Still, the question put Botulfr instinctively on his guard. Centuries of enmity between Norse and Kristin were threaded through his core. He’d never spoken to a Kristin and never expected to. All he knew was that they never washed and enjoyed mounting from behind, like a mare in heat. Unsurprisingly, foreign tongues were used strictly by the skalds to prevent corruption, and even then, they were only tolerated for diplomacy or commerce.
“My father is well known for burning all the Kristin teachings.”
The skald raised an amused eyebrow.
“Your father doesn’t burn every Kristin book. The Lindisfarne Gospels, for example: far too valuable for Thormund to turn to ashes. As much as it galls me, the whole empire is built around writing down the sagas. If we hadn’t learned the value of books from the Kristin, our gods would be ghosts in the trees.”
“You make it sound personal.”
“History is personal. I was born in the cradle of Saxland, I have suffered Kristin depredations directly. But it is also professional: Latin is a language of learning, Grikk a language of ideas. The runor is for farmers who want to whittle a love note on a stick or mark the days to sowing on a calendar. Besides, what kind of skald would I be if I couldn’t tell my prince stories of his enemies as well as his ancestors?”
Botulfr warmed to the thought quickly.
“Will you write my saga, Askr?”
“That, my Prince, depends very much on whether we do anything worth reading, but I will keep it in my thoughts. Let’s make sure you can actually read and write first, shall we?”
The skald laughed heartily, placed a reassuring hand on the prince’s shoulder and left the thought to dance in the flames of the fire.
THE NEXT MORNING, ASKR THRUST a leather-bound book into his ward’s face the moment Botulfr’s eyes opened. He was clearly excited.
Botulfr grimaced in the dawn light.
“Askr, the birds aren’t even awake,” he groaned, only to realise the birds were awake and happily chirruping all around: the sun smiled early at this time of year. The hirdsmenn were readying the ship, and he was still rubbing his eyes.
“Copies, of course, although not translated. They are still in the original Latin. Saved from the cathedrals at Jorvik and Kantarabyrgi during the conquest.”
Someone crunched past the tent, scattering stones as he headed to the byrding. Olaf, already packed.
“Furore Normannorum libera nos, Domine,” Olaf called into the tent. From the fury of the Northmen, Deliver us, O Lord. “Or at least, spare us their lazy children. Come now, Askr. Stop worrying the boy. You train yourself in the art of being mysterious to everyone, my friend! What if there were no one who cared about guessing your riddles, what pleasure would you then take in it?”
Askr scoffed at the Austman.
“You thought enough of my story to mount the rescue.”
“I still do. Once you are born in this world, you’re old enough to die. I agree, something is rotten in the kingdoms of the Danir. He has to be told. But at least let him eat first.”
With that the Austman walked down the beach. Botulfr struggled into his tunic and hoisted his trousers, grateful for the reprieve. It seemed the whole mood of the camp had changed overnight, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out why. Even the birds seemed to fall into an expectant hush. He fretted so much that, unsurprisingly, his tent was the last to be tossed aboard.
Olaf was hauling the byrding off the beach. As he waded alongside Botulfr, he winked, then nodded toward the skald.
“This is important, young Prince. You should listen when an old dog like Askr barks.”
Harald gripped the other gunwale. He was more surly than usual; he clearly hadn’t had much sleep either.
“And do I have to listen? Something tells me I am going to be stuck listening to his barking for weeks. Look, we fight with the Frakkar and the Grikkir every year. Most of the time, Óðinn is with us, and with axe and spear, we take our inheritance. Sometimes, we are forced back to our ships.” With a grunt, and one last push, the byrding was free of the breaking waves and into the open sea. “That’s just the way of things.”
Askr planted his feet squarely on the deck and gestured to the horizons, as if he had learnt his sense of theatrics from a Grikk rhetorician.
“For two hundred years and more, we have warred with the Kristins. That is our way of life. We sail our fleets every summer to faraway lands, and we bring back fresh plunder, slaves, silks, and silver. We settle new lands, and we farm until it is the next season to fight and the leidang is raised. We fight to live, and we live to fight. But how does the cycle end?”
Botulfr stared blankly, feeling sheltered and foolish and focused on his oar. He was thankful it saved him from meeting anyone’s gaze.
“A truce?” called over Olaf, guffawing at the thought.
“A truce, he says! My grandfather was murdered by the Frakkar during a so-called truce. Let me ask another way—we know why the Northmen fight. Why do the Kristins fight?” A practiced pause. “They fight until we accept their god, or until we are all dead. Saxland is proof enough of that.”
Askr rummaged in a sack at his feet and withdrew a wooden case with parchment inside. He unfurled it and then lowered his voice, speaking with the sadness and solemnity of a funeral oration.
“It’s all here. These are the Royal Frakkar Annals. Karl the Butcher’s saga, if you will. Parts of them, at least. I have retrieved other manuscripts too, letters from Frakkar scribes, Grikk texts. If you can read the words of your enemy, you can understand him, and if you can understand him, you can defeat him. The raid on Lindisfarne, seen through Kristin eyes, was a divine punishment, and we Northmen were the agents of reprimand. Do you know what that means?”
“They don’t like us much,” said Gest laconically as he finished with the sail and let the coastal breeze carry them along the shore.
“Worse. Much worse. The Kristins are Polar Night to our Midnight Sun. They believe us an enemy sent by their god to test their faith. They fight to destroy their demons—us. To them, ours is a war between Heaven and Hell.”
“Such a performance,” clucked Harald. “I’d applaud if my hands weren’t busy doing all the work. Now tell him the bad part. The reason we so kindly invited the prince on board.”
Askr sighed, and paused for a moment, then moved to sit opposite the prince.
“As much as it pains me to say, there was, there is, a faction at the palace that planned to have you… go missing. Your mother was born at the ends of Midgard, near the Vargsea, near Persiðaland, yes? Your father found her there, a beaten child, in need of rescue, and took her north?”
“So I was told. They married before he was crowned. My brother Eirik, his mother had died in childbirth and my father remarried quickly.”
“And you look like you mother? Her same olive skin, her lustrous black hair?”
“That is plainly true. Your point?”
Botulfr felt very self-conscious. He had clearly been different to most of the fine or fire-haired Norse; he assumed it was because he had royal blood. His mother used to tell him he was as dark and fearsome as thunder; he was coming to realise she had made a virtue out of necessity.
All four men loomed over the prince now, close enough to make him feel uncomfortable. There was nowhere to hide from either the discussion or their inspecting eyes, and he suspected that was why Askr waited until they were at sea: the intimacy demanded honesty.
“You don’t look anything like a typical Norse prince, carving your path through the sagas. If anything, if I am being charitable, you look like a Grikk or a Serkir, a hero of Troy perhaps. Pardon my directness.”
Botulfr nodded, almost imperceptibly, as he weighed the implications. The skald’s face grew graver still.
“The jarls whispered it is because you were conjured by Kristin angels. Some say you were born a Svartálfr, a dark elf. Your father’s marriage and your birth were called affronts to the gods. A pretense, of course, but here
siarchs are wont to divide opinion.”
“This nonsense is why my mother was murdered?”
The words burst from the boy, frustration and anger turning to tears. All at once, he was disgusted by the colour of his skin and the weakness it conferred, horrified at all the lies he had swallowed. His face twisted with grief and hatred. Tears welled in his eyes, and he let out a high-pitched moan, then flushed further with embarrassment. His whole life having been exposed as a façade, the prince gave up trying to maintain any further pretense. The men had the good grace to pretend they hadn’t heard. Askr didn’t even flinch.
“In a word, yes. The great magnates often make the mistake of thinking that a skald exists only to sing their praises. They forget that we have ears as well as mouths. Olaf heard the same plotting. These men believed there were women better suited to sit at your father’s side than your mother, women born of the right blood. And they told him so. The fylkir prevaricated, and so they forced his hand.”
Olaf too, was still watching the prince intently, with an oddly sombre expression. Perhaps he wasn’t well practiced at being serious, or perhaps that was what pity looked like.
“It goes deeper still. You see, my Prince, Kristin coins are behind all this. If they can’t defeat the Northmen in battle, the cowards think they can tempt us to turn on each other.”
Gest sat alongside him, looking equally earnest. They picked up each other’s sentences as easily as they kept the rhythm of the oars.
“This isn’t a wild suspicion. There is an old saying: he who sees his friends roasted on a spit soon tells all he knows. Good men, loyal servants, have been turned against your family.”
“Why didn’t you warn my father?” Botulfr mumbled petulantly, through a mask of mucus and tears. He kept his eyes downcast as he tried to digest the bitter and the bewildering news, further humiliated now at having to be spoon-fed conspiracy, like babe in arms sputtering out an unpalatable new taste.
Olaf shrugged in reply and started to say something, but it was the skald who interjected.
“Because deceit sleeps with greed. The Emperor of the East has agents everywhere. Who knows who is in his pay? These three fine fools turned out to be the only ones I could trust. There were others but… like them, I expect the fylkir will have an ‘accident’ soon. Perhaps someone more sympathetic to the Kristin cause will assume his place, someone happy to embrace their faith and be baptised by their god. I’m sorry for it.”
“Askr, what am I supposed to do?” Botulfr howled. “If you hadn’t noticed, I am Thormund’s second son, with at least three uncles and a half-brother who stand to be elected, by might and by right, before me.”
Askr reached over to the boy and pulled him close. His voice was almost a whisper now, murmuring consolation.
“Those very same kith and kin murdered your mother and planned to kill you. Think then of your sagas:
Brothers will fight
and kill each other,
sisters’ children
will defile kinship.
It is harsh in the world,
whoredom rife
—an axe age, a sword age
—shields are riven—
a wind age, a wolf age—
before the world goes headlong.
No man will have
mercy on another.
“My Prince, mark my words. The Grikkir seeks to loose the hound of Hel and bring Ragnarok upon us. What you must do, Prince Botulfr, is stop them.”
Botulfr couldn’t move. He suddenly felt like the one-eyed god had found him in the stables after all.
THE PRINCE KEPT HIS EYES on the rolling waves as they approached the shore that night. He was numb. One short exchange had torn the finery of his life into tattered rags, and now he sat exhausted and exposed. At first, his instinct was to cover himself with whatever dignity he could muster, to hold onto the warmth and comfort of memories. But even those fluttered from his grasp. Nothing seemed real; he found himself discounting thoughts almost as soon as they chanced into his mind. His whole courtly life seemed grotesque. He was a parody of a prince, sailing a sea of misfortune. What cruel gods had given him the shape and form of his despised enemy? His mother might have been kinder to smother him at birth.
His hirdsmenn gave him space, clearly understanding that they had pummelled their charge beyond submission and into despair. They weren’t to blame: the Norse weren’t known for mincing words or pulling punches. Botulfr reasoned that they wouldn’t have broken their oaths lightly, for there was a special place in Helheim reserved for murderers and cowards. The story rang true in other ways. Vikings had a long history of extorting tribute; the Kristins had often been happy to see them off with silver rather than suffer their depredations. Ragnar and his sons had refused bribes on principle after the Saxon wars, but those days were long gone. The Northern Empire could and had been bought. Asgard knew his uncles loved the counting house as much as the ale house. He couldn’t say the same for his elder brother, but then he barely knew him—Eirik was four years older and had been marauding around Spánn since he came of age, and it was openly assumed that he’d be elected fylkir when Thormund died. Botulfr didn’t covet the crown or resent his brother the inheritance, although, if there really was a coup, he knew he ought do better than run out of sight with his tail between his legs.
It dawned on him that he hadn’t even considered his own future. His mother had been wrong—he wasn’t oncoming thunder, he was a shadow, lurking out of sight and out of mind. A half-brother starved on a diet of half-truths. He decided to change that. Perhaps then, he could uncover some certainty for himself.
That evening, he began to read the manuscripts the skald carried with him, some bound in untidy books, some simply leaves of parchment secured in wooden cases. Askr had crammed as much as he could into a leather sack when they fled Uppsala, but he had not snatched randomly; rather he had chosen methodically, his plan unfurling over many months once he caught wind of the conspiracy. He kept listing the names of tutors and scholars, expecting at least one of them to have crossed paths with Botulfr, but he was always disappointed. A Norse nobleman learnt to fight, first and foremost, and then to assize and to write. It wasn’t out of ignorance or so-called barbarism, just simple necessity. The runes may have held all their fates, but sword and coin ran the empire. His father had been fond of saying that the fragrance of spices was financed by a debt of dust and blood.
But that life was lost now, a past marooned on a hostile shore. When he faced it again, Botulfr determined it would be on his terms. And so, over weeks and months, in the corners of days, Botulfr would study; his court education, fragments of knowledge puzzled together by a wily skald sailing at the fringes of the world.
OLAF TRUSTED MEN AMONGST THE Rus, the men who row—Norsemen still, but ones accustomed to the deep, icy lakes, and slow, rolling rivers that criss-crossed the steppe. Centuries past, the Norse were invited into these lands to reign over the local tribes and bring order. Then, like a beetle, they burrowed deeper and deeper, boring a fiefdom among the endless birch trees. To defend their incursions, they built their distinctive ring forts; circular earthen ramparts with gates opening to the four compass points and a courtyard divided into equal quadrants, each holding a square of large houses interlocking like shields. From the Olkoga to the Nepr, the Rus managed all trade between the Norse and the Grikkir.
The great stronghold Holmgarðr anchored the North, near the lake city of Nýgarðr, the seat of King Valdamarr. One of his father’s more distant vassals, Valdamarr protected cargoes of timber, fur, honey, and wax. The real prize though was the trade in amber—so valuable, the traders called the route the Amber Road. Six hundred miles to the south, a second prince ruled, Jarizleif of Kœnugarðr, his great boatyards filled with wine, spices, jewellery, glass, fabrics, and even books that sailed up from Miklagard. Between the rivers were portages, trails used to carry vessels overland until they could navigate south again. In truth, the Rus kings held little swa
y once more than a day’s march from the river, beyond the sedge that formed a border of sorts. Between the endless expanses of grass and sky, the rites of the Norse merged with stranger, local customs of the people who dwelt there. The Erzya tribes claimed Thorr hatched from an egg, and the Moksha believed the world was spat forth by Freyja. Few godsmen were zealous enough to argue in the turgid, fly-blown summers that were the true princes of the lands beyond the reeds, and none were foolish to venture out in the frozen winters.
Even though Olaf judged the risk of being followed to be slim, their rest in Aldeigjuborg was kept brief to be prudent. They stayed overnight in a simple house of turf, sod, and stone, one of the dozens of buildings straggled along the hills above the shore.
Adils, their host, was grey-haired and grizzled, a veteran of many battles who now acted as a warden for the port, extracting the heregeld or army tax from traders of behalf of his king. He greeted the hird warmly, as old companions do, happy to find a shared mooring in his past.
The hirdsmenn took their seats around the fire pit in the middle of his hall. Smoke holes dotted the roof of the house but did their job poorly. Botulfr sat on one of the benches, by the wall, not six feet from the fire, and he had difficulty seeing anyone through the haze.
“What news from the west?” Adils asked, as he handed out hunks of bread.
“What do you hear?” Gest replied.
“I heard snow lays on Groenland pastures all year round and that the Snaeland farmers are reduced to eating foxes and ravens.”
“The winters have been cruel, but they’ve brought the worst of the misery on themselves. The lawspeakers are refusing to covenant with the fylkir in return for relief. Grain is in plentiful supply from the Englar ports. Instead, they’ve made a common cause with Thorkell Leifsson—the passage to Vinland is free of ice.”
The All Father Paradox Page 5