Viking 1

by Tim Severin

  Ketil the steward gave me an exasperated glance when I finally managed to get his attention. He was bustling here and there in a self-important manner, organising the storage of various boxes and bundles that his master’s embassy had brought back from Orkney, calling for food to be brought from the kitchen and served, and generally trying to give the impression that he was essential to the smooth running of the royal establishment, though in fact he seemed to be more of a hindrance. ‘You can be a temporary dog boy,’ he snapped at me. ‘One of those Irish chiefs the king is negotiating with has sent a couple of hairy wolfhounds as a present. Apparently it’s a compliment, though I call it more of an aggravation. I’m told the brutes can only be exchanged between kings and chieftains, so you’d better be sure they are kept healthy in case the donor comes on a visit. Feed them before you feed yourself.’ He waved me away and a moment later was berating one of the household servants for setting out the wrong goblets for the king’s meal.

  My charges were hard to miss. They were skulking around the back of the hall – tall, hairy creatures, occasionally loping in embarrassed confusion from one corner to the next. I had no experience whatsoever of looking after dogs. But even I could see from the way their tails were curled tightly down between their legs and their large flappy ears were pressed close to their skulls that they were unhappy in their new surroundings. I had come across a few of the same breed of dog in Iceland, where they had been imported in much the same way as Irish slaves, so I was aware that they were not as lethal as they looked. I succeeded in coaxing them outside the king’s hall and giving them some scraps which I wheedled from the kitchen staff. The dogs looked at me mournfully, their great dark, oval eyes blinking through their drooping fur, obviously recognising an incompetent, though well-meaning, dog keeper. I was grateful to the lanky beasts because they gave me an excuse to stay in the background and pretend to be busy. Whenever anyone looked in my direction, I made a show of brushing their rough, harsh coats, and the hounds were decent enough to let me do so, though I did wonder if there might not come a moment when, fed up with my incompetence, they would sink their teeth into me.

  Fortunately my role as royal dog boy was never put seriously to the test. King Sigtryggr lacked any real affection for the animals, regarding them as decorative accessories akin to his fine footwear or personal jewellery. My only real duty was to see that the two hounds were prettily presented, sitting or lying near his seat whenever he held court or had meals.

  Queen Mother Gormlaith scared me, and not simply because she reminded me so often of Freydis, the organiser of the Vinland massacre. There was a calculating coldness about Gormlaith which occasionally slipped out from under her elegance as the gracious queen mother. She was still a very handsome woman, slim and elegant, and she had retained her youthful grace so that with her green eyes and haughty stare she reminded me of a supercilious cat. She had exquisite manners – even condescending to make the occasional remark to the lowly dog boy – but there was a flinty hardness to her questions and if she did not get the answer she sought, she had a habit of ignoring the response and then putting on the pressure until she got the reply she wanted. I could see that she was manipulative, calculating, and that she could twist her son, the showy Sigtryggr, into doing precisely what she wanted.

  And what she wanted was mastery. Eavesdropping on the high table conversations, and casually questioning the other servants, I learned that Gormlaith was not so much a woman scorned as a woman thwarted in her ambitions, which were vaunting. ‘She married Boruma hoping to control the High King of Ireland,’ one of the other servants told me, ‘but that didn’t work. Brian had his own ideas on how to run the country and soon got so fed up with her meddling that he had her locked up for three months. Brian’s an old man now, but that doesn’t mean he would allow himself to be manipulated by a scheming woman.’

  ‘Is the Queen Mother really that ambitious?’ I asked.

  ‘You wait and see,’ the servant replied with a smirk. ‘She sent her son off to Orkney to recruit Fat Sigurd, offering herself as the meat on the hook, and she’ll do anything to get even with the High King.’

  Not until the middle of March, nearly seven weeks later, did I understand what the servant meant. I spent the interval as a member of Sigtryggr’s household, carrying out domestic duties, learning to speak Irish with the slaves and lower servants, as well as feeding and exercising his two dogs as their guardian. If I have given the impression that the Norse people are uncouth and unwashed savages with their raucous drinking bouts and rough manners, then my descriptions have been misleading. The Norse are as meticulous in their personal cleanliness as circumstances will allow and, though it may seem unlikely, their menfolk are great dandies. And of course King Sigtryggr fancied himself as an arbiter of good taste and style. The result was that I spent a good deal of my time pressing his courtiers’ garments, using a heavy, smooth stone to flatten the seams of the surcoats and cloaks from their extensive wardrobes which they changed frequently, and combing not just the rough hair of the two dogs, but also the heads of the royal advisers. They were very attentive to their hairstyles, and would even specify the length and fineness of the teeth on the combs I used. There was a special shop in Dublin, where I was sent to purchase replacement combs, specifying that they should be made of red-deer antler and not common cattle horn.

  It was at a noon meal, one day in early spring, that I fully grasped the extent of the ambitions of Gormlaith, and how ruthlessly she worked her way towards achieving them. I had led into the great hall my two wolfhounds, settled them near the king’s chair and stood back to keep an eye on them. King Sigtryggr was jealous of his regal dignity, and the last thing I wanted was for one of the big grey dogs to leap up suddenly and snatch food from the royal hand while the king was eating.

  ‘Are you sure that Sigurd is going to keep his word?’ Gormlaith was asking him.

  ‘Positive,’ her son replied, worrying at a chicken leg with his teeth and trying to stop the grease dripping onto his brocaded shirt. ‘He’s one of the old breed, never happier than when he’s got a war to plan and execute. Cunning too. He’s got a bunch of hard men at his court, Icelanders, renegade Norwegians and so forth. He knows that a campaign in Ireland will keep them occupied so they don’t start plotting against him in Orkney.’

  ‘And how many men do you think he will be able to bring?’

  ‘He claimed he could raise eight hundred to a thousand.’

  ‘But you’re doubtful?’

  ‘Well, Mother, I wasn’t there long enough to count them,’ Sigtryggr answered petulantly, wiping his hands on a linen cloth that a page held out for him. Sigtryggr was a great one for aping foreign etiquette.

  ‘My information is that the Earl of Orkney can probably raise five hundred men, possibly six hundred, no more – and that’s not enough,’ she said. It was evident that his mother already knew the answer to her own question.

  Sigtryggr grunted. He had detected the stern tone in his mother’s voice, and knew that an order was coming.

  ‘We need more troops if we want to be sure of dealing with that dotard Brian,’ Gormlaith continued firmly.

  ‘And where do you expect to find them?’

  ‘A merchant recently arrived from Man mentioned to me this morning that there’s a sizeable vikingr fleet anchored there. They are operating under joint command. Two experienced leaders. One is called Brodir and the other is Ospak Slant-eye.’

  Sigtryggr sighed. ‘Yes, Mother. I know both men. I met Brodir two years ago. Fierce looking. Wears his hair so long that he has to tuck it into his belt. Old Believer, of course. Said to be a seidr master.’

  ‘I think you should recruit the two of them and their men into our forces,’ his mother said firmly.

  Sigtryggr looked stubborn, then decided to concede the point. I suspected that he had long since given up trying to dissuade his mother from her schemes, and it was obvious what was coming next.

  ‘Good,’ she said. �
�It’s less than a day’s journey to Man.’

  For a moment I thought that the king would raise some sort of objection, but he hesitated only briefly, then petulantly threw the chicken bone at one of the two wolfhounds and, forgetting the page with the napkin, wiped his hands on his tunic and ostentatiously turned to open a conversation with his wife.

  Gormlaith’s wish was Ketil’s command. He was terrified of her, and that evening the steward was fluttering around warning the palace staff. Spindrifter’s crew were to be aboard by dawn, ready to take Sigtryggr to Man. ‘And you,’ he said to me spitefully, ‘you’re going too. You can take the big dogs with you. The king thinks that they will make a handsome present for those two pirates. I expect he’ll tell them that they are war dogs, trained to attack. But from what I’ve seen of them they’re happier to lie on the rushes all day and scratch for fleas. At least we’ll be rid of them.’

  The voyage to Man was cold, wet and took twice as long as we had expected. My two charges were miserable. They scrabbled on the sloping deck, threw up and shivered, and after falling into the bilges for the twentieth time, just lay there and were still looking wretched when Spindrifter rounded the southern headland of Man and under oars crept slowly into the sheltered bay where the vikingr fleet lay at anchor. We approached warily, all our shields still hung on the gunnels, the crew trying to look submissive, and Sigtryggr and his bodyguard standing on the foredeck weaponless and without body armour, making it clear that they came in peace. Spindrifter was easily the largest vessel in the bay, but she would not have withstood a concerted attack from the vikingr. Ospak and Brodir had assembled thirty vessels in their war fleet.

  Neither side trusted the other enough to hold a parlay on one of the ships, so the council was held on the beach in a tent. Naturally Sigtryggr wanted his two hounds to be on display. Dragging along the two seasick dogs, I felt almost as cold and wretched as they did when I took up my station in the entourage. Ospak and Brodir paid no attention to the cutting wind and the occasional bursts of rain, which slatted and battered the tent as they stood listening to Sigtryggr’s proposal. By now I knew his methods well enough to know what was coming. He spoke at length about the extent and prosperity of the Irish High King’s realm, and how Brian Boruma had grown too old really to protect the kingdom’s wealth effectively. An example of his fading powers, Sigtryggr pointed out, was how he had mistreated his wife Gormlaith. He had locked her up for three months, recklessly disregarding that this would be an insult to her family, the royal house of Leinster. Brian Boruma was old and feeble and losing his touch. It would take only a well-managed attack to remove him from power and lay Ireland open to pillage.

  The two Viking leaders listened impassively. Brodir was the more imposing of the two. Ospak was slender and ordinary-looking, apart from the odd angle of his left eye socket which gave him his nickname, Slant-eye. But Brodir was huge, taller by nearly a head. Everything about him was on a massive scale. He had a great rough face, legs like pillars, and he had the largest hands and feet that I had ever seen. His most distinctive feature, however, was his hair. As Sigtryggr had told his mother, Brodir grew his hair so long that it came to his waist and he was obliged to tuck it into his belt. Unusually for a Norseman, this tremendous cascade of hair was jet black.

  The meeting ended without reaching any firm conclusion. Both Ospak and Brodir said they needed to consult with their chief men and would let Sigtryggr have a decision the following morning. But as we made our way back down the shingle beach to our small boats, Sigtryggr took Brodir on one side and invited him to continue the discussions privately. An hour later the viking giant was clambering aboard Spindrifter and ducking in under the striped awning of the tent, which we had rigged to protect ourselves from the miserable weather. Brodir stayed for nearly an hour, deep in conversation with Sigtryggr. In the confined space there was little privacy, and every word of the discussion could be heard by the men on the nearest oar benches. Brodir wanted to know more about the political situation in Ireland, who would be supporting the High King and what would be the division of spoils. In his answers Sigtryggr sweetened the terms of the proposed alliance. He promised Brodir first choice in the division of any booty, that he would receive a special bonus, and that his share was likely to be greater than Ospak’s because Brodir commanded more ships and more men. Finally, as Brodir still sat, cautiously refusing to commit himself to the venture, Sigtryggr made the same grand gesture that he had made in Orkney: he promised that Gormlaith would marry Brodir if Brian Boruma was defeated and that would open the way to the throne of the High King. As he made this empty promise, I noticed several of our sailors turn away to hide their expressions.

  Brodir was not fooled. ‘I believe you made the same offer to the Earl of Orkney recently,’ he rumbled.

  Sigtryggr never faltered. ‘Oh yes, but Gormlaith changed her mind when I got back to Dublin. She said she would much prefer you as her husband to Sigurd the Stout – though he too is a fine figure of a man – and we agreed that there was no reason for Sigurd to know of the change of plan.’

  At that precise moment Sigtryggr noticed that I was within earshot. I was crouched against the side of the vessel, with one of the hounds despondently licking my hand. Belatedly it must have occurred to Sigtryggr that perhaps I was a spy for the Earl of Orkney. ‘As a token of my regard,’ he went on smoothly, ‘I would like to leave you with these two magnificent Irish wolfhounds. They will remind you of the homeland of your future wife. Come now, let us make a bargain on it and seal it with this present.’ He reached forward, clasped Brodir’s brawny right arm, and they swore an oath of friendship. ‘You must come to Dublin with your ships within the month, and try to persuade Ospak to come too.’

  Brodir rose to his feet. He was such a colossus that he had to stoop to avoid brushing his black head on the wet tent cloth. As he turned to go, he said to me, ‘Come on, you,’ and I found myself once more dragging the unfortunate dogs out of the bilges and over the edge of the drakkar. When they refused to jump down into the little boat and paused, whimpering, on the edge of the gap between longship and tender, Brodir, who had already gone ahead, simply reached up and grabbed each dog by the scruff of the neck and hauled them down as if they had been puppies.

  I awoke next morning, after an uncomfortable night curled up between the two hounds on the foredeck of Brodir’s warship, and looked across to where Spindrifter had lain at anchor. The great drakkar had gone. Sigtryggr had decided that his mission was accomplished and had slipped away in the night, setting course for Dublin doubtless to report to his mother that she was now on offer to two ambitious war leaders.

  In mid-afternoon Brodir beckoned to me to join him. He was sitting at the foot of the mast, a chunk of wind-dried sheepmeat in one hand and a knife in the other. He cut off slivers of meat and manoeuvred them into his mouth past his luxuriant beard as he cross-examined me. I think he suspected that I was a spy placed by Sigtryggr.

  ‘What’s your name and where are you from?’ he enquired.

  ‘Thorgils, sir. I was born in Orkney, but I grew up in Greenland and spent time in a place called Vinland.’

  ‘Never heard of it,’ he grunted.

  ‘Most recently I’ve been living in Iceland, in the Westfjords.’

  ‘And who was your master?’

  ‘Well, I was in the service of Snorri Godi at first, but he sent me to live with one of his people, a man called Thrand.’

  Brodir stopped eating, his knife blade halfway to his mouth.

  ‘Thrand? What does he look like?’

  ‘A big man, sir. Not as big as yourself. But tall and he’s got a reputation as a warrior.’

  ‘What sort of helmet does he wear?’

  ‘An old-fashioned one, bowl-shaped with eye protectors, and there are runes inside which he showed me.’

  ‘Did you know what the runes read?’ Bordir asked.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Brodir had put aside the lamb shoulder and looked at me th
oughtfully. ‘I know Thrand,’ he said quietly. ‘We campaigned together in Scotland a few years ago. What else did he tell you about himself?’

  ‘Not much about himself or his past, sir. But he did try to teach me some of the Old Ways.’

  ‘So you’re an apprentice of seidr?’ Brodir said slowly.

  ‘Well, sort of,’ I replied. ‘Thrand taught me a little, but I was with him for only a few months, and the rest of my knowledge I have picked up by chance.’

  Brodir turned and peered out from under the longship’s awning to look at the sky. He was checking the clouds to see if there would be a change in the weather. There was still a thick overcast. He turned back to face me.

  ‘I was once a follower of the White Christ,’ he said, ‘for almost six years. But it never felt right. I was baptised by one of those wandering priests, yet from that moment on my luck seemed to falter. My eldest son – he must have been a little younger than you – was drowned in a boating accident, and my vikingr brought little reward. The places we raided were either too poor or the inhabitants were expecting us and had fled, taking all their property with them. That was when I met up with Thrand. He was on his way to visit his sister, who was married to a Dublin Ostman, and he joined my war band for a quick raid on one of the Scots settlements. Before we attacked, he made his sacrifices to Thor and cast lots, and he predicted that we would be successful and win a special reward. It was a hotter fight than we had anticipated because we did not know that the King of Scotland’s tax collector happened to be staying in the village that night, and he had an escort with him. But we chased them off, and when we dug in the spot of churned earth, we found where they had hastily buried their tax chest containing twenty marks of hack silver. My men and I were delighted, and I noticed how Thrand took care to make an offering of part of the hoard to Thor. Since then I have done the same before and after every battle. I asked Thrand if he would stay on with me as my seidr master, but he said he had to get back home to Iceland. He had given his word.’