revenge when she called upon her servant to kill Gudred. In view of his adult life as a Viking in the traditional mould I may have made him a bit too nice in this story!

  Ragnhild Eiriksdaughter was, judging by her later history, someone to steer clear of. After Eirik Bloodaxe’s death, Gunnhild fled to Orkney with her children. There Ragnhild was married into one of the powerful families. She went on to arrange the assassinations of two of her three husbands.

  King Aedred did suffer from a congenital intestinal disease which eventually killed him. It has been suggested that some of his more extreme actions may have been committed when he suffered a bout of particularly bad pain. The Minster Cathedral at Ripon was burnt by King Aedred’s army. Was it a deliberate punishment of the treacherous Archbishop Wulfstan or an impetuous decision made while in great pain? He was supported and influenced by his mother and by Abbot Dunstan of Glastonbury.

  King Dunmail of Strathclyde and Cumbria was, it seems, averse to war but that may have been because he was not in possession of a strong army and preferred diplomatic solutions. I have, quite possibly been unfair to a ruler who was in an uncomfortable position hemmed in by Scots, English and Northumbrians all intent on expanding their realms.

  After the death of Eirik Bloodaxe and the removal from Jorvik of Archbishop Wulfstan, Northumberland was gathered into the English fold. There were no more kings or sub-kings, Aedred and his successors ruled through Earls. The northern part of Cumbria remained with Scotland and the southern part with England. Where the boundary went is uncertain.

  Magic was very much part of life in the 10th Century. The events in Honour Is All can all be given rational explanations. Sudden violent storms do occur in the Lake District, falcons, doves and ravens do what birds do. Gudrun is prone to exaggeration and attention seeking and Kirsten is much preoccupied with the supernatural, which in the end affects her mental health. Alternatively you may prefer the version where magic can be used for good and ill by people with special powers.

  About the Author

  I was born and brought up in Sweden. In 1973 I enrolled on a one-year course at Birmingham University. I am still married to the man who made me miss the boat home. Over the years I have worked as Teacher of Humanities in Leicestershire High Schools, as Study Support Organiser and as Sure Start Children Centre Leader in Leicester. I began writing in 2000 and my poetry and short stories have been published in magazines and anthologies. Shieldmaiden was my first novel, it was longlisted for the Rubery International Book Award which encouraged me to continue with the trilogy. I give talks about, for example: Britons, Saxons, Vikings – Who Are the English?; Anglo Saxons and Vikings – Cousins at War; Shieldmaidens and Other Warrior Women.

  For more information about me visit mariannewhiting.com and shieldmaidenthenovel.blogspot.com. You can also find me on Facebook where Shieldmaiden also has a page.

  Acknowledgements

  I owe a great debt to my dad, who died many years ago but not before instilling in me a love of History and Historical Fiction.

  A warm thank you to Rachel Cushion and all the enthusiastic young people working at Accent Press.

  I have had tremendous support through my writing career from Leicester Writers’ Club, without their encouragement this trilogy would never have been completed. I want to particularly thank Emma Lee and Siobhan Logan for encouraging (nagging and bullying!) me to engage with the marketing side of writing.

  Last but not least my husband Jon has continued to put up with more disjointed conversations and forgotten promises than can reasonably be expected by anyone.

  Marianne Whiting

  May 2017