by Jason Born
“A little young for a bride,” I said, mockingly. “You think because I’m done plowing your sister, that I’ve given up on it altogether.” I actually would give up women for a long while. If I was decidedly chaste, I could avoid the pain women brought to a young man’s heart. “You couldn’t find me someone older?”
Leif and Magnus laughed at me. I punched Magnus in the chest, hard. He gasped for air. Leif stopped laughing. “I couldn’t afford someone older. Besides, she’s not to marry you. I suppose if you can keep her alive long enough, you may take her as your wife when her time has come. I bought her to take the place of my mother and my sister for you. Thor knows they doted on you.”
“They did not!” I protested a bit too much, then thought about it. “Perhaps your mother, but never that wretched sister of yours.” I called her wretched, but at the time, I think that if she materialized out of the mist that I’d have, for the third time, proposed marriage, damning the consequences. By Hel, that red-haired woman had me enchanted.
“Why me? Why her?” I asked, pointing down to the waif with hair the color of barley chaff. It wasn’t the bright hue of barley after a beautiful growing season. No, her hair better resembled the plant and husks after a wet spell when the creeping, brown blight took over. It wasn’t a bad color, but it wasn’t radiant. The drabness could have been due to the fact that Aoife’s last bath may have been a year earlier. She scratched at lice in the barley chaff on her head.
Leif shrugged. “I already told you that you need someone to take care of you.” He patted Aoife on the shoulder before shuffling past me. “As for ‘why her,’ I think you’ll see. Don’t be too long getting acquainted with the girl.” He grabbed Magnus by the arm and dragged the helmsman with him. The two young men giggled like children half their age. “Godfrey will be down shortly and then we run off for our first true command and adventure.”
“Your command,” I mumbled. “I command nothing, not even my own life.” I wasn’t really angry about my lack of command, but I felt like being upset about something. I peered down at the young nymph-like thrall. I could hardly take care of myself and now I had to provide food, shelter, and clothing for a little girl – all with a few pennies. Oh, that frozen bitch, Hel, and the norns were having a time that day!
I heard a ruckus from up the hill toward the village, looked up, and saw that Godfrey was coming down to the dock. Loki was next to him and carried a hudfat that was stuffed with the king’s armor and extra weapons. Gudruna walked on the other side of the king, her arm locked in his. The two, husband and wife, chatted easily. The way her eyes looked up to his told me she loved or at least respected the man.
The pair of royal lovers ignored Horse Ketil who ambled confidently after them swilling the day’s mead. It was as if he held court of what he thought were his Manx citizens. Men clapped his back, wishing him good fortune on his adventure. One woman gave him a kiss on his cheek. Only Ketil’s wife, Edana, was absent. With all the fanfare the Manx noble garnered, I saw that Godfrey was truly only a sometimes-king.
“Ahem,” came a high-pitched, though soft voice from below. Aoife frowned while tugging on my jerkin. By the time I looked down, the girl held her arms crossed in front of her chest. I think her foot tapped. She had to be a relatively recently made slave, I thought, in order to show her new master such insubordination.
“Now you listen to me,” I started with a wagging finger.
Aoife snatched the finger in her dirty hand and held it tightly. “You listen to me,” she began in passable Norse with an accent that sounded a bit like Killian’s. “Out of twelve children, I’m the twelfth. My father’s a man who, other than managing to keep himself alive for too many years and broadcasting his seed into my mother’s seed bed with amazing proficiency, has accomplished something less than little. My mother, tired and worn, is much the same. When I was young . . .”
“Young?” I asked the six year old.
“Young. Now don’t interrupt because I’ll say this just once. When I was young I remember walking along the shore line to the great sea that stretches out forever into the setting sun. My mother was with me and had just finished telling me for the fifth time that day that she and my father could hardly figure out how to feed themselves in their old age, let alone feed me. I remember looking down in the basket that I carried and seeing how it was filled with whorled periwinkle for that night’s soup. To me it seemed like enough food for a king. Then my mother gasped.”
“Because of a basket of sea snails?”
“No, because that very boat right there was sailing up to the coast.” Aoife pointed to Raven’s Cross. “The old woman nearly died from fright on the spot. I asked her, what was the matter, and she said that the men on that boat were pirates and would kill us all and take what they would. My mother hiked up her skirts and ran home to warn the rest of the brood.”
“And you didn’t,” I surmised.
“Of course I didn’t!” she scolded, wrinkling her small nose. “My parents had already sold off my older sister, the eleventh child. It happened right after my mother finished telling her that they could hardly afford to feed themselves. My time was coming. So I took matters into my own hands and shouted after my ma. I still remember what I said. ‘One day I’ll own a ship like that! She’ll have lovely oars! So I’ll go with those pirates and stand in the stern. I’ll steer their damned ship and put into ports or slide into shore. I’ll take plunder and maybe kill a man or two!’ That’s what I said to her before I marched down to the beach alone and confronted that man there.” This time she pointed to Godfrey.
“And did you steer Raven’s Cross?” I asked, bending to one knee to study the feisty, filthy girl. One of her front teeth was missing. The other was half grown.
“No! So it is your responsibility to see that I am given the proper authority on our strandhogg. I mean to become rich and kill a few men.”
I chuckled into her face. She tugged my beard, hard, so that I yelped.
Godfrey and Gudruna stepped next to me. The king asked, “I’ve heard that’s the kind of response you normally get when you propose to a woman.” Leif and Magnus were on the dock behind me laughing along with the king. Leif had not been shy in telling all of Man about my money woes as well as my on-again, mostly off-again romance with Freydis.
“But the king thanks you for sharing your periwinkle with the crew that day, Aoife” said Gudruna. King and queen giggled and moved off with Loki and Horse Ketil in tow to chat with Leif about the last minute preparations.
I couldn’t believe that the king would accept Horse Ketil as one of his soldiers. If Godfrey allowed a man who was clearly opposed to his reign or could benefit from the king’s fall to raid with him, then we were in a sorry spot indeed. Loki’s voice echoed in my head, “Politics of the Irish Sea.” I suppose we were desperate for every man we could get.
Aoife jerked my beard again so that I faced her. I poked her in the belly with a rigid finger. It was her turn to yelp. “You should find a way to run back to your parents,” I said while she was doubled over. She spat out a curse or two in her native tongue.
The little, hard girl shrugged when she gathered her composure, again standing as tall and proud as her tiny frame could muster. “Dead. Killed by King Godfrey. The aged pair could only tempt fate long enough until the reaper came through the fields and harvested up their over-ripe carcasses.” I marveled at how the cold girl held her parents in such disdain while I, hardly knowing mine, held them in the highest esteem. She went on, “The raiders took a few of my brothers as slaves and sold them at the Monday slave auction in Dyflin. Godfrey kept me for sport – he said I made him laugh – until that Leif of yours paid two English pennies for me. But now that I’m yours, I mean business. I’m not waiting on Providence any longer.”
I rose to my full height and snatched the girl by her ear and pulled her after me toward the boats. “Come, my little Valkyrie.”
“What’s a Valkyrie?” she asked, swatting at my ha
nd.
“I’d thought you’d know since you seem so precocious. They’re the women who lead men up to Odin’s hall once they die. I think you’ll lead me to my death so that a real Valkyrie can take over once I fall.” My hand began to sting where she kept up her incessant slapping. I let go of her and allowed her to follow on her own.
I gave Leif a stern glance as I shoved between him and Godfrey, but Leif’s mind had moved to the mission. “The man shouldn’t come,” I heard my friend saying to the king.
“I wish it were that simple,” answered the Godfrey. They pointed over to where Horse Ketil had plopped his rump on a hudfat and nursed his cup. “He and his wife are of no importance by themselves. Look at him,” the king derided, “I’m sure he can’t fight. He does nothing of value. However, the drunkard holds sway on the north end of the Isle. It is through Ketil that I’ve made a peace pact so that I can rummage about the sea and not worry about losing my island while away. In that way it is better to have my enemy close so I can see what he’s doing.”
Killian called down from Raven’s Cross. “I side with our newcomer. I don’t trust him.”
“Shut up, priest,” said Godfrey.
“I won’t. We shouldn’t take the village drunk on this strandhogg. ‘Tis bad luck,” answered Killian.
Godfrey waved off the priest with disgust. “You don’t believe in luck, Christian.”
“Nor do you, Christian,” parlayed Killian with a twinkle in his dark eyes.
Leif threw up his hands. “Then we get him gut wrenching drunk. Pour Horse Ketil more and more ale. He’ll suck himself to sleep,” said Leif. “We’ll be to Anglesey and back by the time he wakes up.”
Gudruna shook her head. She whispered to Leif, “Have you learned nothing during your time here? Those of us of Norse descent are outnumbered on Man. There are always political reasons to consider. Ketil should be treated as a full member of the crew even if it means giving him undeserved favor now and again.”
I could take no more of their yapping. Their talk of politics gave me a headache. I again reached to tug Aoife’s ear and pull her away. She was quick this time. The girl smacked my hand and began marching to the Charging Boar. “It’s about time we moved on from that talk. We’re adventurers Halldorr, you and me. We don’t have time to discuss this alliance or that faction. We’re killers, hard stone killers.” Aoife took one look at the boat that was to be her transport into her first glorious battle and stopped in her tracks. “I can see I’m going to have a lot of work to do to whip you into shape.” With that, she scampered up the gunwale, using the strakes and an opened oar hole for toe holds.
And I you, Valkyrie, I thought.
CHAPTE
R 3
Horse Ketil drank, slept and vomited on our ship. Though politics had deemed it mandatory that he come with us, the king drew the line on actually sharing a longboat with the stinking creature or traitorous bastard, as the case may be. Even the two thralls on board, Tyrkr and Aoife, appeared cleaner and gave off a better scent than his oozing, fetid stench. I’m sure he heaved, not because of the ale, which was the same ale he’d been drinking for days or perhaps years. Our boat, short and wide compared to the king’s, pitched on moderate swells that day. As we traversed every bottom, Horse Ketil’s face showed that he felt the weight of the sour piss that danced in his stomach. The contents of his retching splashed onto the deck planking then splattered the strakes. Thankfully, the spray from the wind and sea washed the yellow streaks and puddles away, down into the bilge where the ballast stones sat securely on the ships strong ribs.
The skies looked like a rainstorm would blow in sometime. Huh! It always rained. If Greenland had nothing but rocks and ice, rocks and ice, rocks and ice, Man had nothing but rain, rain, rain. In the month since arriving, like the regular beat of a heart, it rained one afternoon and was dry the next, only to rain the following day and repeat itself again and again. The rocky terrain of the island was the only thing that kept its inhabitants from wallowing in shin deep mud for their entire miserable lives.
It was good to again be at sea. Her waves meant freedom to me. Today they were also the highway to riches, or death as the case may be.
Magnus was at the steering oar of Charging Boar. I was peeved since my thrall, the girl who was supposed to be my servant, was chatting with the helmsman, asking all she could about how to guide the ship. Aoife should have been fumbling with my whetstone and nearly cutting her fingers off with every passing wave as she put a new edge on my ancient, tarnished blade. I told her as much. Instead, she was aft starboard making Magnus laugh with wild yarns. He let her hold the rudder for a moment but the power of the sea scaled right up the steering oar – long ago fashioned from a mighty field oak – and rapped her on the cheek. She was sent tumbling to the deck. Magnus laughed. I smiled and went back to sharpening my own blade as I sat on the baggage. I suppose the girl was learning something that resembled a lesson even though she disobeyed her master.
Leif snaked his way through the men who sat or lay scattered about the planks, bags, and trunks. The wind was ample, filling our red and white striped sail like water filled a bowl, and our fellow Greenlanders rested their strong backs until the time came when they again dragged the oars through the surf. My young friend steadied himself on the oars over his head. They were stacked on the T-shaped brackets at the ship’s center. “I don’t like it that Horse Ketil is here,” he said.
I slowly slid the stone down my blade’s edge. “So throw him over. Even his fat wife would believe that the drunk toppled off the side. His followers will believe the same.” I held my blade aloft and tried to catch what little sun filtered through the clouds that day. Nothing. Even if I had found light, the blade was so old, so tarnished that if I slowly twisted it in a sunny meadow, I’d be rewarded with the same dull sight. It would still kill a man, but I doubted it would help us against draugr.
Leif ignored my comment. “Even the priest says he’s bad luck.”
“What does the priest know about luck? He knows only his Providence.” A gull swooped low, overhead, its droppings peppering our decks. We were already approaching land after our short journey. “Luck or fortune comes from our norns, Providence from the One God.” I tapped the side of my blade with a wide palm. “I can show Horse Ketil what his fate may look like.”
“Shut up, Halldorr,” said Leif, shaking his head while looking down at Horse Ketil. The stinking beast moaned continuously. His face was a mixture of blue and green, smeared with yellow spittle. “I suspect something. Ketil is more than he seems.”
“You see things that aren’t there,” I said. The truth was that I had seen the same signs. The king had spoken, though. Ketil was a member of our army. What could I do?
My blade quickly found its way into its wooden, fleece-lined scabbard. The sheath was an old one, like the sword. It had cracks down its entire length where the countless summers and winters had dried out the grain. I set the belt, blade, and scabbard amidst the baggage and lay back, resting my head on my clasped hands. “So do we even know where this mythical treasure is located?” I asked with my eyes closed.
“Didn’t Eyvind tell you?” asked Leif.
I opened just one of my eyes to study the man. “I thought you listened to everything we said that night.”
Leif smiled, recalling that night. “To a point. After the queen pulled me under my cloak a second time, I lost track.”
“Was she as good as Tofa,” I asked laughing. Tofa was a rotund woman with pendulous breasts who frequented many a man’s longhouse in Eystribyggo. She was advanced in years, perhaps thirty, and was with young Leif the morning we left for our exile. She’d been his first.
Leif smiled too. “Halldorr, you can’t compare women. They’re all good in their own right.”
“So she was,” I guessed. “To have a queen,” I said wistfully.
“Aye,” was all that Leif said. “Gudruna’s a fierce woman. She runs the island while Godfrey is away. I’ll n
eed a woman like her one day if I am to return to Greenland and become jarl.”
“We won’t be going anywhere and you won’t become anything unless you can come up with a plan for Anglesey. I don’t think this Maredubb will allow sixty armed men to trot around his island until we stumble across just the right barrow mound. Who knows? There may be one hundred of the hills. How will we know which to dig?”
“Just ask!” Aoife had climbed up the baggage pile from the aft side and was perched behind me. I saw the distinct mark of the rudder on her cheek. One half of her stringy barley hair dangled in her face. The other side was pulled up and tied in a knot near her crown. She used her dirty toes like the claws of a marten to clamber around on the heap. “How do you think I managed to stay out of the thrall auction at Dyflin? The king says that I amuse him. Well, how would he know that unless I spoke?”
“Shut your mouth, little rat,” I said. I put my mitt against her chest and gave her a playful shove. She rolled into a sleeping crewman. Her toes were soon jammed into his face as she climbed back to her place next to me. I laughed at her. She smiled at me for the first time. It was a good smile.
“No, Halldorr, she’s right,” said Leif. Without looking his way, I knew that his face was bright and would show that his mind was turning on an idea, an idea given him by a scruffy rodent who talked too much.
. . .
After Leif had shouted over to Godfrey on Raven’s Cross and the king agreed to his plan, we changed course, angling to port. Rather than landing in some cove or wharf on the north side of Anglesey, we would come in from the east. Young Leif ably served as our captain on the short journey. He called to our fellow Greenlanders on board, giving them zealous speeches about war that would only sound fine to men who’d never been in a real fight.